The Holographic Excitation

The Holographic Excitation is the fifth episode of the sixth season of the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. This episode first aired on October 25, 2012.

Summary
For the Comic Book Store Halloween party, Amy and Sheldon are at odds for their couple Halloween costumes, while Raj is the party planner.

Extended Plot
The episode starts with Howard presenting Stuart with his official NASA portrait (autographed, of course), though Sheldon mentioned that he also gave one to the dry cleaners and Walgreen's drug store. Leonard and Sheldon hypothesize that Howard will connect his trip into space with any subject, and decide to test their theory. Leonard succeeds immediately talking about dinner options; Sheldon initially appears to strike out when he brings up lemons, but Howard meets their expectations moments later. Stuart decides to organize a Halloween party at his comic book store, so Raj decides to become the party planner.

Amy and Bernadette are attending ladies night at the Cheesecake Factory bar while Penny serves them. Amy claims that life doesn't get any better than this, to which Penny says to herself that she hopes it does gets better. Leonard texts Penny about going out costume shopping. Penny confides in the girls that she's going to the comic book store Halloween party even though the guys that hang around there can be creepy. Amy and Bernadette then ask, like their better halves? Bernadette also says that Leonard does things that he doesn't like to make her happy and that maybe she should take more interest in his work. Penny says that that is true but she doesn't understand what he does, and their explanations about theoretical physics don’t help.

Later, Amy and Sheldon are discussing theirHalloween costume ideas and Sheldon surprises Amy by agreeing to go in a couple’s costumes because that is one of the great advantages of being in a relationship. (Note: sex is not one of them.) Amy wants to go as something like Romeo and Juliet, however, Sheldon' s ideas for great costumes are R2-D2 and C-3PO orHewlett and Packard. Amy disagrees and doesn't want to go as two robots from a movie she doesn't even like.

Penny visits Leonard 's Lab and he shows her some of his "high techy techy" equipment, including a system that scans objects and generates rotating holograms. First there is a floating pencil, which changes into a rotating Earth and then a rotating galaxy . Leonard muses about some scientists who think that the whole universe is one largehologram. Penny remarks that she forgets how smart he really is, gets turned on, locks the door and they start to fool around on the lab table.

In the cafeteria, Raj is discussing his Halloween themed party foods and Howard keeps talking about his time in space. Leonard wanders in with his hair messed up and a smile on his face. Asked about what is going on and he replies "nothing." Howard says that he knows where there is a lot of nothing is and the three of the guys say "space" simultaneously.

Howard and Bernadette had just crawled into bed and started getting romantic, but after six space metaphors, Bernadette stops to talk. She tells him that people are getting tired of hearing about it. Howard complains that he can't talk about the greatest adventure of his life, and she suggests that he wait until they bring it up.

Penny is again visiting Leonard 's lab as he demonstrates a floating iron ball levitated by a largemagnetic force. Penny thinks its very neat untilLeonard mentions that sometimes he feels likeMagneto from the X-Men. Penny replies now it seems less neat, until Leonard mentions he's wearing the black underwear she bought him. "There ya, go," she replies, and starts to kiss him again. In the cafeteria, Raj is getting a Doctor WhoTARDIS photo booth for the party which excites Sheldon , while Howard is being very quiet and noncommittal. He finds that Sheldon and Raj agree that he was talking too much about space. Leonard enters again, all messed up and very happy.

Amy and Sheldon are still discussing their costumes. Sheldon suggestssalt and pepper, but Amy has had a bad experience with both. She claims that there are three things that say that she doesn't have a made-up boyfriend: couples costumes, hickies, and sex tapes. She asks Sheldon to pick one, to which he asks what a hickey is.

At Bernadette 's apartment, they are both dressed up as Smurfs. Howard isn't that excited to go since all his friends think he is boring. Bernadette asks if he is feeling blue, laughing that that's like the funniest thing she ever said. She then pushes him out the door since she just spent three hours painting herself blue and doesn't want people to think she is a very short alien from the movie Avatar.

At the Halloween Party, Penny dresses as a sexy cop and Leonard goes as Albert Einstein. Bernadette mistakes her for a slutty cop, but Penny explains that that costume only came with a skirt and two badges. Leonard says (in a German accent) that later she was going to arrest him for travellingfaster than the speed of light. Penny reminds him about their no-accent rule, to which he replies, "Sorry, officer." Stuart as Willy Wonka tries to pick up a girl, claiming to have come up with all the party food and decorations, much to Raj 's disgust. Raj is Indian Jones, the love child of Indiana Jones. Amy and Sheldon show up as "Raggedy C-3PO " and Raggedy Ann due to "a compromise" (which Sheldon lost). Howard gets upset about not being about to talk about has space adventures because otherwise he’s just plain old Howard Wolowitz. Bernadette reminds him that he is best guy she knows and that she married him "on purpose." Penny and Leonard stumble out to the TARDIS all disheveled and Penny explains that there is nothing to see, only sexy police business. Leonard says that he was explaining to her the theory of relativity ... twice.

At the end, Howard gets a YouTube clip from Raj showing Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, handing out Halloween candy to kids mentioning his trip to space to every kid. Howard tells Bernadette that he now gets it.

