- Title: The Big Bang Theory – The Proton Displacement
- wiki: link
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) becomes miffed when his childhood idol Professor Proton (Bob Newhart) enlists the help of Leonard (Johnny Galecki) to look over a scientific paper he was writing. Neither his conversation with Amy (Mayim Bialik), who points out how some people might consider him annoying, nor his attempt to make the former television scientist jealous by publicly hanging out with Bill Nye make the scientist feel any better about the situation.
In the episode’s B-story Raj (Kunal Nayyar) becomes jealous when after mocking his friend for hanging out with the girls Howard (Simon Helberg) decides to join them and, in Raj’s opinion, hijacks their evenings with more elaborate plans. Eventually the pair reconcile, although Raj’s attempt to apologize to his best-friend creates an absurd Star Wars belt buckle debacle.
It’s nice to see Newhart return and Professor Proton’s obvious hatred for The Science Guy provides the episode’s best moment, although his incredulity at learning Sheldon has a girlfriend comes in as a close second. Although the set-up forces Sheldon to be in super-annoying mode for nearly the entire episode, Leonard taking the time to defend his friendship to the professor works well. It’s been awhile since the show so blatantly discussed the homosexual undercurrents of the Howard/Raj bromance but Amy’s offhand comment is hard to argue against.
