The Big Bang Theory

Howard is teaching Sheldon Chinese (actually, Mandarin to be exact.) It seems Sheldon wants to confront the nearby Chinese place about secretly replacing Tangerine Chicken with Orange Chicken. Watching Jim Parsons deliver Mandarin lines is great comedy.

In walks Leonard, whom Sheldon addresses with Mei du lui zi. Sadly, he's accidentally called his roommate a syphilitic donkey.

Now a peeved Penny arrives, who's been wronged by the bozo she's been dating. The guy apparently posted details of "driving his point home" with her on his blog. She hurls his iPod at him.

Cut to the best opening titles/animation in all of television. Even better than Angie.

Leonard's got her right where he wants her. She's emotional, hurt and vulnerable. But he's loudly rebuffed.

He's goin' in again. This time, he gets the Hi sign from Penny. She wants to talk. But while perusing bozo's stories on his blog, Leonard somehow convinces her that it's all just an odd yet endearing way that he's expressed his feelings for her. She wants to go over there and apologize. Major misfire!

Uh oh. Peeved Penny is back. Apparently Leonard's non-advice about going over to bozo's place and apologizing didn't go over too well. Not too well, as in beholding the guy and his new fling in some sort of sexual olympics.

Penny is so done with guys with a perfect body, hair and lots of money. If only she could date someone nice, honest and who cares about her.

Then the Earth moved. Or there was some kind of big bang.

Leonard musters up the courage to do what a lot of guys (including your blogger) would never have the marbles to do. After the season premiere, the antics at the cheesecake restaurant, the strike and so on, we're here. We've arrived. He's asked her out, and by gosh she said yes. Yes. But now what? What does he do now? From her perspective, what does she do now. Easy...hit up Sheldon for advice. I'm not sure what serious advice she was expecting, but, heck, a little physics string theory thrown in with advice for the lovelorn can't hurt.

She reveals that she's known for a while that Leonard's had a little crush on her. Gee, do ya think? By way of introducing Penny to the theory of Schrödinger's Cat (the befuddled look on her face is priceless), Sheldon convinces her that she should keep open the option of going out with Leonard since the end result is not yet known to be positive or negative. This is what's missing from my love life — quantum physics.

One thing I've liked about Sheldon's character development throughout the season is amid all the bickering and scientific doublespeak, he really does care about his roommate and friend. This came about (again) when Penny misinterpreted the Schrödinger's Cat theory as meaning she absolutely must go on a date with Leonard. Sheldon responds "no-no-no-no" before catching himself. He knows this date must happen.

And it does. Leonard shows up at Penny's door to pick her up and asks if she's heard of Schrödinger's Cat. She says she's heard way too much about the cat. Apparently she had him at "way." Major kiss ensues. Meow!

It looks like they decided to go for Chinese (didn't he just eat Chinese? But she hasn't, so good boy for going with the flow), and who's there? Sheldon, yelling at the cashier about Tangerine Chicken, but accidentally imploring him to "show me your mucus." Well, they've seen enough and head out to somewhere else. Perhaps to another restaurant. Maybe to a movie (how about Plan 9 From Outer Space?) [nobody gets this reference? Anybody notice the actor in the Chinese restaurant? Weak. - J.R.]

But that's the end of the season. I'm glad it got this far. It had to. How did the date go? Any action? I guess we'll just have to wait.

Line of the night: "Incredible. You screwed up the screw-up." Spoken by Rajesh to Leonard after Penny returned from hoping to reconcile with bozo.

We're in the restaurant, and the guys are Tressling — you know, arm wrestling while playing Tetris. Leonard's birthday is coming up, and Penny wants to help him celebrate. But Leonard doesn't celebrate his birthday. What? No cake? No singing? As Sheldon points out to Penny, Leonard can't eat his free birthday cheesecake or a slice of carrot cake (and gets the Penny evil eye!)

How did Penny know Leonard's birthday is this weekend? She once did his horoscope (which Sheldon points out has been proven by a scientist to be pseudo-scientific hokum) and probably wrote it down and has been waiting for this week for a while. Howard points out his parents always helped him celebrate his birthday with French toast and allowing him to wear the birthday king crown — and that was last year.

Cut to the best animation/opening credits in all of television (even better than The Nanny and the Professor).

She has a plan. Once Leonard heads out of the apartment, she scurries across the hall to speak to Sheldon. But of course while she's dressed in mini flowery shorts, Sheldon is quick to point out they have nothing to talk about. She wants to throw Leonard a surprise birthday party. Sheldon will have nothing of it. Howard, on the other hand, hears the word party and is quickly on board. Rajesh is probably on board but since Penny is in the room, so, well, you know...

