The Big Bang Theory / Tropes P to S

The Big Bang Theory

P

• Pac-Man Fever:
  • Averted to some extent: They do use realistic sound effects for the games (sometimes), show actual Age of Conan screens, and showed Howard and Leonard boxing in Wii Sports. In another episode, they show some gameplay footage from Mario Kart Wii, and even then, it's not shoehorned.
  • In one episode, Sheldon sits out in the hall playing Super Mario 64 on his laptop via emulation as he can't use the console in the apartment. The sound effects are entirely correct. However, he also mentions that his mother sent the memory card along with the console. The N64 did have memory cards, but they were only compatible with certain games. Mario 64 was one that saved directly to the cartridge.
  • While playing Super Mario 64, Sheldon is inside Peach's Castle (according to the music). When Penny asks him a question and they start talking, Sheldon pauses the game, also stopping the music. When Penny's gone and he unpauses, the music that plays is from the middle of one of Bowser's worlds. Possibly averted: Savestates.
  • Zig-zagged in the episode where Sheldon's apartment is "visited" by burglars, he lists all the consoles that have been stolen (A list consisting of an Xbox 360 and every Nintendo home-console from the NES to the Wii, save Gamecube), and a list of games after that (such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Call of Duty.).... Only problem is, he doesn't list any games for the Super Nintendo he supposedly had. He ends the list with "oh, and Ms. Pac-Man". Although there was a version of Ms. Pac-Man released on Super Nintendo.
  • Played straight with their Halo matches. The sounds and the commentary rarely match up with any of the games. Makes you wonder if they've ever actually played Halo. Most egregious is when Penny picks up a controller and claims to have shot Sheldon's head off and later gibbed him with a grenade. None of the Halo games have gibbing, killed players ragdoll no matter what and there is no dismemberment of any kind.
  • Happens again in the season 10 episode "The Cognition Regeneration", which opens with the gang getting thoroughly thrashed in a game of Overwatch. However, other than Sheldon jumping up and down, absolutely nothing is happening, and no other players are even visible. Anyone who's actually played Overwatch knows that matches tend to be a non-stop flurry of action, making the scene portrayed on the show highly implausible.
• Pædo Hunt: One early episode had Leonard rush Sheldon out of a bookstore to keep anyone from starting one after seeing him have a civil conversation with a ten-year-old girl.
  • And Sheldon beginning to type in a Google search on "How do I get twelve-year-old girls excited?"
• Paintball Episode: The guys play on their own time and there is some company activities there with teams divided by department (apparently the pharmacology department were hyped up on experimental steroids). They are generally accurate to the game, using masks that reasonably cover the face and body armor, although they do remove their masks when in a bunker. As common for the trope, they are strategizing and constantly worrying about when their "time" will come.
• Parental Issues: Everyone has some, the severity of which depends on the individual and how one might view the act.
  • Leonard grew up in a household of academics, his mother in particular never gave him any affection or compliments for his achievements and his father seemed more interested in his anthropology work. His mother used him as a test subject for her various theories and experiments. She also used his ping pong paddle to spank his father in a sexual act and Leonard walked in on them, but for years believed it was a dream. And despite having some siblings he admitted the only relative he liked was an uncle who, just moments prior, he learned had died.
  • Howard is a Basement-Dweller in part because his mom guilt trips him anytime he makes an effort to move out. Even their polite conversations end up done at full volume while they are normally screaming at one another. And that's not including the emotional damage of his father leaving with no contact.
  • Raj has the typical demanding Asian parents, but he otherwise seems to get along with them. He does mention that because his father worked a lot and he had a lot of siblings he was neglected.
  • In Sheldon's case he perceives his mother as overbearing and ignorant of his prodigy nature growing up. The truth is she dealt with Sheldon with the only tools she has available and despite everything Sheldon is, they are still very close. She's the only one who can override Sheldon's quirks and (partly related) is beloved by most of the other cast.
    • It's implied in one episode that both of Sheldon's parents were alcoholics and his mother escaped into religion to overcome it.
  • Penny is still on good terms with her dad, although there are some moments shown that he likes to give his opinion on her direction in life and the people she hangs out with (he hated her typical ex-boyfriends but really liked Leonard before even meeting him). Although it seems a lot of their problems stem from Penny believing he is disappointed in her when he just wants to be informed.
  • Bernadette's parents were so busy with work that she was the primary caregiver to her younger siblings. They only way she could handle them was a lot of yelling and punishments, which has left her with less than positive feelings towards children and about becoming a mother herself. On top of that were the fears associated with her father being a cop.
  • Amy's mother, based on what Amy has said about her, switched her attitude towards her daughter 180 degrees at some point. When Amy was younger, her mother, in an effort to protect her *ahem* virtue and keep her from bad influences, stopped her from having any friends or developing any social skills. But as an adult, she changed her focus to trying to get Amy to shave her legs and go on dates and the like.
• Parental Marriage Veto:
  • Invoked by Sheldon's mother to get him back together with Amy. Penny's dad also tries to use reverse psychology to get Penny back together with Leonard.
  • Dr. and Mrs. Kooprathali's disproval of Leonard and Pryia's relationship. Howard THOUGHT Mrs. Wolowitz was going to have this kind of reaction to his engagement to Bernadette, but she actually really likes her.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Sheldon often views Penny as a substitute for his mother (who is alive, just lives away from him); he wants her to take care of him when he's sick, or sing him a lullaby. This is especially emphasized in the episode "The Guitarist Amplification", when Sheldon runs away to the comic book store, because he can't bear Leonard and Penny fighting, and Penny makes it up to him by buying him a robot and a comic book.
  • Leonard takes on a fatherly role at times: taking care of his transportation needs, shopping for food and clothing, making sure he goes to bed on time and is often the one he goes to for advice on relationship matters. When he and Penny were dating they served as surrogate parents, when they broke up Sheldon was like a child in a divorce. That led to a lot of Does This Remind You of Anything? dialogue as Leonard and Penny renew their friendship for Sheldon's sake.
  • Sheldon's mother tends to be this for Leonard; for all that she tends to be The Fundamentalist and is not particularly well-educated, she is nonetheless a much more loving and sympathetic figure than Leonard's own mother, who treats Leonard as an errant test subject. Likewise, Sheldon sees Leonard's mother this way, as the two of them have much more in common with each other than with Leonard.
• Parenting the Husband: After she marries Howard, Bernadette has to deal with his Manchild tendencies. She has trouble getting him to do chores, even resorting to a sticker chart at one point. Also, since she earns more money than him, she's the one who's in charge of finances, even giving Howard an allowance (although he insists it be called a stipend).
• Parlor Games: In "The Clean Room Infiltration", Amy organizes a traditional Victorian Christmas party. For entertainment there are Parlor Games dating to this period. The first seen involves blowing a ball of wool across a table. Penny and Dr. V. M. Koothrappali play along. But by their reactions, they find this game extremely boring. Amy, who enjoys it, is depicted as geeky.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Sheldon
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In "The Cooper Extraction", several What If? scenarios are depicted. In one of them, Howard never moves out of his mother's home. We hear Debbie Wolowitz shouting for food, claiming that she is starving. Howard brings her food. The face of Debbie is revealed to be that of a mummified corpse.
• Perma-Shave: All four male leads are always neatly trimmed, Sheldon in particular. When they come back from their North Pole expedition, while Leonard, Howard and Raj have big shaggy beards, Sheldon only has a well-trimmed goatee.
• Perplexing Plurals: Raj tells Leonard and Howard that he hopes they fall down and break their 'coccyxes'. Sheldon corrects him that the plural of 'coccyx' is 'coccyges'.
• Personality Swap: A very mild version, but Penny once dislocated her shoulder and was taken to the hospital by Sheldon. Returning home high on painkillers, she convinced Sheldon to sing "Soft Kitty" to her. Usually the roles are reversed.
  • There are a few times where the other characters mimic Sheldon's idiosyncratic door knocking, specifically Penny when Sheldon stole her laundry during an Escalating War. Howard uses a recording of Sheldon to do it, tricking Penny into opening the door.
• Pest Episode: Sheldon (who does not like birds) was trying to get rid of one that was on the ledge of the apartment, which later flew into apartment. He then becomes attached to the bird, but it flies away.
• Pet's Homage Name: After a breakup with not-his-girlfriend Amy, Sheldon gets a cat that he names Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and takes him everywhere. Soon Sheldon becomes a Crazy Cat Gentleman and gets an entire Manhattan Project of cats — Fermi, Feynman, Teller, Frisch, and Odd Name Out Zazzles, because that cat is so zazzy.
• Picked Last: After Penny and Leonard break up, Sheldon is asked whether he's on "Team Penny" or "Team Leonard." He answers, "Whichever team picks last," since that's how it happened when he was in high school (unless there was a kid in a wheelchair).
• Pity Sex: The proxy version. Leonard and Raj hire a prostitute for Howard on a trip to Las Vegas that happens right after Leslie Winkle breaks up with him, though any sex that might ensue is glossed over.
  • Penny blasted Howard for being a creepy sleaze, hurting his feelings. When she goes to apologize, he tries to kiss her, and has his nose broken. When the guys hassle him about it, he says "The way I see it, I'm halfway to pity sex".
• The Plan: "The Good Guy Fluctuation" when Howard and Raj reveal themselves as the pranksters behind the attempt to scare Sheldon at the office. But to paraphrase Homer Simpson, their zany scheme was a front for an even zanier scheme. Anticipating that their relatively tame and cliche hijinks wouldn't scare Sheldon, Howard and Raj seemingly admit defeat in Sheldon's office when a man wearing a mask of the alien from the end credits of Star Trek: The Original Series pops out behind Sheldon's white board, successfully scaring Sheldon. The man unmasks; it's Leonard.
