So just caught the season finale featuring the big wedding and it really was a total Friends and Frasier rip off.*
SPOILER ALERT! DANGER! DANGER!
*Not only did they decide to do the impromptu wedding from Friends, they also held it on a rooftop like Frasier.
They pumped up the schmaltz to 11 and my fears about it becoming a 'blueprint' show were realised.
It also seems as if the writers can't find anything for Raj to do. There are only so many Indian jokes you can do before it becomes tirelessly racist and unfunnily boring. It's bizarre mainly because they go to other great lengths - especially regarding Howard and Bernadette's nuptials to avoid any kind of racial / religious / cultural offence.
As much as I like the female characters, with Amy Farah Fowler being the most interesting, they are detracting a bit from the funny. The Stag Convergence episode, featuring all the male geeks was hilarious and reminded me of what the show used to be like.
It is still a fantastically written show and they have produced a kagillion episodes and they can't all be gold, but the 'blueprint' has got to be re-written otherwise expect it to go the Friends route - trial separations, characters shagging each other's partners, a pregnancy and then everyone getting together in the hospital for the birth, before everyone is paired off and forced to go their separate ways during the predictably teary finale.