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The Big Bang Theory Season 4 Episode 14

The Thespian Catalyst

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AIRED: Feb 03, 2011

7.8

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Episode Summary

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Hoping it will make him a better teacher, Sheldon has Penny give him acting lessons. Raj has fantasies about Bernadette.

Fan Episode Reviews (3)

Overall, the episode was extremely hilarious, wonderfully well written and as usually well directed. Though Leonard and Howard did not have much to do, the guest star Melissa Rauch (Bernadette)is seen getting more and more prominent.moreless

9.0

By ChinmayRatnap, May 23, 2011

Its no wonder that The Big Bang Theory was renewed for another three seasons, as they are coming up with surprisingly unexpected ideas and wonderful performances by lead actors as well as the guest stars. "The Thespian Catalyst" was not an exception.

Sheldon is attempting a tremendous endeavor of becoming a good lecturer but the selectively chosen brilliant students are probably unable to match their intellect with him and tweet about his poor social sense, engaging skills and condescending attitude. After Leonard, Howard and Raj eagerly point this out to him, Sheldon talks to Amy Farrah Fowler and decides to take acting classes from Penny. Naturally he sucks at improvisation.

Parallelly while discussing about students rejecting Sheldon, Raj talks about how his feelings when he accidentally walked in a gay bar and had no one hitting on him are similar to Sheldon's feelings and how he has lost his confidence in picking up women. Bernadette, who is serving them overhears the conversation and tries to comfort Raj by telling him that he is pretty attractive. He fantasizes about her three times. In each of his day dreams, he sees Howard going away and handing over the responsibility of Bernadette to him. His day dreams are used as fillers in the Sheldons parallel story. On the final note, Sheldon dominates Penny read the play he has written himself. He starts up well when Penny forces him to switch characters with her, but while improvising, he forgets the play, relates it to his real life and ends up crying on the phone with his mother. The episode concludes with an ultimate fantasy of Raj dancing with Bernadette on weird bollywood music, he finally comes to his senses and mumbles, "I'm definetly not gay..!"

The episode starts on a high note and gets higher towards the end..!moreless
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Mrs. Cooper? It's Penny. I think I broke your son.

9.0

By doguineta, Feb 21, 2011

So after SHeldon gets back home after giving a lecture, the guys tell him about the stundents tweets and blog entries. Sheldon is baffled and Amy suggests him to take acting classes. Shedlon asks PEnny for actiong lessons. So after some lessons, Sheldon then brings a play he wrote about Spock coming to get him to join the crew. Penny aks him to play his mom to shake things up, and Sheldon gets some emotional breakdown. Penny calls MRs. Cooper and Shelly tells her he loves her.

There was also as subplots, a series of fantasies Raj had about Howard leaving (or dying) and wanting him to hump Bernadette while he is gone.And a Bollywood number. And LEonard was questioning Syfy.

Title Reference: Thespian = actor/tress

OVerall: Good episode. Both plots and Leonard's mini scene were funny. A deserved 9/10.moreless
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8.5

By Canogaparkcindy, Feb 11, 2011

Another great episode of Big Bang Theory, I can definitely see this show return to form, it's been in a bit of a slump this season, but this and last week's episode was quite impressive. We got great Sheldon & Penny interactions, even though I was having trouble finding reason in Sheldon's decision to take acting classes from Penny, it was still good.

The improv was absolutely hysterical, as was the script reading at the very end. Kaley Cuoco really stole the show here, and we got plenty of Sheldonisms as well, which is pretty much a recipe for a great episode. Also it didn't hurt that the Leonard scenes were kept to a minimum.

Raj was particularly funny except it was quite predictable when he started dreaming, since he talked to Bernadette without a problem, at that point, you knew something weird was going on. Great installment tonight.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Johnny Galecki	Leonard Hofstadter
Jim Parsons	Sheldon Cooper
Kaley Cuoco	Penny
Simon Helberg	Howard Wolowitz
Kunal Nayyar	Rajesh Koothrappali
Melissa Rauch	Bernadette Rostenkowski

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Episode Photos

Kunal Nayyar and Melissa Rauch on The Bi...

© 2011 CBS Corporation
Kunal Nayyar and Melissa Rauch on The Bi...

© 2011 CBS Corporation
Kunal Nayyar and Melissa Rauch on The Bi...

© 2011 CBS Corporation
Melissa Rauch, Kunal Nayyar and Johnny G...

© 2011 CBS Corporation

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (1)
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- When Sheldon is reading the tweets about his guest teaching experience, he says, "I'm not familiar with the acronym 'KMN.'" This is actually not an acronym, just an abbreviation, as an acronym is required to be a pronounceable word.
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QUOTES (0)
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NOTES (2)
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- This episode's end titles has Chuck Lorre's Vanity Card #326.
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- International Airdates: United Kingdom: July 7, 2011 on E4; Turkey: October 25, 2011 on CNBC-e; Czech Republic: November 28, 2011 on Prima COOL; Slovakia: December 8, 2011 on Markiza
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- Howard's comment of, "I think that was what Darth Vader said just before he started building the Death Star," following Sheldon's reaction to his students' complaints over his lecture, refers to the 1977 movie Star Wars. Technically this is a mistake, as neither Death Star in the original trilogy was started by him.
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