  • It's a Xanatos Gambit in that they foresaw that their initial pranks would fail but a Kansas City Shuffle in that the initial pranks were a distraction from the true scaring attempt.
• Plato Is a Moron: Sheldon compares himself to Isaac Newton in one episode, declaring that "Gravity would have occurred to me without the apple."
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Amy's Time-Travel Romance Fan Fic has Cooper, the male lead, ready to return back to his own time. Prematurely ending his romance with the smart but lonely Amelia. " “Please don’t go,” she whispered."
• Polar Madness: The guys are on an Artic research expedition between seasons two and three, and when they come back, they revealed that spending three months alone with Sheldon almost drove them crazy, so much they actually plotted to kill him. Instead, they falsified Sheldon's data to keep him satisfied.
  Leonard: We were going to throw his Kindle outside, and when he went to get it, lock the door and let him freeze to death.
  Sheldon: (gasps) That seems like a bit of an overreaction.
  Leonard: No, the overreaction was the plan to tie your limbs to four different sled dog teams and yell "mush"!
• Poor Communication Kills: After Leonard and Penny's first date, she confided in Sheldon that she lied to Leonard about getting a community college degree, and swore him to secrecy. Sheldon nearly went crazy holding it in, and told Leonard only when he was drugged up on Vicodin. Leonard assumed Penny was embarrassed over not completing college and tried to show support by giving her a Community College brochure. The problem was Penny didn't care so much about college as she was worried Leonard considered himself too smart for her, and him bringing over the brochure validated her concerns. This is largely the reason for their romantic false start in the second season.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: In-universe, they have Shamy for Sheldon and Amy. Raj tried to use Koothrapenny for him and Penny when they had a drunken tryst. Even though they actually didn't sleep together and just fell asleep.
• Poverty Food: Leslie Winkle and other characters have been heard to remark instant ramen fulfills this function when the need for food coincides with a near-total absence of cash.
• Power Trio: Discussed by the writers at a convention, Leonard occupies a space where he is pulled in two directions: a greater world of human social interaction with Penny and a seclusive world of math and science with Sheldon. It thereby makes Penny The McCoy, Sheldon The Spock and Leonard The Kirk.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Goes in two ways, Penny failing to recognize the geeky stuff, and Sheldon & Co. not knowing relatively normal things.
  Penny: (reading a trivia game card) Tweety Bird will often say 'I tawt I taw a...' what.
  Sheldon: (after several seconds of tense, non-verbal communication with Leonard) ...Romulan?
• Poor Predictable Spock: Spock. Aside from being the only thing anyone picks in Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock, Sheldon is always thinking of Spock when playing 20 Questions.
  • He also considers himself the Spock of their "away team". (Leonard is Kirk, Howard is Scotty, and Rajesh is "that guy who always gets killed.")
• Practically Different Generations: Shortly after his mother's death, Howard, who is in his thirties, is visited by a twenty-something young man named Josh who turns out to be his paternal half-brother.
• Precision F-Strike: After Sheldon says that Howard's robotic hand is no more than a minor upgrade from fast food animatronics, Howard makes the hand give Sheldon the finger. Subverted since it ended up giving him the peace sign.
  • Sheldon rarely swears, so when he does it comes as a surprise. He swears more often when quoting someone than of his own accord: "He was very understanding; he said, 'Got you back jack, bitches be crazy'".
  • Amy invited Leonard to be her date to a wedding and made a conscious effort to be social and engaging, with Leonard not really being good company. Eventually she calls him out on his moping around and said, "I have a kinda-sorta boyfriend who is playing with model trains tonight and you don't hear me bitching about it."
• Prehensile Tail: Parodied in an episode as the foursome are playing a group roleplaying game as bad guys approach.
  Leonard: They're on my tail! ...But it's prehensile so I can handle them.
• Prenup Blowup: Bernadette's father wants Howard to sign a prenup.
• Pretty Freeloaders: The Unaired Pilot featured one. Katie (played by Amanda Walsh) is a homeless woman who Leonard is attracted to. He invites her to move in with him and Sheldon, allowing her to live in the apartment rent-free. She has no intention to sleep with him and just takes advantage of his kindness.
• Priceless Ming Vase: Sheldon's broken transporter toy.
• Product Placement:
  • The Cheesecake Factory appears in many episodes, since Penny and Bernadette work there as waitresses and Sheldon is a fan of the barbecued bacon cheeseburgers there.
  • All of Chuck Lorre's recent projects, including Two and a Half Men, use and place Safeway products around the set.
  • All of the gang's shirts are available for purchase (most of them can be found here), as is the periodic table of elements shower curtain.
  • Warner Bros. owns the show (alongside DC Comics) and the vast majority of comic references comes from DC, and the comic shop the guys frequent seems to sell predominately DC titles (with Madman, Darkhorse comics and Star Wars memorabilia rounding it out). But Marvel Comics, as well as smaller companies and series, do show up from time-to-time, notably the episode with guest star Stan Lee. Hulk Hands is a recurring prop, though.
  • Episode 5x07 had several #1 issues from the September DC reboot. Presumably those issues will be missing the page adverts for this show.
  • After being syndicated to TBS, the station has two different forms of the trope going; A), using clips from the show and splicing in TBS (sometimes pretty badly), and B) having static shots of the main apartments, particularly the guys' formula boards, where the product placement of the day equals funny/delicious/good (anything from pizza to beer to a service) even if the show doesn't have anything to really do with the product.
• Promotion to Opening Titles:
  • Subverted: The opening sequence doesn't actually have a cast list. Therefore, the promotion of Sara Gilbert, Stuart Sussman and Laura Spencer — and eventual removal of both Gilbert and Spencer — went uncommented on.
  • The opening credits end with a shot of the core cast eating take-out together. Originally containing only the core 4 guys and Penny, Season 6 saw the addition of Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) to the shot.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: In "The Middle-Earth Paradigm" Leonard picks a fight with Penny's ex-boyfriend, Kurt (Kurt was being a bit rude, but Leonard was plainly the one who started it), deriding him for his unintelligence and provoking him into a physical confrontation but everyone acts like Leonard was the victim and Kurt is a giant asshole.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Leonard, of all people, manages to pull one off in Season 6 just before Penny was about to give him the break up speech. This is then imitated by Penny, Amy and Bernadette to great comedic effect.
• Pursue the Dream Job: Penny aspires to become an actress, and a big TV or film star if possible. She works as a waitress and keeps going to auditions. She had a role in a commercial once, but other than that — no big luck so far.
• Put on a Bus:
  • In "The Plimpton Stimulation", Bernadette. Offscreen, no less. The Bus Came Back: She returned in "The Hot Troll Deviation" becoming a regular character and got back together with Howard. As of the end of Series 5 they're married.
  • Leonard's doctor girlfriend in the second season. In her last appearance, Leonard was afraid she was getting too close, but the episode seemed to end with everything turning out all right. Then she was never seen or talked about again.
  • Leslie Winkle, which is lampshaded when Leonard goes to see her and she remarks its been around 18 months since they last spoke.
• Puzzle Box: In one episode, Sheldon hides the flash drive with his presentation on it in a novelty puzzle box. When he forgets to take it with him he asks Penny to get it and starts giving complicated instructions on how to open the box before she cuts him off and asks if the puzzle box is at all important to him. When he answers "no" she breaks it open with her foot.

Q-R

• Queer People Are Funny: With a rare female example with Amy, who has an unhealthy obsession with Penny.
• Random Number God: 5x04 Sheldon decides to let dice make his every pointless decision.
• Ranked by I.Q.: Sheldon often uses his IQ as a 'proof' that he's correct. There's also the first episode when Sheldon and Leonard list their combined IQ of 360 as evidence that they can figure out how to get into a locked apartment building. Two girl scouts then come up, ring every bell, and are immediately buzzed in.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Penny was absent for two episodes in Season 4 and was behind the bar of the Cheesecake Factory when she returned. This was to work around Kaley Cuoco suffering a compound fracture in her leg after she fell off her horse and it stepped on her leg.
  • Mrs. Wolowitz passed away following the death of actress Carol Ann Susi (who did her voice even though the character was never seen).
  • Bernadette getting pregnant with her and Howard's second child was written into the show during Season 11. This was because Melissa Rauch actually got pregnant with her first child before the season started taping; which also meant her appearances became much limited to bed-rest shots and video calls during several episodes as her pregnancy progressed. Bernadette was behind the bar during a Flashback Episode to hide her pregnancy, and in one episode she was only able to do a voiceover role.
• Really Gets Around:
  • Leslie Winkle is implied to be this, referring to waking up on a futon with half a dozen strangers as a reason to try and settle down with Leonard.
  • Penny objects to being perceived this way after Sheldon calculates the number of men she's slept with in her lifetime based on her current statistics. The thing with Penny isn't that she sleeps around but that she really appreciates a physical relationship with her boyfriends, she just seems to have a new boyfriend every other week in the early seasons.
  • The one-shot character Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton seems to fit the trope. She had sex with Leonard shortly after meeting him. Then tried to convince Leonard, Howard, and Raj to have a gang bang with her, when she barely knows them. They are weirded out by the idea, Leonard and Howard leave. Raj stays and does have sex with her. Penny finds out and finds a nickname for Elizabeth: "Dr. Slut Bunny".
