Big Bang Theory Season 10 Premiere Review: The Conjugal Conjecture

This Big Bang Theory review includes spoilers. It originally appeared on Den of Geek UK. 

Season 10, Episode 1

Season ten could be a very big year for The Big Bang Theory. For the first time in a long time, the show doesn't have a definite next season, and there's a chance that this could be where it finally bows out. Of course, that's up to CBS and whether contract negotiations can be worked out, but until I'm told otherwise, I'm going to treat this as the show's final run.

In the biggest clue that The Big Bang Theory is nearing the end of its life, we begin season ten exactly the same way we did season nine. While this might be a slightly more theatrical version of Leonard and Penny's wedding, it repeats far too many of the same beats to really be considered a separate story.

The strangest thing is that it seems deliberately placed here, pushed from the finale to the premiere in a way that cheats both episodes. Placing The Conjugal Conjecture as the season nine finale, unchanged, would have bookended season nine and brought together a lot of the themes and plot lines the writers had been dealing with.

Here, it just feels like a re-do, and robs Leonard and Penny's wedding of much of its emotion. We're just getting back into this after three months away, and this episode doesn't tell us anything about what we can expect from the rest of season ten. Call me old-fashioned, but I like for a premiere to set up a few of the ongoing stories coming in the year ahead.

The ceremony itself is a very small part of the episode, with most of the running time filled again with bickering between Leonard and Sheldon's families.

But there's a third family thrown into the mix: we finally meet Penny's "white trash" clan, and they're about what you'd expect. Points for the stunt casting of Katey Sagal as Penny's mother (an 8 Simple Rules reference I'm sure me and about 20 people got), but this feels like something thrown in at the last minute to appease all of the people on the internet obsessed with learning Penny's surname.

By the time they show up, we've been so bludgeoned with the same old exchanges between Alfred and Beverly that they simultaneously feel like a welcome reprieve and an anti-climax.

Not to be left out, Howard and Raj are also rehashing everything they did back in May, with Howard getting increasingly neurotic about the Air Force's interest in their navigation system. This side of the story got short shrift for obvious reasons, but that's a shame because it seems more likely that we revisit this (and Dean Norris' Colonel Williams) as the season progresses.

I wanted to enjoy this episode — I love Leonard and Penny — but it felt too tacked-on for me to ever really engage. It's part two of a complete story, yet we're following up on gags set up three months ago and everyone's had a haircut (to be fair, it might just be me that this bothers).

There are nice moments — Amy playing the harp at the wedding one of my favourite little touches — but, overall, I find myself just wondering "why?" rather than enjoying the episode for what it is.