This was a fun episode because Sheldon was introduced, by Penny, to a few mainstream concepts: Blackmail (we got an exchange of evil eyes). Buying friends gifts (a "non-optional social convention"), and motorized dirt bikes. Seeing Sheldon interact with the common folks in the electronics store was hilarious. It would be nice to have someone like him, however, in every store.

Now Howard has to get Leonard out of the apartment so the guys can set up and the guests can sneak in. But he won't move away from the video game. So Howard fakes eating a peanut-granola bar. Being allergic to peanuts, he's got to be taken to the hospital — by Sheldon — pronto.

Penny and Sheldon are stuck in the store because he is playing the role of an effective salesman, so Howard has got to stall Leonard at the emergency room. Earlier, he faked eating peanuts. Now he's not. How many of you shivered when you saw him reach for that half piece of peanut-granola bar?

The next shot of Howard I know was the work of good makeup, but that was scary. But, as Howard pointed out, this was all "for you, Little Buddy" (and, no, he wasn't referencing Gilligan).

Howard and Leonard finally get home, and — Leonard is on to something — he knows there's a party about to happen. But they've been out so long, all the guests have left. All except for Penny asleep on the couch and Rajesh doing his best Cyndi Lauper.

Why is Penny still there? Because Leonard has to show up at some point, and she has to wish him a happy birthday. Once she's awake, the two of them are checking out video of the party (Rajesh was actually drinking! He was talking to women! They were taking their shirts off!) and she apologizes for him missing his party.

Then she kisses him. On the lips. For two seconds. Leonard asks, "Hey, Penny, when's your birthday?" and — Bam! — the episode is over.

[Hey guys, I asked you during our sit-down if there would be any romance on the show between you two, and you gave me nothing. Nothing! Thank you. I hate spoilers.]

Exchange of the night:

Howard [to emergency room lady]: "How about if I were to introduce you to the man who freed your people."

ER lady: "Unless my people were freed by Benjamin Franklin and his five twin brothers, you are wastin' your time."

We're at the university. Leonard and Rejesh are strolling along, checking out an ad calling for volunteers for a study about anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia (look it up), and there's Howard staking out a hot woman -- in Sheldon's office? Our Sheldon? Obviously, she's lost, or issuing a summons, or whatever. We learn she's Sheldon, ahem, Shelly's twin sister.

There isn't a lot of symbiosis between Missy and Shelly. She's tall and beautiful and kind of normal. He's tall, not and not. And she doesn't speak in scientific tongues. Wait, what's that sound? Oh, yes, the mating call of the 20-something physicist. Leonard, Howard and Rajesh convince Missy to stay at Shelly and Leonard's (she's off to a wedding tomorrow and a hot girl really shouldn't be traversing the freeways during rush hour). So let the games begin.

Back at Chez Scientifica, Missy has got the guys mesmerized with stories about childhood (I would have loved to see a demonstration of how Sheldon transformed her Easy Bake oven into a high-powered furnace). Well, actually, Missy has the guys mesmerized by living and breathing and fitting into a dress (and has oddly taken on a Southern accent). Now she's got Howard and Rajesh next to her making points and trying to one-up each other to impress her and, um, drive his point home.

Leonard has seen enough. He pulls Sheldon aside and, like a good ranger — or a sly fox — reminds him that as the man in the family (we learn something about Sheldon here — apparently his father passed away several years ago), he must find a perfect mate for his sister, and it may as well be him (see also: chance, fat). And that mate may as well be him.

He's set an alarm off in Sheldon's head. "If somebody wants to get at Missy's Fallopian tubes, they'll have to go through me," he says. Leonard might just make a suitable mate, but the genetic stakes are high, and what's standing in his way between him and Missy? He becomes flatulent when he eats Eskimo Pies.

Sheldon's got this all figured out. His quantum physics theory will result in Missy eventually meeting the perfect mate and giving birth to, what else, Sheldon 2.0. And how does Missy accomplish this? Repeated coitus, of course (again with the anatomical talk. We get coitus and Fallopian tubes in the same show. What's next? I tell ya, there sure is a vas deferens between this show and others on at 8:00.) Then Sheldon's got some brotherly theories for Missy about donating eggs and suddenly he has taken one for the team in the southern tonsils. She's a tough one. As my grandmother says about Judge Judy, "she don't take nothin' from nobody."

Now we're back to another round of mating calls while Missy is holed up at Penny's apartment. Of course she's waiting for Rajesh, who shows up, but can't speak because the medication from the anxiety study has worn off.

The twins may not look at all alike ("Hallelujah," bellows Howard) and they may live in very different worlds, but each feels 'phly, phat and all that.' That's fine enough, but something was missing here. I wanted to see Penny become jealous at the guys, and especially Leonard, for making the moves on the fine specimen who has come into town. Penny was a minor character, and could have been more. Now hear me out: I wasn't hoping for Penny to act upon her jealousy, but I wanted the writers to let us peer inside her head just a bit.