  • Another one-shot character also fits the trope. Christy Vanderbel, nicknamed by Penny as the "whore of Omaha". Penny jokes that a list of all the men Christy has slept with would be a list of every guy in Omaha.
• Rearrange the Song:
  • As Theory entered 5 night a week syndication in 2011, Barenaked Ladies' wrote and preformed a number of different versions of the lyrics to the Real Song Theme Tune "The History of Everything" mentioning the cast by name, which aired in short ads shown after the first commercial break.
  • For The Stinger of the series finale, BNL re-recorded the theme in a much softer and slower manner, with just an acoustic guitar and Ed Robertson's vocals, losing all of its bombastic nature and general "wow!" factor about science and sounding more like a fond memory.
• Reasonable Request Rejected: After Raj has to find a new department to work for at the University, lest he be deported, he decides to take Sheldon up on a job offer. But he has some conditions.
  Raj:I do however have a few conditions. First, at all times I am to be treated as a colleague and an equal. Second, my contributions shall be noted in all published materials. And third, you are never allowed to lecture me on Hinduism or my Indian culture.
  Sheldon: I'm impressed, Raj. Those are very cogent and reasonable conditions.
  Raj: Thank you.
  Sheldon: I reject them all.
  Raj: Then you leave me no choice. I accept.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Penny's delivered two of them, one to all four of the guys, the second to Howard exclusive.
  • The one directed at all four guys in "The Nerdvana Annihilation". It caused a Despair Event Horizon moment for Leonard.
    (Penny comes in and is upset with the guys.)
    Penny: OK! First of all, what you call a gap, was nearly 3 feet wide; I slipped and skinned my knee.
    Leonard: Are you OK?
    Penny: Azzzzzz! Second of all, the door to the stairway of the other building was locked, so I had to go down the fire-scape which ended on the third floor, forcing me to crawl through the window of a lovely Armenian family, who insisted I stay for lunch.
    Leonard: That doesn't sound too bad?
    Penny: It was eight courses of lamb and they tried to fix me up with their son.
    Leonard: Sorry.
    Penny: Not done! By the time I finally got to work, they'd given my shift away. Yeah, that's right, I lost an entire day's pay thanks to this, this...
    Sheldon: Time Machine.
    (Penny stares at Sheldon, giving him an evil glare.)
    Leonard: The lights flash and the dish spins, you wanna try it?
    Penny: No! I don't wanna try it; my god, you are grown men, how can you waste your lives with these, stupid toys and costumes and comic books?! And now that! That...
    Sheldon: Again, Time Machine.
    Penny: Oh please! It's not a time machine, if anything, it looks like something that Elton John would drive through the Everglades.
    Sheldon: It only moves in time. It would be worse than useless in a swamp.
    Penny: Pathetic! ALL OF YOU! Completely pathetic!
  • In the same episode as Penny's one to all the guys, she ends up actually getting one of her own from Sheldon (of all people), for causing Leonard to sink into depression and almost give away all of his collectibles.
  Penny: What the hell's going on?
  Sheldon: (With genuine anger) You hypocrite!
  Penny: What?
  Sheldon: Little Miss "grown-ups don't play with toys"! If I went into that apartment right now, would I not find Beanie Babies? Are you not an accumulator of Care Bears and My Little Ponies? And who is that Japanese feline frolicking on your shorts? Hello, Hello Kitty!
  • The one directed at Howard in "The Killer Robot Instability" caused a Heroic BSoD.
    Penny: I know you think you’re some sort of smooth-talking ladies’ man, but the truth is, you are just pathetic and creepy.
    Howard: Um, so what are you saying?
    Penny: I am saying it is not a compliment to call me doable. It’s not sexy to stare at my ass and say, “Ooh, it must be jelly ’cause jam don’t shake like that.” And most important, we are not dancing a tango, we’re not to’ing and fro’ing. Nothing is ever going to happen between us. Ever.
    Howard: Wait a minute. This isn't flirting, you're serious.
    Penny: Flirting? You think I’m flirting with you? I am not flirting with you, no woman is ever gonna flirt with you, you're just gonna grow old and die alone.
  • Amy to Sheldon when they break up.
    Amy: You know what, Sheldon? You made this really easy. You're immature, you're selfish, you just insulted me to my face. I don't need any more time to think. We're broken up!
  • Sheldon makes a subliminal one about Amy for refusing to return to Fun with Flags after she broke up with him by comparing everything to their breakup.
    Sheldon:...And then the Czech Republic says to Slovakia, I don’t think you understand how being broken up works. Can you believe that? You’d think that the Czech Republic would try to hold on to what it had, given that it’s not as young as it used to be. And I don’t see any other countries lining up to invade its southern borders. But enough about the Czech Republic. Let’s talk about the time Moldova made Romania a birthday cake and Romania said it tasted good even though it didn’t. And yet Romania gets dumped. I’ll pause here while you mull that one over. I know, right?
• Reckless Gun Usage: An interesting case is that Penny is shown using proper procedure in clearing the chamber before loading the magazine. Doesn't stop Leonard from shooting himself in the foot, though they aren't immediately removed from the range for pointing a loaded gun behind the firing line.
• Red Alert: Sheldon getting sick is serious enough to cause Leonard to run out of the apartment the second he hears abut it, frantically calling everyone so they can bunker down and avoid being guilt tripped into being his nurse.
  Leonard: We're at Code Milky-Green! Repeat! Milky-Green!
  Howard: Dear God! Not Milky-Green!
• Reed Richards Is Useless: All of the scientists on the show are fairly accomplished, but to keep the premise from overwhelming the average episode they are unlikely to make any major contributions to science and engineering. As well Sheldon is not going to prove string theory or otherwise get a Nobel Prize because however smart the science consultant may be, they are unlikely to have a Nobel Prize worthy theory in their back pocket.
  • When Stephen Hawking points out that Sheldon made an error in his mathematics, meaning that his revolutionary theory about the Higgs boson is actually completely wrong.
    Sheldon: Oh, gosh golly, I made a boo-boo... And I gave it to Stephen Hawking. *faints*
    Stephen Hawking: Great... another fainter!
  • A Story Arc going through season five and the beginning of season six featured Howard getting the chance to be an astronaut going to the International Space Station. It's an immense accomplishment for an individual and incites some jealousy within the group but the mission was ultimately fairly routine and nothing of real notoriety happened. Part of the character arc involves the reality that he likely won't be recognized at the mall and the emotional high would wear off over time. Many of the astronauts who were on significant missions (such as the Apollo Moon landings) did have issues adjusting to life as the fame wore off and the realization that they would likely never do anything as significant again in their lives set in.
  • A season seven episode has Sheldon figure out a formula for a new superheavy element that is eventually proven, earning him accolades at work and many articles written about his discovery. In the midst of recording the things that led him to this discovery he realizes he misread a table reading meters rather than centimeters, meaning his math was off by a factor of 10,000. Interestingly, the discovery was legitimate and only worked because of unanticipated reactions between the particles, so Sheldon gets to keep his accomplishment but it drives him crazy that it was a fluke. A follow-up episode reveals that the confirmation of his formula was falsified or improperly tested by the research team. Ironically, because Leonard was the one who found the incongruity and proved the experiment to be wrong HE becomes a minor celebrity and Sheldon's accomplishment shunted to the side.
• Relationship Revolving Door: Leonard and Penny have this kind of relationship, full of false starts, set backs, and at least two notable break ups. As of season five they're significantly more stable, but Penny's Commitment Issues have threatened to bring them back to square one a number of times.
  • They finally get out of the revolving door when Leonard proposes to Penny, and she accepts.
• Relationship Upgrade: Between Leonard and Penny, at the beginning of season three. They broke up about ¾ of the way through the season. They get back together in Season Five, and in Season Seven, Leonard proposed. They marry at the beginning of Season Nine.
  • And, as of 5x10, Sheldon and Amy. They marry at the end of Season Eleven.
  • Howard & Bernadette marry at the end of Season Five.
• Relatively Flimsy Excuse: In "The Loobenfeld Decay", Sheldon invents a drug addicted cousin as an excuse to avoid attending a show of Penny's. This spirals out of control and Sheldon ends up employing a lab assistant to play his cousin Leo.
• Religious Robot: Discussed. When the boys talk about having their consciousnesses implanted into robots, Howard says that his robot would have to stay Jewish because "I promised my mother." The others talk about how Howard would have to power down on Saturdays and have his rabbi discuss with the manufacturer about getting circumcised.
• Reluctant Gift: Sheldon wants Howard to accept his apology for inadvertently blabbing to the FBI about Howard mishandling the Mars Rover, so in desperation he gives him that which is most precious to him — his spot on the couch. He offers the cushion to Howard, but is reluctant to let it go at first. Howard barely has the seat a minute before Sheldon asks for it back.
• Remember the New Guy?: Raj's sister, Priya is introduced in Season four with a full back story explained in exposition, plus a never-before-mentioned romantic entanglement with Leonard.
• Retail Therapy: Penny tries to convince Sheldon that buying a new suit will make him less nervous about an upcoming speech.
  Penny: It’ll give you confidence. You know, sometimes when I’m feeling all stressed out about something, I go out and buy a cute top or a fun skirt and I have a whole new outlook on life.
  Sheldon: Don’t you eventually realize you’re just the same stressed-out person in a cute top or a fun skirt?
  Penny: Yeah. That’s when I buy shoes.
• Retcon: In the pilot Penny was made out to be a little bit older (like mid-20's), being that she had broken up with her boyfriend, Kurt, of specifically 4 years. While the relationship and break-up were still maintained Penny's age was made out to be 21 in the pilot and the length of time with Kurt (given she was in high school in Nebraska 4 years prior) was not nearly as significant a part of her life.
