The Thespian Catalyst

The Thespian Catalyst is the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. This episode first aired on February 3, 2011.

Summary
Sheldon gets a lot of negative responses about a his Physics lecture. After talking to Amy, he decides to take acting lessons from Penny because he believes this will help him entertain his audience. Meanwhile, Raj, who is without a girlfriend is having various daydreams which romantically involve Bernadette.

Extended Plot
Sheldon gives a lecture in a class, making his usual condescending comments. Meanwhile, the gang is enjoying the tweets of the people at Sheldon' s lecture; all negative towards him. When he arrives home, he expects the reaction to his lecture to be monumentally positive, but his friends proceed to read out some of the tweets.

Later, at the Cheesecake Factory, Raj mentions how it's sad to "accidentally walk into a gay bar and have no one hit on you." This makes Leonard and Howard think Raj 's deprivation of female company has caused some issues. Bernadette comforts and reassures Raj.

Amy tries to cheer Sheldon up, but on failing that she proposes he take acting lessons as it is the responsibility of the teacher to "communicate as well as entertain and engage." Sheldon goes to Penny to ask for acting lessons; she agrees after he offers to pay her. Sheldon 's first acting class ends up stressing Penny, and in the second, they act out a script that Sheldon wrote when he was ten years old; "Where No Sheldon Has Gone Before." Penny takes the role of Mr Spock , saying Sheldon needs to be out of his comfort zone, while Sheldon plays his mother who is sending him off to the 23rd century at the request of Mr Spock , who says that he is the best hope to bring peace to a vast and troubled galaxy. Eventually this brings out very emotional feelings from Sheldon. He cries because in the play he doesn't want to get taken away. Penny calls his mother to help him settle down: "Hi, Mrs Cooper . It's Penny. Yeah, I think I broke your son".

Raj has a dream in which Howard has been offered a fellowship, but he has to leave the country and while he is away requests that Raj satisfies Bernadette 's sexual needs; Raj willingly agrees to it. Later he daydreams that Howard is hit by a truck and is not going to make it, but is able to convey his last wish, which is for Raj to take care of Bernadette sexually; again he agrees. The final dream sees Bernadette approach him infuriated, but the scene quickly changes into a Bollywood-style dance routine.

Critics
"This is exactly what you would expect from the show: two good story ideas which go nowhere. The writers are far more interested in creating jokes around their initial concepts than actually bringing them to a conclusion. I think the show suffers because the best jokes come out of fully realised stories." - The TV Critic's Review

Quotes
Penny: Mrs. Cooper, hey, it's Penny, yeah, I think I broke your son.

Sheldon: Mommy, I love you, don't let Spock take me to the future.

Raj: Dance number aside, I am so not gay.

Trivia

 * Howard says, "FYI, I think that’s what Darth Vader said just before he started building the Death Star." Darth Vader did build the Death Star, as explicitly revealed in The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader: Of all the operations that Darth Vader oversaw, the most important was the construction of the Death Star, a moon-sized battle station that, when finished, would be equipped with a superlaser capable of destroying entire planets.
 * The Sci-Fi Channel was actually renamed Syfy.
 * Raj considers Labradoodles to have high sex appeal.
 * One of the apparel Sheldon wears, more specifically in the scene where he knocks on Penny's door earlier in the episode, contains a number 73. This is a reference to the episode The Alien Parasite Hypothesis.
 * In the beginning of the episode, Sheldon serves as a guest lecturer on the topic of topological insulators.
 * Penny appears to either have Mary Cooper's phone number memorized or have her on speed dial.
 * Raj's hallucination with Bernadette turns into an Indian music video.

Goofs

 * When Sheldon is asking Penny for acting lessons, the latter looks directly at the camera, and therefore the audience, mid-way through the scene, thus unintentionally 'breaking the fourth wall."