Line of the night: "Why not put a little mocha in the family latte," spoken by Rajesh, hoping to convince Sheldon that genetic diversity produces the strongest offspring.

By the way, Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki stopped by the TV Guide offices last week. What a thrill for me to meet them and get a few minutes. They're really cool. Have a look at our conversation here.

The guys are hanging out and they all go in on a $800 bid on a time machine prop from the original The Time Machine movie. Of course, they'll be outbid. Whew! That was close. What in the world would they do with a time machine? Except they won the auction.

Why didn't anyone else bid? Oh, because it's about the size of a Renault. Didn't Leonard say it was miniature?

Cut to the best animation/opening sequence in all of television.

Step by step, Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Rajesh push and pull the time machine up the stairs. But they're blocking the stairwell and Penny has to get to work. Sheldon suggests she go upstairs to the roof, hop over a few buildings, but don't look down because she might get vertigo. What? Is he kidding? "Oh, I never joke when it comes to vertigo," deadpans Sheldon.

You know what, this time machine looks pretty cool. After all, this is the machine that transported Rod Taylor from Victorian England into the post-apocalyptic future with those subterranean Morlocks.

Leonard flips the switch and, Great Scott, it lights up! What day do we go to? Of couse, March 10, 1876, the day Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and called out for Dr. Watson. But they can't all go back to Dr. Watson's laboratory. It would get very crowded and Doc would get suspicious. What to do? Duh. Go into the future and grab a cloaking device, just like — ack! another Star Trek reference — Captain Kirk will steal a cloaking device from the Romulans on Stardate 5027.4 (that's 1/10/2328 for you and me.)

So off Leonard goes. He pulls the lever (in a previous life, he would have yelled, "c'mon Jokers!") and hilarity ensues. What happens next makes me wish I was an actor on this show. These guys have so much fun.

Whoa, here comes Penny. She skinned her knee on the roof. She wound up having to climb through an Armenian family's apartment who served her eight courses of lamb and tried to fix her up with their son (who probably had beautiful eyes). And she missed her shift at work.

She's mad. She's real mad. And seeing this contraption that caused her to miss work ("it looks like something Elton John would drive through the Everglades") brings her to ridicule all the comical and space-age toys and trinkets scattered around. Doesn't bother anyone, except a suddenly sullen Leonard. She's really upset. It's his fault. Has he lost her forever? Is the dream over? Nerve struck.

Leonard wishes the time machine would take him back to just before he placed the bid. Girls like Penny never end up with guys who like time machines. Good ol' Sheldon (in his unabashed, science-driven honesty) points out his inability to woo Penny goes way back before the time machine was a twinkle in his eye. And besides, Rod Taylor got Yvette Mimieux to get out of his dreams and into that time machine, so it is possible.

Now, all of a sudden, hold on, we're back in the stairwell with the guys pushing the time machine up the stairs. Editing problem? Oh, Leonard's dreaming of getting Penny to work the old fashioned way: rappeling down the elevator cables clutching his woman — and getting a kiss.

But that was just a dream. Leonard is questioning everything around him. Nothing causes a guy to grow up real fast like seeing death in the face — slash — experiencing the prospect of losing the woman you love. Everything must go. All the toys, props, even the Darth Vader voice changers (gasp! a Star Wars reference — hey, they heard you, all you TBBT blog-responding fantastics). He's headed to the dark side. The guys want Little Sheba back. Heck, he's created Nerdvana in that abode. He can't sell it all.

But Penny agrees it's time to move on. And Leonard gets a kiss (while awake) as an appreciation token, too. Now he's in the zone, and goes in for the kill. But before you can say "I'll pick you up at 7:30", up walks some Fred Jones knock-off coming to take Penny out on a date.

Foiled again, Leonard. But back to the time machine. His Penny From Heaven dream lives another day.

Now it's Sheldon dreaming while seated in the time machine and he's attacked by flesh-eating Morlocks. Whew! Just a dream. Leonard actually hired some workers to remove the time machine and they are Morlocks. But, wait, that was a dream, too. I wondered how far this dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream sequence was going to go? Would we find Leonard and Sheldon's apartment inside a snow globe? Nope, show over.

Line of the night: "I guess that makes me large breasts" — Howard Wolowitz, in answer to Penny's advice, "it's the things you love that make you who you are."

And, yes, I know about the Geordi La Forge/Star Trek: TNG reference. He was never going to open that box.

Holy competition, Batman! The guys are getting together to take on all comers in the Physics Bowl. No way they can be beaten. Except that Sheldon, in his usual self-absorbed alpha maleapalooza, has to provide all the answers and may jeopardize the team for the needs of one. Uh oh, I feel a moral lesson of life coming.