• Retconning the Wiki: Raj admits to vandalizing Wikipedia.
• Revenge Is a Dish Best Served: Penny frequently suggests that Sheldon won't like what she's added to his food when the guys order lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and she's their waitress. It's heavily implied that she's carried through with it at least once.
• Reverse Psychology: Sheldon's mother uses this to get Sheldon and Amy back together when they break up their friendship in "The Zazzy Substitution".
  Mrs Cooper: He thinks he's such a smarty-pants, he's no different from any man. You tell 'em not to do something, that's all they want to do. If I hadn't told my brother Stumpy not to clean out the wood-chipper by hand we'd still be calling him Edward. Now, don't you move - I'll bring over all the food.
  Leonard: No, I can do it. [gets up]
  Mrs Cooper: *beat* Well, isn't that sweet.
  • Also invoked by Penny's dad to try and get her back together with Leonard.

• Rhetorical Question Blunder:
  Professor Crawley: Let me ask you a question. What does an accomplished entomologist with a doctorate and twenty years of experience do when the university cuts all his funding?
  Raj: Ask rhetorical questions that make people feel uncomfortable?
• Rhymes on a Dime: In Amy's Time-Travel Romance Fan Fic, the time traveler Cooper uses two rhymes while speaking to his love interest Amelia: “underwear that’s fun to wear” and “Spider-Man. He does whatever a spider can”. Amelia observes: “There’s a lot of rhyming in the future, isn't there?”
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A literal one in "The Good Guy Fluctuation" by Sheldon, victim of a Halloween prank from Leonard. Early in the episode, Sheldon insists that Leonard open a mailbox, only for Leonard to find junk mail. When Sheldon goes to open the mailbox, an airbag with Leonard's face pops out, scaring Sheldon. Sheldon gets Leonard back by hiding in the apartment couch while Leonard is sitting on it talking to Priya. When Leonard is done, Sheldon pops out of the couch roaring, wearing a green shirt, purplish zombie makeup and fake blood on his lip. Sheldon: "Bazinga punk! Now we're even!"
• Robo Sexual:
  • Raj gets a little too attached to his iPhone.
  • Howard has a bit of trouble with the robot arm he built in the season four opener.
  • And apparently he made significant progress on creating a six-breasted sex bot
• Rock–Paper–Scissors Lizard Spock. Poor Predictable Spock.
• Romantic False Lead: Some for Penny, some for Leonard — although his are more Little False Leads, in that he'd always prefer to be with Penny.
• Romantic Spoonfeeding: In one scenario of the What If? episode, Raj and Howard share a dessert and Raj cleans Howard's mouth with a napkin. Howard is disturbed, but Raj is delighted ("That is so us!").
• Roommate Com: Sheldon and Leonard are roommates and genius level physicists. They also hang out with fellow scientists and equally geeky and nerdy Howard and Raj. Penny, an attractive blonde, moves across the hall and becomes involved in their life. There are some elements of Work Com when the plot revolves around the guys' work or colleagues at Cal Tech university.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • In-universe. Sheldon identifies with The Grinch ("I was right there with him all the way until he gave in to the Holiday Who Whooey at the end") and according to Leonard roots for the Sun against Frosty the Snowman ("A trivial piece of holiday flotsom in a stolen hat)".
  • Another episode reveals that Sheldon actually does root for the Empire.
  Sheldon: Aside from their tendency to build Death Stars, I've always been an Empire man.
• Ruined FOREVER: Invoked in "The Raiders Minimization", Amy ruins Raiders of the Lost Ark for Sheldon by pointing out that Indiana Jones wasn't necessary for the story, that it would have had the same conclusion without him. Sheldon then tries to do the same to something beloved of Amy, like Little House on the Prairie.
• Rule of Funny:
  • The episode where Sheldon's World of Warcraft account got hacked - while the desperate lengths the foursome get into to try recovering his items (including going into a Black Market in Goldshire, of all places, and Raj volunteering to seduce someone for the information), but completely ignores what actually happens when a WoW account gets hacked, and the reasons for doing so.
  • And then another episode's scene where Raj had bought a very nice area rug at Big Lots, but ended up with eleven extra rugs because it was only available in a case of twelve. In reality, Big Lots only sells single rugs, and they're not available (in store) by the case.
  • When the girls went to Disneyland, they went to the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutique and got dressed up like Disney Princesses. In reality, they actually don't do that to adults - but it wouldn't have been funny otherwise.
  • In "The Dumpling Paradox" the guys and Penny are playing Halo, but the sound effects don't match up with any of the Halo games, and several comments about mechanics that aren't present in Halo. Mainly the presence of "gibbing" and shooting off heads; Halo doesn't feature any form of dismemberment or gibbing.
• Rule of Three:
  • Sheldon knocking on a door, any door. Lampshaded when Penny opens the door after two, and then supplies the third herself. To which he responded, "That's just wrong."
  • When Sheldon saves Leonard from the rocket fuel explosion that destroyed the elevator.
    Leonard: I'm just glad Sheldon didn't rat me out to the landlord... or the police... or Homeland Security...
  • Sheldon has a bad breakfast: orange juice - "In what universe is that non-pulp?", English muffin - "In what universe is that 'lightly toasted'?" and margarine - "Well, I have no difficulty believing you're not butter."
  • Sheldon doesn't care whether his future children are all quintuplets or all triplets, so long as they're divisible by three.
• Rules Lawyer: Played straight with Sheldon, who exploits the Roommate Agreement for all it's worth. Then hilariously inverted when Leonard gets his own literal Rules Lawyer who then proceeds to exploit every technicality in the Agreement for all it's worth.
• Running Gag: Some for each character
  • Sheldon:
    • His idiosyncratic door knocking, three sets of three knocks, with the name of the person on the other side between each knock. And when he does it to Penny, her responses to such. Notable examples of this are when Penny turns it into a door knocking war (repeating his knocking pattern from the other side of the door and saying his name), another time interjecting a cheerleader-ish "Who do we love?" between the knocks and "Penny," and when Sheldon knocks as The Flash. Also when he's inside Amy's apartment, knocking while she's in the hall.
    • "I'm not crazy! My mother had me tested." and "Bazinga" (a coined term Sheldon made to identify when he is pranking someone).
    • "Coitus", originating with Howard in the pilot but often used by Sheldon as a substitution for the word "sex". Leslie Winkle used it frequently as well.
    • First confirming that what someone else said was a joke before giving a slight titter in response.
    • Waking up somebody (usually Leonard) in the middle of the night, either because he wants to talk about something that's bothering him, or because he's performing an activity that causes a lot of noise.
    • "That's my spot."
    • Soft Kitty is sung at least once a season and almost always interrupted; whoever's singing it always has to start from the top, not where they left off.
    • Sheldon making sure whoever's getting the Chinese food, usually Leonard, gets his order correct and all the correct sides and sauces and such, when they brings the food home. They never fail.
      Sheldon: Did you remember to ask for the chicken with broccoli to be diced not shredded?
      Leonard: Yes.
      Sheldon: Even though the menu description specifies shredded?
      Leonard: Yes.
      Sheldon: Brown rice, not white?
      Leonard: Yes.
      Sheldon: Did you stop at the Korean grocery and get the good hot mustard?
      Leonard: Yes.
      Sheldon: Did you pick up the low sodium soy sauce from the market?
      Leonard: Yes.
      Sheldon: Thank you.
      Leonard: You’re welcome.
    • Sheldon getting Restraining orders as of season early season 7. He has restraining orders from Stan Lee, Leonard Nimoy, Carl Sagan, and Bill Nye. Leonard makes a joke about him getting one from Stephen Hawking, imagining if Howard arranged a meeting between the two.
    • Saying that it's a social convention to bring an upset person a hot beverage.
    • Sheldon frequently criticizes geology for "not being a real science," and he enjoys mocking geologists.
    • The infamously complicated "Roommate Agreement". Nine times out of ten when Sheldon randomly says or does something that annoys Leonard, the Roommate Agreement is his justification.
    • His extreme fondness for trains, both real ones and models.
    • Concluding that a female character is on her period when Sheldon's behavior is the obvious real source of her irritation.
    • Sheldon chasing balloons that float away. Never shown, only narrated after the fact.
  • Leonard:
    • Lactose Intolerance and other dietary restrictions.
    • The Face Palm, befitting his Straight Man character
    • Declaring "Here we go..." (usually right before Sheldon goes on one of his rants)
    • Like Bernadette, Leonard is frequently the victim of jokes about his height.
    • When a guest star learns that he's with Penny, they always want to know how he pulled that off. Usually someone will answer some version of "persistence".
  • Penny:
    • Her general ignorance of most geeky pop culture, including Stan Lee and having never watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. This has been played down in later years; because of her close proximity to the guys, she has come to learn much of that stuff.
    • Penny's "check engine" light is constantly on, Sheldon and others bug her about attending to it, and she refuses. Her car finally breaks down in the Season 7 episode "The Friendship Turbulence."
    • Penny's use of the guys' Wi-Fi, and Sheldon changing the password to something like pennygetyourownwifi.
      Leonard: No spaces.
    • Whenever she asks about something she doesn't understand, it's usually to Sheldon, and Leonard or Howard may try to stop her before groaning over having to hear Sheldon explaining something.
  • Raj:
    • His knowledge and familiarity with more "girly" topics such as loving Bridget Jones' Diary and knowledge of fashion.