Quotes

 * Penny: [reading a text] Uh it's from Leonard. He wants to go costume shopping later.
 * Amy: I thought you liked Halloween.
 * Penny: I do it's just that he wants to go to that party at the comic book store. A lot of the guys that hang out there are kinda creepy.
 * Bernadette: Like my husband?
 * Amy: And my boyfriend?

Trivia

 * Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong makes his first guest appearance on the show in this episode.
 * Apparently, Raj knows of Buzz Aldrin by now, as he thought the only astronaut named "Buzz" was Buzz Lightyear in The Friendship Contraction.
 * Raj said in The Countdown Reflection (S5E24), "I keep telling you, if I wasn't an astrophysicist, I would have been a party planner." In this episode he really acts as a party planner.
 * Sheldon fittingly turns himself into the droid C-3PO for the Halloween party. In The Vegas Renormalization, Raj inquired if Leonard kind of looked like a shiny Sheldon after the latter of the two claimed to be a Star Wars character for a guessing game and Sheldon remarked, "That’s preposterous. I do not resemble C-3PO. Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered, I just don’t see it." (He has also been compared to a robot in The Fuzzy Boots Corollary and The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification.)
 * At the party, Leonard adopts the guise and accent of one of the gang's idols, Albert Einstein. Einstein has also been referenced in dialogue in The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation, The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary, The Einstein Approximation, The Lunar Excitation, The Boyfriend Complexity, and The Wildebeest Implementation. In The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification, he appeared in the photograph of the 1911 Solvay Conference. Further, the eponymous Bose-Einstein condensates are the focus of The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization.
 * In his Albert Einstein costume, Leonard jokingly refers to faster-than-light (FTL) travel with regard to himself, which is prohibited by Einstein's special theory of relativity. [In special relativity (SR), a particle (that has rest mass) with subluminal velocity needs infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light; however, SR does not forbid the existence of particles that travel faster than light at all times (tachyons).] Likewise, in The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary, Leonard whimsically revised another consequence of SR associated with the speed of light, as he stated: "How about that? Einstein was wrong ... Approaching the speed of light doesn’t slow down time. Approaching them does." [See time dilation.]
 * Raj dons an Indiana Jones costume and refers to himself as "Indian Jones" for the Halloween party (or "Koothra-party") at the comic book store, reaffirming the gang's love for that franchise first displayed in The 21-Second Excitation.
 * Howard and Bernadette appear at the comic book store as Smurfs. In The Toast Derivation, Sheldon introduced his new friends to a set of vintage video games, including ColecoVision’s Smurf Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle.
 * Penny expresses her wish to get to know about Leonard's work in The Gorilla Experiment (S3E10) when Bernadette went to visit Leonard's Lab; curiously, Penny doesn't visit the Lab until this episode.
 * When Leonard invites Bernadette to come see his electron accelerator in The Gorilla Experiment, Howard remarks, "I practically invented using fancy lab equipment to seduce women." Unlike Howard, who admits that it has not worked so far, Leonard successfully employs this technique herein.
 * Leonard explains the holographic principle of string theory to Penny, while showing her a series of holograms in his lab using a front-projected holographic display combined with laser-based finger tracking. Leonard also reveals he has an integrated ion trap and time-of-flight mass spectrometer, a nitrogen laser, and maglev technology in his laboratory.
 * Penny revs up her relationship with Leonard by have sex with him in different places; his lab and the TARDIS booth at the Halloween party. She also is awed by what she sees in his lab and realizes again how smart he is.
 * Leonard and Penny's having sex in the TARDIS photo booth is a reference to one of the major storylines in Doctor Who. In that series, the Doctor's companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, shared their wedding night in the TARDIS, which resulted in the conception of their human/Time Lord offspring Melody Pond (aka River Song). Penny's sexy policewoman costume is a further reference to Amy Pond, who wore a similar costume for her job as a kiss-o-gram girl, and later donned the same outfit during her honeymoon.
 * When Sheldon and Amy are deciding which couple to dress up as, one of the couples on Amy's list is "Blossom and Joey". This is a reference to the 1990s sitcom Blossom which starred Mayim Bialik as Blossom Russo and Joey Lawrence as her brother Joey. In The Bat Jar Conjecture, Raj suggests getting "the actress who played TV's Blossom" for their physics bowl team to replace Sheldon.
 * Besides the above mentioned couples costume ideas, the ones listed on Sheldon's side are Hewlitt & Packard, Batman & Robin, Jobs & Wozniak, Kirk & Spock, Arthur Dent & Ford Prefect, and The Doctor & a Dalek. The ones on Amy's side (besides those mentioned above), are Cinderella & Prince Charming, Anthony & Cleopatra, Lady & Tramp, Romeo & Juliet, Jack & Rose, and Dharma & Greg (a show produced by Chuck Lorre)
 * When Raj asks Howard why he was feeling down at the Halloween Party, Howard makes a reference to the Space Sphere from Portal 2 by shouting "SPACE!!! SPACE!!! SPAAAAACE!!!!!!!"
 * Leonard tells Penny that Howard built a robotic girlfriend called "Lisatronic 3000" long before meeting Bernadette, while in the Guitarrist Amplification Howard tells Leonard that he will get a girlfriend if he know to build one, although Howard had already built Lisatronic 3000

Reference

 * Taping report by Roxanne

Gallery
The Holographic Excitation