Cut to the best animation/opening sequence in all of television.

How ironic that while the physics foursome is debating the team name, it's Sheldon, of all people, who insists the vote should be unanimous. But that's where the camaraderie ends. Sheldon's eventual banishment from the team comes in the form of a Batman cookie jar delivered by Leonard.

Down a phat medulla oblongata, the guys have to find a replacement — well, if it isn't Leslie Winkle. The last time we saw her, she wasn't taking part in a contest, but more like something related to "The Contest" (and, not for nothing, but when did the FCC approve the use of the word coitus before 8:20 pm?) Props to Leonard for putting their Pon Fahr bygones aside and bringing Leslie on board.

We go back and forth with correct answers. Of course, it comes down to one final question that has stumped everyone except for one of Sheldon's teammates/seatfillers. But Sheldon would rather answer himself than distribute the power among his fellow AAers — and loses. Moral lesson learned. This lesson will also come in handy during the NBA Playoffs. But I digress.

IMHO, this episode had great moments showing the guys' isolation from pop culture that made me fall in love with this show back in the fall.

AA?
Marcia, Jan and Cindy?
Got your game face on?

Love it! And Rajesh sputtering two quick words Penny's way (without the help of alcohol this time)? You go, Pops! You're getting there.

Said Sheldon early in the episode, "I should answer all the anthropology questions because I'm a mammal." Guffaw! I nearly choked on the Twizzler I was munching on when I heard that. This show is so well written.

And there was plenty of Penny. And she was funny. And she called Leonard "Sweetie."

Thanks, Chuck!

So Sheldon and Leonard are having another one of their über-scientific conversations in the school cafeteria. I don’t mean to make it sound like a yawner. Jim Parsons delivers science doublespeak dialogue brilliantly, and the word I get from folks who've attended tapings is that he’s a one-taker.

Uh oh, here comes trouble. Dr. Gablehauser escorts a kid named Dennis Kim over to their table, and suddenly Sheldon is no longer the center of the scientific universe. Dennis is being recruited, at age 15, to join the university’s physics program. Sheldon’s confidence is quickly being stripped away by a teenager (who dismantles Sheldon’s research to his face.) Then there’s the prestigious Stevenson Award. Is Sheldon the youngest to ever win it? Nope! Guess who is? Oh yeah, this is going to be good.

Cut to the best animation/music sequence on television today. Thank you, Barenaked Ladies.

Even before precocious Dennis starts day one as a student, demoralized Sheldon tries to find some other science project to focus on and noses in on Leonard, Howard and Rejesh in their laboratories while getting all “here’s how I would do this” on them. He’s promptly and loudly told to "Go away!" Reminded me of growing up when our dog was sprayed by a skunk and, short of admitting defeat (and post-tomato sauce bathtub spa treatment), tried to sneak into all of our bedrooms before being banished to the garage. Even dear Penny has had it with Sheldon.

And another of Sheldon’s pet projects to prove his brilliance is to build an exact replica of Jerusalem in Mexico (hence the episode title) for Jews to claim as their own. Will they come? "We’ll make it nice,"
Sheldon says. "Put out a spread." Nice, indeed.

So how do the others in the physics foursome save their friend from this desperation? Hot girls, of course. But it’s not what you think. Let's invite a bunch of attractive 15-year-olds to Dennis’s welcoming reception to distract the kid and shift his kinetic energy a smidge. Not that any of them exactly know how to meet girls, but it’s worth a try. If only they knew there is no formula for meeting women.

Before they can find a girl to introduce to Dennis, the kid scores (ahem, he seems to have befriended a nice girl) and blows off giving a speech so he can go to the mall with her.

Sheldon rattles off scientific theories and such to those at the reception in Dennis’s absence. Welcome back, Sheldon.

"The kid got a girl," a confused Leonard sighs. Sure, they accomplished their goal, but why couldn’t they get girls so easily when they were that age and so into physics? Ah, yes, the daily internal struggle of Leonard, Howard and Rejesh. Not so much for Sheldon, who sees the kid (who apparently dropped out of the program) making out with the girl in the park. "Screw him. He was weak!"

An intimidated and demoralized Sheldon is fun to watch, but I hope they keep it to one episode. I miss seeing the guys (and especially Leonard) scheming to win Penny’s affection. And there was not enough Penny this week.

Anyone catch Chuck Lorre’s vanity card at the end of the show? It turns out an over-confident Lorre played guitar for a living in Miami back in the 1970s thinking he was the you-know-what. So while auditing a college music class, in walks a sluggish kid who barely spoke to anyone. That kid was Pat Metheny. Upon hearing the first notes Metheny played, a voice in Lorre’s head said to go into television because "nobody’s a prodigy there." Brilliant.