    • Not being able to talk to or around women without being drunk or influenced by other substances. Though he gets over this eventually.
    • Raj is a magnet for Slumdog Millionaire jokes.
    • He is constantly saying how he came from a poor background only to have Howard remind him his father is a gynecologist who drives a Bentley and in some cases brings up his house full of servants. Raj tends to downplay these
  (on the Bentley) "It's a rental"
  (on the servants) "two of them are children"
  • Howard:
    • His lack of a Ph.D
    • Being Jewish.
    • His top-volume screaming matches with his mother.
    • His sex robot is brought up a few times
    • His skill with magic tricks.
  • Bernadette:
    • Her proximity to experiments involving dangerous bacteria like yellow fever and combining Ebola with the common cold.
      "Not that we would ever admit to that, because that would be very bad."
    • Her inability to understand a joke (though it disappeared after a few episodes).
    • Her height (Melissa Rauch is just under 5').
    • Sounding just like Howard's mom when yelling or upset.
  • Amy:
    • Childhood pranks being pulled on her.
    • Her infatuation with Penny, both as simply best friends and with some homosexual undertones. Also her finding Bernadette less attractive as well as pretty much considering Bernadette the third wheel in the in their group.
    • Using her harp to play songs that normally are not played on the harp (like TV theme songs or Bon Jovi)
  • For various characters:
    • The use of high-end scientific research equipment to perform everyday food prep tasks.
    • One of the group pointing out that another member told them about a controversial opinion about something nerdy (like: "the Phantom Menace wasn't half bad") and that person saying "I told you that in confidence!"
• Running Gag Stumbles: Writers love to subvert, lampshade and otherwise play with Sheldon's way of knocking doors. See Running Gag above for some examples, and this video for a lot more.
• Russian Reversal: "You don't screw the roommate agreement. The roommate agreement screws you!"

S

• Sabotutor: When Stuart is briefly dating Penny, he goes to Leonard for romantic advice. Leonard deliberately feeds him wrong or misleading advice as he has a vested interest in breaking them up.
• Sampling:
  • CBS used single words from various episodes to cobble together a promo stating rhytmically "New night, new time, same ''Theory''. Thursday this fall only C B S."
  • A similar trick is used in the syndicated version, clipping together bits to say "''Big Bang Theory,'' five nights a week."
• Sarcasm-Blind: Sheldon does understand sarcasm... meaning he knows what the word "sarcasm" means and is able to use it himself. He's just bad at detecting it.
  Penny: And what kind of doctor removes shoes from asses?
  Sheldon: Depending on the depth, that's either a proctologist or a general surgeon.
  Leonard: *holds up sarcasm sign*
  • Zack Johnson, one of Penny's boyfriends, doesn't understand sarcasm, though the guys tend to use it around him.
  Zack: You know, I saw this great thing on the Discovery Channel. Turns out that if you kill a starfish, it’ll just come back to life.
  Sheldon: Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? Because you might have been watching Nickelodeon.
  Zack: No, I’m almost sure that it was the Discovery Channel. It was a great show. They also said dolphins might be smarter than people.
  Leonard: They might be smarter than some people.
  Zack: Well, maybe we can do an experiment to find out.
  Sheldon: Oh, that’s easy enough. We’d need a large tank of water, a hoop to jump through, and a bucket of whatever bite-sized treats you find tasty.
  Zack: I don’t get it.
  Leonard: A dolphin might.
• Sassy Black Woman: Althea, a hospital nurse who occasionally deals with the guys, is a classic example. She has a One-Scene Wonder in "The Robotic Manipulation," where Howard gets a certain lower extremity stuck inside a robot hand he built. The nurse offers plenty of sarcastic one-liners about the situation, and eventually solves the problem by resetting the computer attached to the robot.
  Althea: Where's the rest of the robot?
  Howard: I only built the arm.
  Althea: ...'Cause that's all you needed, right?
  (Later...)
  Althea: I need an orderly with a wheelchair, I got a robot hand grasping a man's penis out here.
  Howard: Do you think you could be a little more discreet?
  Althea: I'm sorry, we don't have a code for "robot hand grasping a man's penis."
• Say My Name:
  • Sheldon screams to the sky the name of his nemesis, Wil Wheaton. "WHEATON!!!!!" Also a Shout-Out to The Khan.
  • Used by Penny once when Sheldon came knocking.
    Sheldon: *knock knock knock [*Penny from behind the door* Who do we love!] Penny.
    *knock knock knock [Who do we love!] Penny.
    *knock knock knock [Who do we love!] Penny. [Penny finally opens the door]
• Scavenger Hunt: Raj sets one up in "The Scavenger Vortex".
• Science Is Good: The show features several scientists in the main cast who are constantly awed by the miracles of science that they whip up and dedicating their lives to its cause.
• Science Show: Not the show itself (although the characters discuss obscure science topics on a regular basis, so you can still learn something), but the Show Within a Show Professor Proton, which Leonard and Sheldon watched as children. It was later revived with Wil Wheaton, to Sheldon's chagrin.
• Scientific and Technological Theme Naming:
  • Episode titles are formatted to sound like scientific terminology — "The Fuzzy Boots Corollary", "The Jiminy Conjecture", "The Zarnecki Incursion", etc.
  • In "The Zazzy Substitution", Sheldon adopts cats and names them after scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, except for one he calls Zazzles.
  • Howard and Bernadette's children are named Halley (after Edmund Halley and the famous comet named after him) and Neil (after Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon).
• Screw the Electric Bill: Penny is forced to sleep on Leonard and Sheldon's couch for the night and they all go off to sleep, turning out the lights. Cue the camera panning over to Raj who is left standing bewildered in the darkened kitchen holding a sandwich.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
  • According to President Siebert, this is how Sheldon maintains his position at the university. Siebert thinks Sheldon is "nuts" (not without reason - Sheldon once came knocking on his door at one in the morning, ruined a fundraiser, took his trousers off when being presented with the Chancellor's Award and dropped a huge quantity of foam on his head), but the "board insists he has a beautiful mind," so he stays. Interestingly, the Board seemingly still supports him even after aforementioned foam prank.
  • Sheldon's mother persuaded Gablehauser, the department head, to re-employ him on the one occasion he was sacked. If your boss fancies your mother, this helps too.
  • Bernadette notes that her father, being a cop, can help her out of speeding tickets.
• Second Episode Introduction: A variation. While Raj met Penny in the pilot, it took him until getting drunk in the eighth episode before he could talk to her and properly introduce himself;
  Raj: I am talking to you?! *Shakes hand* Hello Penny! How are you?!
• Seinfeldian Conversation: The characters often get into arguments about pop culture. For instance, whether zombies and mummies are the same thing.
• Self-Induced Allergic Reaction: Howard eats a nut bar to stall Leonard so they could set up Leonard's surprise birthday party. And because Penny was going to hook him up with her easy girlfriends. This is after he fakes an allergic reaction to the same thing for the same cause, only to realize the group wouldn't have enough time. And well...
• Self-Insert Fic:
  • Sheldon has written a Star Trek fan fiction as a child, in which the Enteprise crew recognize his abilities as a Child Prodigy and take him aboard.
  • In "The Troll Manifestation", Penny, Bernadette, and Leonard read a Little House on the Prairie Fanfic written by Amy. The protagonist, Amelia, is based on Amy herself. Her love interest Cooper is based on Sheldon.
• Sensory Tentacles: In an episode when Sheldon is home sick Leonard runs away, but he forgot his glasses back at their apartment. Howard uses a remote-controlled camera-on-a-cable to see if the coast is clear before Leonard enters.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Sheldon talks like this a lot. Even to Penny.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • In "The White Asparagus Triangulation" (Season 2, episode 9), Howard says that Leonard's longest-lasting relationship with a woman was his 27 days with Joyce Kim, who turned out to be a North Korean spy trying to get rocket fuel information out of Leonard. In "The Staircase Implementation" (Season 3, episode 22), a Whole Episode Flashback occurring in 2003, the relationship with Joyce is depicted as lasting maybe a couple days. It involves a single failed date, and Sheldon interrupting them having sex in Leonard's bedroom.
  • In the episode where Penny first meets Beverly Hoffstadter, she refers to her father as "Bob", saying she'd wished her mother had said, "She's a girl, Bob, get over it." When we actually meet Penny's father in Season 4, his name is given as "Wyatt".
  • When Leonard wants to get a cat in an early episode, it's mentioned that Sheldon is allergic. In a later series, Sheldon gets 25 cats without suffering any ill effects.
  • In "The Hofstadter Isotope" (Season 2, episode 20), Stuart manages to pick up Penny while in his comic book store. In "The Good Guy Fluctuation" (Season 5, episode 7), Leonard picks up Alice while in the comic book store. An impressed Stuart tells him this is the closest anyone has ever come to picking up a girl in the store. He even wants to have a photo of Leonard to hang in the store's Wall of Heroes.
  • In early episodes, the owner of the comic book store is referred to as Larry. Later, when he actually appears, he is named Stuart (though it's possible Stuart is a new owner, of course).
  • During the first season, it was heavilly implied (though not outright stated) that George Cooper (Sheldon's father) had only recently passed away. Missy brings over some papers from George's estate and Mary tells Dr. Gabelhauser that George has been dead "long enough" in a tone that suggested that he hadn't been dead for long. More conclusive evidence appears in "The Pancake Batter Anomaly". Sheldon said at the age of 15, he got sick in Germany, and his mother had to fly back to Texas to help his dad at that time. Later episodes established that George died when Sheldon was 14.
