The Lizard-Spock Expansion

Summary
A smitten Wolowitz thinks he's found his soul mate--until the woman, Dr. Stephanie Barnett (Sara Rue), meets Leonard. Wolowitz invites Stephanie to drive the Mars rover, which winds up stuck in a ditch. Eventually, to hide evidence of what he has done, Wolowitz destroys all the security tapes and hard drives he can find relating to the Mars Rover mission. Leonard has a hard time deciding how to break the news to Howard that he is dating Stephanie. Sheldon, of course, is no help. Leonard decides to go to Howard's house to tell him himself. While there, Stephanie calls Howard and gives him the news. Howard tells Leonard "You are dead to me," which lasts until Stephanie invites Howard on a double-date. At the end of the episode, Wolowitz hears the news on TV that the Mars rover has found life on Mars in the bottom of the ditch, but as so much data has been mysteriously lost no one will ever know who made the amazing discovery. The episode closes with Wolowitz remarking "Son of a bitch!"

Trivia

 * Sheldon is a fan of Saturn 3, Raj likes Deep Space 9, and Leonard proposes watching Babylon 5, since numerically, it's between the two. This devolves into arguing over which is better, and only resolves to somewhat agree that Star Trek 5 is worse than the others (see the Production Note).
 * RPSSL.gif"Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock" is an expansion of the classic Rock-paper-scissors game by Sam Kass, which turns the classic three-way game into five-way, while keeping the original associations in the three way game, as so:
 * SCISSORS cuts PAPER
 * PAPER covers ROCK
 * ROCK crushes LIZARD
 * LIZARD poisons SPOCK
 * SPOCK smashes SCISSORS
 * SCISSORS decapitates LIZARD
 * LIZARD eats PAPER
 * PAPER disproves SPOCK
 * SPOCK vaporizes ROCK
 * ROCK crushes SCISSORS
 * The DEFCON (Defense Readiness Condition) numbers do indeed count down, with a lower number indicating a higher-level of emergency than a larger number.

Chuck Lorre Productions #227
Dear George Lucas,

May I call you Mr. Lucas? On behalf of the writers of The Big Bang Theory, I would like to thank you for your astounding body of work, which has awakened the child within us and unleashed our dreams. That being said, we hope you don't take offense at our good-natured jest regarding your most recent animated efforts. Yes they were cheap shots, but we can't help but hold you to a higher standard&mdash;a standard of your own making. In closing, we are all looking forward to Indiana Jones 5-The Curse of the Golden Catheter. Oops, sorry again.

Very Truly Yours,

The Writers

P.S. To William Shatner, director of Star Trek 5, Go ahead, sue us.

Critics
"I really want to like this episode, the comedy is good, the focus is on Leonard for once but unfortunately I can’t. The writers lack of thought it annoying and again they limit the show. There seems to be a desire from the producers to keep the show from evolving. That’s a loss for the viewers because this show has the potential to be so much more." - The TV Critic's Review