S04E08 - The 21-Second Excitation

Because of her broken leg Kaley Cuoco is shown working as The Cheesecake Factory's bartender again, instead of her normal job as a waitress. Also, a body double is used when Penny storms off near the end of the show.

First episode in which Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch's names are shown in the beginning of the episode with the rest of the main cast.

Penny tells Leonard she can't believe he's never read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Raj says the book changed his life and later tries to tell the guys about it. Eventually, Leonard can be seen reading it while the guys are waiting in line to get into the movie theater.

The ending of the episode where Sheldon runs from the theater is a spoof of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

The Miller's Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" really is filthy. At the denouement a wife is having sex with her lover when she sticks her rear out a window to trick a nerdy cleric into kissing her lower lips but he gets suspicious because he knows a woman has not a beard so he gets a red hot poker and shoves it up the ass of the wife's lover who yells for water causing the cuckolded husband to cut a rope suspending himself from the barn roof causing him to fall and break a few bones. Amy's recount, while properly using some Old English words, is clearly a condensed/unexpurgated version.

The quote that Sheldon uses against Wil Wheaton comes from Jean-Luc Picard fighting the Borg invasion in Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Wheaton played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) where Picard was his captain, but was absent from First Contact.

The so-called "submarine controversy" from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) refers to the scene where Indiana Jones grabs hold to the outside of a Nazi submarine and rides it all the way to their hidden island base. The "controversy" is how Indy knew the sub wouldn't submerge and likely cause him to drown. In novelizations and comic adaptations of the film, the submarine does submerge, but Indy lashes himself to the periscope, which remains above water.

The yelp that Kaley Cuoco blurts out when Mayim Bialik hits her with a pillow was genuine, as she wasn't expecting to actually be hit with it.

This is the first episode the girls all share a scene together.

Two of the men accompanying Wil Wheaton to the movie are Captain Sweatpants and Lonely Larry, who are frequently seen in the Comic Book Store; the third man (Jesse Heiman) was first introduced in The Desperation Emanation (2010) as a Comic Book Store customer. He makes three more appearances in the show (at Wil Wheaton's party in The Russian Rocket Reaction (2011); at Howard's stag party in The Stag Convergence (2012), and during the Valentine party in The Tangible Affection Proof (2013)) but never received a nickname.

Goofs

None

Cast

Johnny Galecki	Leonard Hofstadter
Jim Parsons	Sheldon Cooper
Kaley Cuoco	Penny
Simon Helberg	Howard Wolowitz
Kunal Nayyar	Raj Koothrappali
Mayim Bialik	Amy Farrah Fowler
Melissa Rauch	Bernadette Rostenkowski
Wil Wheaton	Wil Wheaton
Eric Andre	Joey

S04E08 - The 21-Second Excitation

Summary

Director and Writers

Script

Quotes

Notes and Trivia

Goofs

Cast

Quote Cloud