• Serious Business: Amongst many other things (of which the weekly routine of meals and evening activities are just a small part), in the episode "The Hofstadter Isotope" a discussion about who would succeed Batman in the event of his death between Sheldon and an online community eventually leads to Penny's date being cut short after he is brought into the discussion as well.
  • World of Warcraft to Sheldon. When his account gets hacked he calls the FBI... and when they hang up on him he calls the regular police.
• Sex for Services: Implied, in "The Hook-Up Reverberation", where Penny casually admits her high school PE coach turned out to have a close personal interest in her which amounted to an unwise teacher-pupil crush. She took the young Penny to see a Melissa Etheridge gig, and Penny played along with the idea to ensure she got A-grades. Penny does not disclose how far she had to go to get those A's but casually says "it all worked out just fine".
• Sexy Discretion Shot: One scene involves Amy's Time-Travel Romance Fan Fic characters, Amelia and Cooper, about to have sex. The camera then shifts to Penny and Leonard who were reading the story. The duo have stopped their reading because the characters are based on Amy and Sheldon, and they do not want to think of them naked and engaging in sexual acts.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: Penny who is a waitress and hates her job, says she spilled a drink on herself at work. Leonard pities her, but she says it was the best day ever as she got her greatest tips.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: Penny in the third episode of the third season, after her and Leonard's first night in his apartment and she was dancing and making French toast.
• Shady Scalper: In "The Convention Conundrum", the guys are unable to get tickets for the next Comic-Con. While Sheldon tries to put together his own convention, Leonard, Howard and Raj make contact with a scalper to buy tickets. Sheldon tries to talk them out of it, pointing out that if they're caught, it could hurt them legally in the future and get them banned from Comic-Con for life. When the scalper comes knocking, they get scared, turn off the lights and pretend no one is home.
• Shame Accusation: Sheldon gets his way by threatening to reveal Leonard and Priya's relationship to her parents unless Leonard signs a new Roommate Agreement. Priya freaks out due to her parents' traditional views, which Leonard takes as her being ashamed of him.
• Shave And A Haircut: When Sheldon denies an obsession for closure, after his pain over the cancellation of Alphas, Amy knocks the first five beats of this with Sheldon inevitably finishing it and adding, "That proves nothing!"
• She Is All Grown Up: Lalita in "The Grasshopper Experiment". She's a girl from Raj's childhood who was fat and beat him up, about 20 years later, she slimmed down and is beautiful.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: The normally drab, dowdy and plain Amy F-F, when she goes out with the other girls and has the Disney Makeover, being made up and dressed to look like Snow White. She also stands up straight rather than adopting her usual hunch-shoulders stoop. The result is..... wow.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend:
  • Leonard and Penny in an early episode.
  • Sheldon toward Amy throughout Season 4.
• She Who Must Not Be Seen: Howard's mother, Mrs. Wolowitz, who is also The Voice.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Most of the main cast ships Shamy (Sheldon/Amy). (In the beginning at least.)
  • And at least Leonard's mother ships Howard/Raj.
  • As of "The Boyfriend Complexity", Penny's father ships Leonard/Penny.
  • Pretty much everyone ships Sheldon and Amy (or "Shamy" as they call them), mainly because up until that point they thought Sheldon was an asexual man of science. Penny gets unbelievably excited when Sheldon admitted he might consider a sexual relationship with Amy.
  • Leonard has shown his support of Howard/Bernadette.
  • Sheldon's mom seems to be a fan of the Leonard and Penny pairing, calling them a cute couple as early as season one before Penny was even fully aware of the crush Leonard had on her.
  • She's also accepting of Amy as her son's girlfriend and is happy about them being a couple.
  • Bernadette and Amy are also Penny/Leonard shippers, mainly because they know Penny only pretends to be okay with Leonard moving on to other girls and is pining for Leonard.
  • Sheldon becomes a Penny/Leonard shipper accidentally. While he doesn't exactly like the pairing, he hates change and has grown accustom to the pairing
  • Stuart, in "The Mother Observation", says that each of them is a better person because of the other, and calls them "the best couple I know."
  • Even Leonard's mom ship Leonard and Penny. The first time she ever tells Leonard she's proud of him is when she's commending him for marrying Penny.
  • Sheldon ships Leonard/Stephanie very strongly in "The White Asparagus Triangulation".
• Shipping Torpedo: Several characters are anti Priya/Leonard shippers:
  • Raj because he doesn't want Leonard dating his sister.
  • Her parents because Leonard isn't Indian.
  • Amy, Bernadette and Penny want Leonard/Penny to happen/think Priya is out of line for trying to change Leonard and demanding he stop being friends with Penny.
  • Sheldon doesn't like her because she's mean to him and challenged the Roommate Agreement to help Leonard.
• Ship Sinking: Amy is pretty much this to the popular Penny/Sheldon ship. In particular, "The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition" not only shows how serious Sheldon is about Amy, but even dedicates a scene to addressing why he is not compatible with Penny. Sheldon's speech even uses some of the most common elements for the ship that appear in just about every "Shenny" fanfic, which Penny then proceeds to tear down one by one. The ship isn't only just sunk, it never existed.
  • A later episode had the characters exploring What If? scenarios and had a scene where Penny was flirting with Sheldon, to the point of undressing to seduce him. While Amy does eventually inject her own feelings into the scenario, Sheldon stayed in character and was unfazed by Penny's actions.
  • Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons, and Chuck Lorre have all confirmed there will never be a Shenny. Looks like the captains have sunk the ship.
  • Also the fact that Kaley Cuoco is a vocal Leonard and Penny Shipper certainly helped sink the Shenny ship.
• Ship Tease: Played with between Leonard and Amy. Amy coerced Leonard to be her date for a co-workers wedding (Sheldon doesn't like going because There weren't any other scientists his age) and Amy ended up cheering Leonard out of a funk. To his own surprise he enjoyed spending time with her and gave her a kiss on the cheek for a goodbye, with Amy misinterpreting it as being that Leonard had fallen for her. Of course, the kiss on the cheek was part of the commercials for the episode.
  • This recurs when Amy and Howard bond over a shared love of Neil Diamond's music.
  • Again in Season 5 when Sheldon asks Penny on a date to make Amy jealous when she begins to date Stuart.
  • Shenny shippers were given another in Season 9, as "The Separation Oscillation" begins with Sheldon suggesting that Penny get even with Leonard by kissing someone else, then offering himself. But, it was All Just a Dream.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: A Belarusian sitcom called The Theorists turned out to be an undisguised and unlicenced local copy. Lawyers were brandished, but no legal action was needed as the actors quit en bloc when they realized producers had lied to them over the series being licensed.
• Shooting Lessons From Your Parents: In the episode "The Beta Test Initiative", Leonard takes Penny to a pistol-shooting range on a date, having discovered she was taught to shoot by the father who really wanted a boy. It is also possible Sheldon's father, or other significant male relative, attempted to teach him the indispensable rites-of-passage skills necessary to a young Texan.
• Shot to the Heart: Sheldon tries to prank Howard with an Electric Joy Buzzer, but Howard appears to collapse from a heart attack and is instructed to stab a syringe of adrenaline straight through his heart. Of course, it all turns out to be a counter-prank.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: There is a scene involving Amy's Time-Travel Romance Fan Fic character Cooper emerging nude from his bath. Cooper is only shown from the waist up, preventing the viewers from seeing his genitals or buttocks.
• Shout-Out: This Reference Overdosed show is chock full of these.
• Shower of Love: Leonard and Priya have sex in the shower in "The Agreement Dissection".
  • Penny implies she and Leonard had sex in the shower in the "The Anxiety Optimization".
• Shower Scene: Penny appears in one in the (fictional) B-Movie Serial Ape-ist. She is approached and killed by the titular "psychotic genetically engineered ape", who is wielding an axe. The scene can be viewed in the episode "The Hofstadter Insufficiency".
• Shown Their Work: The show goes well out of its way to get the details of the science and tech stuff right, as well as generally listing actual things that geeks are into like Halo and Battlestar Galactica. Not only that, they have an actual physicist, Dr. David Salzberg, on hand to fill in the correct dialogue and write appropriate diagrams and formulas on the white boards. In fact, almost any mention of high-level science, such as theoretical procedures in which the characters would either be versed or have read/heard about through peer-reviewed journals are written as Science To Come (or similar) in the script, awaiting Salzburg's insight in order to be replaced with something relevant and accurate. All of this leads to Genius Bonus. This includes:
  • Sheldon's search for magnetic monopoles in the second season finale was based on actual research being done at the time, with results posted over the season break. Similarly, his dilemma figuring out the contradiction with particles moving through a graphene sheet was related to contemporary research that later won the Nobel Prize.
    • Rivalries between different scientific specialties is also on the nose, with the show focusing much of it with Sheldon (Theoretical Physics) vs Leonard (Experimental Physics), Raj (Astrophysics) and especially Howard (Engineering, no Ph.D). Sheldon also holds a particular disdain for Geologists.
  • Comparatively recent events in geekdom including a conversation involving the meaning of Final Crisis, shake-ups in the Batman comics run and the re-establishment of the DC Comics Multiverse.
    Penny, whilst in a comic-book shop, surrounded by nerds: "What's a 'multiverse'?"
    Sheldon: [turns to Leonard] "Get her out of here."
  • In "The Thespian Catalyst" Penny tries to teach Sheldon about acting and eventually gets to improv. Sheldon kept going off on tangents (asking for frozen yogurt at a shoe store) and Penny was rolling with it, which only confused Sheldon because (obviously) there is no such thing as a shoe warehouse/frozen yogurt hybrid store. Penny then explained the number one rule of improv, you say "Yes" and accept all scenarios given.
