Product Details

• Actors: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco
• Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: September 11, 2012
• Run Time: 498 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (704 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0053O89WY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #3 in Movies & TV > DVD > Comedy
• Learn more about "The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The fifth season of The Big Bang Theory settles into a solid, enjoyable groove. The original quintet of four nerds and a pretty girl has been complemented by two nerd girls, creating a dynamic social world that retains all the social awkwardness needed for comic effect. Much of the season revolves around relationships: Howard (Simon Helberg) is engaged to Bernadette (Melissa Rauch), though that bond is tested by everything from Howard getting commissioned to be an astronaut to online revelations of Howard's former sleaziness; Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) start dating again, this time as "Leonard & Penny 2.0," promising to treat problems as bugs that can be reported and fixed; and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) formalize their relationship with--what else?--a contract, though a dissatisfied Amy later decides to make Sheldon a better boyfriend through sneaky behavior modification.

But some of the most delightful bits come from Raj (Kunal Nayyar), the show's remaining singleton, whose ambiguous sexuality flavors everything he says. Nayyar's performance grows increasingly charming, as does Bialik's; in addition to her grappling with Sheldon's impermeable narcissism, the strange undercurrent of lust in Amy's friendship with Penny stirs up comic anxiety. And of course Sheldon never fails to delight as, among other things, he lets all his decisions be determined by a roll of the dice; treats Leonard as "Schrödinger's Friend"; and embraces chaos in his life by playing bongos in the middle of the night and wearing Tuesday pajamas on Thursday night. All in all, though season five feels less surprising than previous seasons, the quality of the writing and performances remains high. The extras on The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season are unremarkable, except for a featurette about the series' director and designers, which shows a different side of network television. Guest appearances included the recurring Wil Wheaton, Brent Spiner, Stephen Hawking, and a vocal performance by Leonard Nimoy as Sheldon's conscience. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Regarding the opposite sex, they're on a steep learning curve. In every other sense, they're geniuses. Join physicists Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) as they ponder black holes, chemical deviations, girls, and other mysteries of the universe in all 24 phenomenally funny episode of the Season Five. With Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Leonard's relationship in uncharted terrain, Sheldon, Howard (Simon Helberg), and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) discover that the feminine mystique is something that cannot be easily graphed or calculated. As they muddle through relationship "bugs" and romance re-launches, they also discover it's nothing a good roll of the D&D dice or a paintball tournament can't solve.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 133 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars love it January 13, 2012

By Floris Van De Ven

Format:DVD

A cast of geniuses playing geniuses. Acting geniuses playing science geniuses. Brilliant, lovely actors all of them. The scenes in the "Bath Item Gift Hypothesis" when Penny gives Sheldon his "Saturnalia" (Christmas present) - his miracle gift - a signed napkin from Leonard Nimoy - is the BEST television I have EVER EVER SEEN!!! And I was RAISED on television. The laugh out loud factor keeps me happy ALL DAY... I can think of what I watched the night before and settle into a warm feeling that I will be seeing another episode later... And the DVD's ARE wonderful because there are no commercail interruptions...
Some of the same format as M*A*S*H*. And as brilliant writing ... doctors with a sidekick nurse - scientists with a sidekick waitress/actress. God, wouldn't I love to be in Penny's shoes...
Having grown up around scientists from MIT and CalTech, I can honestly say that Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady are insightful and gloriously honest!
I hope it just keeps going and going...

58 of 68 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best show on TV continues to expand and develop! January 14, 2012

By W. Foley

Format:DVD

I started watching in season three and have purchased all the DVD sets of this show and anticipate with excitement the DVD set for Season Five.

I think the show has changed and is progressing in a positive direction. The characters are growing and maturing and with the addition of Bernadette and Amy, brilliantly played by Melissa Rouch and Mayim Bialik respectively, there is added depth and increased laughter.

I think the show is still fresh and funny and as long as it remains that way this viewer will continue watching!

219 of 270 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THE UNIVERSE IS STARTING TO CONDENSE November 22, 2011

By NeuroSplicer TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

In the cult tradition of SPARTACUS, the halls of every science department now echoes: "I AM SHELDON"!

Currently into its fifth season, THE BIG BANG THEORY proved to be one of the most funny TV sitcoms ever aired. Even if the show seems to have slowed down form its initial explosive impetus, I had not laughed out loud this hard ever since the best days of FRASIER and SEINFELD - and BIG BANG is **consistently** brilliant!

Sheldon Cooper is unavoidably the king of the show - the massive black hole this Universe revolves around if you will. A child prodigy, now a 24 years old theoretical physicist PhD with absolutely no social skills or known sexual drive. Sheldon may be on the verge of unifying the fields but cannot drive a car to save his life or break a smile even remotely resembling that of a mere homo sapiens.
His equally super-intelligent (yet sexually confused girlfriend), Amy Farrah Fowler, (which Sheldon finally claimed) received a far more enlarged role this fifth season. However, she was not a very good addition and she unbalances the show. Her character only manages to blur the focus form Sheldon (there is only room for one idiosyncratic genius!), diffuse a number of comically charged situations and gum up the show's flow.

Leonard Hofstadter is Sheldon's roommate and primary ...keeper. An experimental physicist himself (who Sheldon tries to "help" by steering him towards a teaching career), he juggles Sheldon's idiosyncrasies with his personal neurosis - not to mention his crush on his neighbor Penny. Which crush, like lunar eclipses, follow a predicted yet unavoidable periodicity.
Leonard tried his hand in a long-distance relationship this season with his friend Raj's sister, Priya, but he seems to be gravitating back towards Penny once more.

Howard Wolowitz is the only one with no PhD (and Sheldon will never let him forget it). An engineer (whose crowning achievements were a mechanized arm that is used in the space shuttle and a liquid waste management solution), he also managed to wreck the Mars Rover in hopes of landing a girl (but he made sure no one can prove anything).
The fact that he is a short man with a severely outdated and misguided sense of fashion, still lives with his mother, insists on using a collection of pickup lines straight from men's magazines advice columns - and yet carries himself as God's gift to women is just hilarious.
Howard used to be the show-stealer. Whenever he entered the scene you just knew he would offer such an outrageous perceptive that would render you speechless. Now, if only Howard's character was allowed to continue in its stellar trajectory. He has been weighted down by his fiancée, Bernadette, who is very likeable, but also is cramping his style. Not to mention that she, slowly yet inescapably, is turning into his scary mother.

Rajesh Koothrappali is a particle astrophysicist with a fashion sense close to absolute zero and a severe case of shyness - to the point that he cannot speak in front of women unless inebriated. He keeps using the "poor Indian" defense although his father is a rich doctor who drives a Bentley. His character, even in the fifth season, remains underdeveloped.

Then there is Penny. She is the proverbial good girl next door who came to California with stardom aspirations but so far works as waitress and suffers a sequence of bad boyfriends (Sheldon has in fact calculated the exact number of them, extrapolated from a bell-curve that started at 14)- and, obviously, from her neighbors.
One of the best fifth season moments: slipping in the "Who is the greatest?" cheer between Sheldon's patented knock of repeated "Penny!".

The show unavoidably makes use of previous sitcom combinations (the odd couple, the unfulfilled love-interest mismatch) but even if one manages to discern them they are used in such a fresh manner that all that is left is great entertainment!

The way to truly enjoy this is to own it on DVD. The writing is so smart and the jokes fly so fast (many of them non-verbal) there is just no way to savor it during its weekly air time. Well, may be Sheldon could but then again, who can compare his intellect with his?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!