  • Howard's adventures in space involved a couple of locations for the International Space Station and the Module used for travel. They actually had Mike Massimino from NASA as a consultant and guest star and he helped them build the sets to the approximate scale and look.
  • On a smaller scale, in an early episode Sheldon and Raj argue about whether Wolverine has bone claws with adamantium coating or just adamantium prosthetic claws. They settle the dispute by looking it up in Wolverine: Origins #4, which does indeed show that Logan was born with bone claws.
• Show Within a Show
  • Sheldon's Fun With Flags podcast.
  • The Serial Ape-ist movies Penny appears in.
  • Professor Proton's show, which Leonard and Sheldon saw as kids.
  • The Monkey and the Princess, a fictional Indian children's story about a Princess Panchali
  • Stu the Cockatoo is New at the Zoo — the story of Stu the cockatoo.
    Raj: Stu the cockatoo?
    Leonard: Yes, he’s new at the zoo.
  • Amy's Little House on the Prairie Time-Travel Romance Fan Fic.
  • NCIS: In the episode "The Hesitation Ramification", Penny gets a bit part acting in a scene with Mark Harmon. The scene is cut before the show airs.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Leonard has a habit of rambling on topics irrelevant to what he is trying to get at (going on about how Indian food helps clean out your colon when inviting Penny to lunch in the Pilot). As he and Penny grow closer romantically Leonard will still ramble on and Penny will quiet him down with a kiss, like so.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Sheldon's fraternal twin sister, Missy. In "The Luminous Fish Effect", after talking about what a pain Sheldon is, Sheldon's mother tells Howard that God didn't give her more than she could handle; she has two others kids who are "dumb as soup."
  • More specifically, while Sheldon is a theoretical physicist, his twin sister Missy is a hostess at Fuddruckers.
  • Sheldon's siblings being dumb as soup turns out to be a bit of exaggeration, as George is shown in Season 11 to have a successful tire business and Missy, while not as intelligent as Sheldon, is far from dumb.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift:
  • In the early seasons Penny tended to wear crop tops, tank tops, short shorts and otherwise show a lot of skin, which was reflective of her young age (she was 22 in the first season). In the third season she started dressing more conservatively, wearing jeans, sweats and shirts with sleeves and higher necklines.^note Some of this can be attributed to the riding accident Kaley Cuoco suffered during the season; the long pants hid her scarred legs. About season eight she more often wears slacks, blouses and even jackets as she got a job as a pharmaceutical representative.
  • Howard's wardrobe style has remained pretty static over the seasons, tight jeans with a bold belt buckle and a button up shirt with a turtleneck underneath. But the early seasons had an emphasis on very bright, mixed colors, including things like red jeans and a yellow turtleneck. After he marries Bernadette his ensemble tends to be darker and with more complementary colors, jeans are a normal blue and his turtleneck black, making him come out looking much more stylish.
• Silent Whisper: Raj Koothrappali does this into Howard's ear every time he wants to talk but there's a woman in the room and he's not drunk. Howard translates. No longer the case in Season 7 when Raj has developed enough to speak before women without needing a drink.
• Sitcom Archnemesis:
  • Barry Kripke, Wil Wheaton and Leslie Winkle at different points, all for Sheldon.
  • Arthur 'Professor Proton' Jefferies hates Bill Nye the Science Guy mainly because he thinks the man stole his show.
• Significant Reference Date: In the episode entitled "The Excelsior Acquisition", Sheldon finds a traffic summons concerning an traffic incident that occurred on 11/16, the airdate of "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" in which the violation happened.
  • In "The Agreement Dissection" Sheldon notes that Leonard violated the Roommate Agreement on April 28th, same date as the original broadcast date.
• A Simple Plan: Played with in "The Loobenfeld Decay." The lie works fine, but Sheldon is convinced it'll fall apart, and keeps trying to overcomplicate it.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Penny constantly has lots of men hitting on her, and a lot of one-night stands, but the only man she truly shows genuine interest in staying with, and the one she ends up marrying, is Leonard who treats her like a person, encourages her interests, and commiserates with her during her failures.
  • Similarly, Bernadette only falls for Howard once he (somewhat) grows up and (mostly) drops the Casanova act.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Amy's early insistence that she has no interest in romantic love or physical contact ("up to and including coitus") takes on difference shades when she very openly admires Penny's "secondary sexual characteristics" and even suggests "harmless lesbian experimentation" at a sleepover. That said, she never shows any interest in any woman other than Penny. This fades away as her relationship with Sheldon becomes more official and intimate, with a big part of the joke being that she has become interested in sex with him while he is still adverse to that.
  • Sheldon is this way with Amy, it's made quite clear that he is not attracted to anyone else. His initial interest in her was simply because she thought the exact same way as he did. It took a long time for him to approach basic forms of physical connection like holding hands or kissing, and he admits that he has considered the prospect of having sex with Amy but his deep rooted fear of intimacy is a major hurdle. Years later they eventually do have sex, which both really enjoyed, but viewed it as something to do for special occasions (it was Amy's birthday). When a colleague approaches him romantically, he realizes that he will never think of anyone except Amy, and this makes him propose to her.
• Sixth Ranger: Both Amy and Bernadette fall under this category in a sitcom way, not the typical hero show version.
• Skyward Scream: Also a Shout-Out to Wrath of Khan.
  WHEEEAAAATOOOOOOONNN!!!
  • And as typical for this show, it's a perfect recreation of "KHAN!" and not the osmosis version. Sheldon doesn't look up at the sky, he looks straight ahead with a close-up and screams "WHEATON!" and then the camera cuts to an Astronomic Zoom pulling away from Earth.
• Sleep Cute: Howard and Raj.
• Sleep Deprivation: In "The Work Song Nanocluster", Penny founds her new business and she starts making artificial flowers called "Penny Blossoms" which she sells online. The guys become involved and Leonard makes the mistake of adding "one-day-rush order" button. They end up spending all night trying to make one thousand Penny Blossoms. They drink tons of coffee (even Sheldon, who considers it a dangerous drug) and are exhausted. When they are done, Penny receives another 24-hour order for one thousands flowers, but they no longer want to help because as Howard puts it, they do have lives of their own.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You: Poor Leonard, pining after Penny while listening to her complain about her jerkass boyfriends. However, this is eventually subverted after they get together and Penny marries him due to maturing and realising that she wants to settle down with a Nice Guy like Leoanrd.
• Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility: Turned into a game by Sheldon and Amy. Counterfactuals is a game when you change a single thing in history, and the other person has to figure out how it would have affected a completely unrelated thing in history. There is a correct answer.
• Slow-Loading Internet Image: A video variation. Leonard and Priya are communicating through teleconferencing and are attempting to have a long-distance intimate date. Leonard takes off his clothes, but when Priya starts to take off hers, the signal freezes just as she's taking off her bra.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Sheldon and his intelligence, one of the show's myths.
• Small Reference Pools: Usually very good at averting this, although it sometimes sacrifices realistic characterization for (comparatively) more familiar references, like the time Sheldon said Ubuntu was his favorite Linux distribution.
  • Notably, no self-respecting nerd would be caught dead playing Monopoly when there are so many wonderful obscure German games about trading. Settlers of Catan, for example, which is beginning to extend it's reference pool somewhat.
  • And of course, there was the questionnaire that Sheldon made for Raj, Howard and Leonard:
    Sheldon: [to Raj] How could you think my favorite amino acid was glutamine?
• The Smart Guy: Amelia, Amy's Little House on the Prairie Fan Fic character, was the smartest student in her school. "In her little one-room schoolhouse she was always the smartest student, regularly besting the boys in her class..."
• Smart People Know Latin: Howard and Sheldon try to use this against each other.
• Smart People Play Chess: The male scientists have been seen playing regular chess, three-dimensional chess, and Secret Agent Laser Obstacle Chess. Not to mention Sheldon's experimental three-player chess, complete with bizarre new pieces.
• Smug Snake: Sheldon and his sister.
• The Smurfette Principle: The show started with five main characters: the four male nerds, and the girl who lives across the hall. However, in seasons 1 and 2, there was often Leslie Winkle acting as a female Sixth Ranger. And later the show got eve more females, with Bernadette and Amy both being upgraded to main cast status for all the episodes they appear in. Raj's sister Priya was also a major character, and mothers of the main characters are frequently involved.
• Snark Knight:
  • Penny took her role as the Nerd Nanny a bit more seriously in earlier episodes and berated the guys for their awkward, sometimes inconsiderate tendencies. This lead to a few instances of Not So Above It All and, eventually, One of Us. She can still be pretty brutal, but talks to them on their own terms.
  • Prime example in "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization" where Sheldon tries to make Leonard's head explode a la Scanners. Later, Penny finds a picture of herself on Wolowitz's website (listing her as his girlfriend) and does it to him.
  • Leonard has shades of it as well, especially when dealing when Sheldon.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: Many of Sheldon's jokes come across this way, usually because it is only mildly amusing but not nearly as funny as he finds it. One in particular involved a pun Amy made about ethanol ether vs. "either," and Sheldon felt he had to explain why it was funny.
  • In a Hilarious Outtakes moment, Kaley tried dropping in a "Wazzup!" answering a phone call and the lack of any response by the audience or the actors made her lose her composure laughing about how badly it failed.
• Southern-Fried Genius: Averted with Sheldon, who very rarely speaks in his native East Texas drawl.
• Spit Shine: Raj uses his spit to clean off dirt from the crotch area of an Aquaman action figure bought in a garage sale.
• Spit Take
  Penny: Okay, well, what do you communicate about?
  Sheldon: Well, my work in physics, her work in neurobiology, and most recently the possibility of our having a child together.
• Spock Speak: Sheldon.
• Spoiled Brat: Sheldon's entire strategy in life is to whine and pitch a bitch fit until everyone gives him what he wants in exchange for some peace. Rule of Funny is the only reason they haven't pinned him down and cut out his tongue.
  Sheldon: *after being outvoted* I never get my way.
  Leonard: *dumbfounded* You always get your way!
  Sheldon: *beat, thinks about it* I'll stipulate to that if you give me my way.
  • Also Penny.
  Bernedette: Leonard does things he doesn't like, to make you happy.
  Penny: Well, yeah, he's my boyfriend. Isn't that like his job?
  Amy: Then what's your job?
  Penny: Letting him make me happy.
• Staging an Intervention:
  • The guys and Penny stage an intervention for Sheldon to make him get a driver's license.
  • There's also the example where Sheldon is sacked for insubordination and becomes a recluse, weaving obscure garments and surrounding himself with cats: his mother is called in to co-ordinate a rescue.
• Stalker with a Crush: Ramona Nowitzki is a Sheldon fangirl to an obsessive level. She seems to be blind to even his most annoying eccentricities, and is willing to follow him around 24/7 to force him to dedicate himself to science 24/7. She returns in "The Long Distance Dissonance" when Amy is out of town, and makes it clear that Sheldon being in relationship will not stop her from pursuing him.
• Standardized Sitcom Housing: On the whole the show uses the typical set-up, with the hallway between apartments used extensively for scenes and conversations. But there are moments where they get camera angles showing the "fourth wall" with a completed set, one being a POV of Sheldon coming in from the hallway when the others were staging an intervention on his refusal to get a driver's license.
  • The show manages a fairly clever recycling of the set by using the center hallway to represent three different floors with a minor redress, allowing a Walk and Talk with only one set.
  • When Amy buys Penny a portrait of the two of them that is too garish to display and too expensive to get rid of, the matter is eventually resolved when Penny hangs the portrait on the fourth wall of her apartment. The hanging is portrayed by the camera shot representing the "point of view" of the portrait being straightened when hung.
• Status Quo Is God: Lampshaded by Sheldon. After Amy kisses him while drunk, he suggests they treat their relationship like a malfunctioning computer and restore it to the last point they both agree that it worked (which, given that this is Sheldon we're talking about, is quite a mature thing to suggest).
• Stealth Pun: Cylon toast. Even better: that's a real toaster.
• Steamrolled Smart Guy: Sheldon often comes up with extremely convoluted plans and schemes to solve problems, much to the chagrin and eventual dismissal of the rest of the group.
• Stoners Are Funny: Leonard, Raj, and Howard in "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency."
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys:
  • Invoked by Sheldon in "The Bat Jar Conjecture." When the group practices for a physics based quiz show, Sheldon answers the question no matter who rang in first. When confronted about the problem, Sheldon brushes it off by saying the game is not supposed to be about having fun and it is more about winning, so he is doing everyone a favor by answering all the questions for them. This causes the rest of the guys to boot Sheldon off the team.
  • Sheldon's approach to any hobby he might happen to share with other people is pretty much this.
  Leonard: What happened to your new friends?
  Sheldon: I had to leave. They were having fun wrong.
• Strongly Worded Letter: Sheldon's go to threat. Once he wrote to a company over feminine yoghurt.
• Stupid Question Bait: Sheldon opens up to audience questions as a way of getting everyone back on topic after the group's panel on the ethical use of science in the 21st century turned into everyone squabbling as the panel consists entirely of friends and couples. Unfortunately, the person in that audience to respond was their friend Penny, who only wanted to add additional commentary to the squabbling. It was probably his fault for not prefacing it with "questions that actually have something to do with ethics, and not our personal problems".
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Penny's ex-boyfriend Zac has this effect on Amy Farrah-Fowler. It's played with because she's usually asexual.
  • Early season one Penny started dating a guy for the first time and Leonard was a little miffed about it. When the others pressed him they asked "Is it because he looks better than you?" and Leonard admitted that it was true, "He was rather dreamy."
• Stupidly Long Filler Sound: Played with where after finding out Leonard's mother is coming to visit, Penny pelts Leonard with questions on whether she knew the two of them were going out. Leonard continues responding with "uhhhh", to the point where Sheldon says:
  Sheldon: Leonard, I'm no expert on meditation, but if you're trying to calm yourself down, I believe the word is "Om".
• Stylistic Suck: Sheldon and Amy's podcast "Fun with Flags".
  • In something of a meta version, in the first season Howard imitates Raj in a way that makes him sound more like Apu from The Simpsons instead of his actual accent. There are similar imitations of Raj by other characters. Simon Helberg (Howard) is actually a gifted impressionist and can imitate Kunal Nyyar (Raj) rather flawlessly, which he does later in the shows run.
• Surprise Checkmate: Penny does this to Leonard when he is trying to teach her chess.
• Surprise Party: In one installment, Penny tries to throw Leonard a surprise birthday party when she finds out that he's never had a birthday party, but it doesn't work out. Leonard has to take Howard to the emergency room for a peanut allergy reaction and they don't get back home until well after the party is over.
• Surprisingly Mundane Reason: In "The 43 Peculiarity", Howard and Raj try to figure out what Sheldon does every day from 2:45-3:05 PM. After following him to a mysterious basement room, they theorize he may have chained up someone like Bill Gates or Stephen Hawking there, or that he's working on a secret wormhole experiment, driving themselves crazy until Sheldon pranks them and says they have no right to know. At the end of the episode, it's revealed to the audience that he simply uses the room to practice hacky sack.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Has its own page.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Despite being surrounded by geniuses, Penny has common sense that none of the others possess.
  • This forms a lot of Sheldon's frustrations towards Penny, which gets reversed in "The Shiny Trinket Manuever" where Sheldon keeps getting distracted at a jewelry store;
    Penny: This is how it feels when I say something stupid to you, isn't it?
• Survival Mantra: Here's Sheldon's.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • "Congratulations for your award, Sheldon! I have brought you a cake from the restaurant. To celebrate, not because someone has sneezed at it..."
  • The episode "The Griffin Equivalency" shows Raj answering his parents video chat with, "Hello mommy and daddy, good to see you. I'm not drunk."
  • Sheldon defends his mental status with this gem: "I'm not insane. My mother had me tested."
  • In the episode "The Spaghetti Catalyst", Sheldon is told that he cannot hang out with Penny since she's Leonards ex. Trying to hide the fact that he has already made dinner plans with her, he sits down to eat with the guys. When asked if he wants the last dumpling, he thus says: "Certainly. It's not like I have to moderate my food intake because I'm planning on eating again very shortly."
  • In "The Desperation Emanation", Bernadette brings up a pact she made with her coworkers after a petri dish of genetically modified super-virus went missing.
    Bernadette: That day we made a pinky swear never to admit we crossed Ebola with the common cold.
    Howard: Why the hell would you cross Ebola with the common cold?
    Bernadette: We never did. That would be a terrible, terrible thing.
  • Stuart when he talks to a cute woman dressed as a Hot Witch at his and Raj's Halloween party. She compliments their monster food as it looks fun.
    Stuart: I like to think of fun things like that. Because I'm fun. I'm not clinically depressed at all.
  • Sheldon's female lab assistant Alex turned out to like Leonard, and eventually asked him out. When Penny heard about it, it was her turn to become a Crazy Jealous Guy and Leonard was amazed that she could act that way. After some talking, Penny admits that Alex is pretty and smart and "When you talk about work she doesn't have to go home and look up words in the dictionary to figure out what you said." When he asks if she actually does that she replies with a quick "No!"
  • One episode has Amy talking about how she'll be running a new study on chimpanzees to see if a particular enzyme makes them feel fear. Bernadette follows up:
    Bernadette: Well, if they're anything like humans, the answer's "yes."
    Amy: Wait, you've...you've done this experiment on humans?
    Bernadette: You mean like death row inmates with nothing to lose?...no, that would be unethical.
• Swapped Roles: Whenever Sheldon orders food, he gives Leonard a Long List of strict requirements for his order. In "The Einstein Approximation," Sheldon kinda sorta gets a job at the Cheesecake Factory, so Leonard is the one giving him the food order for a change. Leonard really enjoys this:
  Leonard: Hang on. Black beans, not pinto beans?
  Sheldon: Yes.
  Leonard: Double guacamole?
  Sheldon: Of course.
  Leonard: No cilantro?
  Sheldon: Nope.
  Leonard: Lettuce shredded, not chopped?
  Sheldon: Yep.
  Leonard: You understand why I’m doing this to you?
  Sheldon: I do.
  Leonard: That’ll be all. (to Raj and Howard) That was fun.
• Sympathetic Wince: When a spat over a parking spot between Sheldon and Howard is picked up by their respective Love Interests, Bernadette decides to cut as deep to the bone as she can by asking, "Gosh, Amy, I'm sensing a little hostility. Is it maybe because, like Sheldon's work, your sex life is also theoretical?" Even Penny winces at that, with a sharp, "Damn..."
• Sweets of Temptation: When President Seibert tries to get the main quartet to attend a party, Sheldon cautions the other three not to "get in the van just because he's offering candy." Sheldon demands to know what the catch is, for Seibert to admit that it's for a fundraiser.
  Sheldon: Ah, there it is, the tear-stained mattress in the back of the van.

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