"The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation" is the first episode and season premiere of the third season of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. This episode first aired on Monday, September 21, 2009.
Summary
Sheldon is humiliated by the guys tampering with the data they gathered at the North Pole, while Penny finally shows her feelings for Leonard.
Extended Plot
The guys returning from the trip.
Three months after the guys head off to the North Pole for a research trip, they are now returning to the Apartment Building with long hair and bushy beards except for Sheldon, who only has slightly longer hair and a goatee. Leonard, Howard, and Raj are all relieved to be home from their trip in "frozen hell" and "snowy nightmare" being in close quarters with Sheldon, while Sheldon thought the expedition was "a hoot and a half".
Afterwards, Sheldon is calling his mom and letting her know that he is back home safely. He is also "entirely certain" that a Nobel prize is in his future, and rejects the notion that prayer from his mother's church group helped keep him safe. After the call is over, he sits at his spot on the couch after not having done so for three months.
Penny happily greets Leonard.
Meanwhile, Leonard goes across the hall to Apartment 4B to greet Penny, which she enthusiastically responds with a kiss at the door. The two then enter Penny's apartment while still kissing, with Howard lamenting that he should have gone over and said hi, and Raj sarcastically responds that "yeah, it was first come, first served".
Howard and Raj confesses to Sheldon.
Back at apartment 4A, Sheldon is visibly excited about his research breakthrough during the trip, and is planning to publish his findings. Raj suggests to Howard that they tell Sheldon the truth, which Sheldon overhears, forcing the two to confess. Sheldon believes that the two are planning a party for him, then expresses understanding during the night the heat went out. It is revealed that the four of them slept together without clothes after the heat went out to use their body temperatures to keep warm. Howard and Raj then confess that after the first few weeks of not finding magnetic monopoles, Sheldon was being increasingly annoying, and the other three decided to fake positive results with static from an electric can opener turning on and off. Sheldon was shocked that the group tampered with his experiment, and became enraged with Leonard after finding out that it was his idea.
Sheldon confronts Leonard about the experiment.
At Penny's apartment, Leonard and Penny are together making out when Sheldon knocks at the door and angrily confronts Leonard about the experiment. Leonard explains that he did it because Sheldon was being absolutely unbearable during the expedition when he wasn't getting the results he wanted. Plans to kill him were even brought up and discussed, which involved leaving Sheldon outside with a Kindle or tearing Sheldon's limbs apart with four sled dogs. Leonard then tells Sheldon that they can still publish the actual negative results, but Sheldon revealed to him that he had already contacted everyone at the university about the positive results. Leonard tries to brush it off and tells Sheldon to write another e-mail to set things straight, annoyed that his time with Penny is being interrupted. However, Penny feels bad for Sheldon and decides to comfort him.
Penny comforts Sheldon.
In Sheldon's Bedroom, Penny is consoling Sheldon, and Sheldon is visibly crushed by his best friend's betrayal and also that he missed Comic-Con. Penny, not knowing what to do, tries to sing Soft Kitty to him, but he stops her since he is not sick, just sad. Penny then shared her own story of disappointment when she lost her nomination as head cheerleader in high school. She then lets Sheldon know that the guys were only using an unfortunate lie to deal with a difficult situation, and did not mean to hurt Sheldon. She then uses a Star Trek metaphor to help calm Sheldon down, but it only makes him realize that he missed the new Star Trek movie.
At the Cafeteria, Leonard, Howard, and Raj finally get a haircut and shave their beards, with Howard only leaving a moustache. Leonard reveals that Sheldon wore a Darth Vader helmet and tried to choke Leonard with The Force that morning, meaning he is still mad at the group. After Leonard deflects questions from Howard about his relationship with Penny, Sheldon enters the cafeteria sitting at a nearby table alone and tries to choke all three with The Force. As Leonard tries to apologize to Sheldon, Kripke comes in and makes fun of Sheldon for having to write a retraction email and destroy his reputation. Angered, Sheldon makes an announcement to the room asserting that there is no such thing as failure in Science, and cites Einstein's prediction of a cosmological constant as an example. Kripke is undeterred and calls Sheldon a loser, leaving Sheldon without a scathing retort.
Leonard gifts Penny a snowflake.
At Penny's apartment, Leonard gifts Penny a snowflake from the North Pole preserved in a 1% solution of polyvinyl acetal resin. Penny finds this to be the romantic thing someone said to her that she didn't understand, and kisses Leonard. Right then, Howard arrives and tells them that Sheldon has ran away since he's not answering his phone, turned in a resignation letter to the university, and sent a text that said "I'm running away". Leonard tries to assign tasks to Howard and Raj so that he can stay with Penny, but then receives a call from Sheldon's mother Mary. Mary tells Leonard that Sheldon went to her house in Texas, and Leonard is again unwilling to leave. After Penny promises him that she will be here when he returns, Leonard reluctantly agrees to go to Texas and find Sheldon.
Sheldon at his mother's house.
At his mother's home, Sheldon becomes increasingly annoyed by his mother's Christian lifestyle, such as having to pray before eating. When Mary asks Sheldon what happened with his friends, Sheldon rejects calling them his friends, and Mary reminded Sheldon of his troubles with their neighbors he was little.
The guys in Texas fetching Sheldon.
Meanwhile, the guys are traveling to Texas with a rental car, and Howard is wearing a ridiculous outfit of red turtleneck and a cowboy hat. They are also discussing how Texas isn't the same as how they imagined based on the movies they watched. After arriving at Mary's house, she greets the guys warmly and offers drinks to them. She also tells Howard to cut out trying to act Texan and offers a church healer to address Raj's selective mutism. After Leonard tells Mary to be quick so they can head back, she correctly guesses that it's about a girl and she is happy for him since she prayed on that. When Leonard again apologizes to Sheldon, he is still reluctant and prefers to stay in Texas to teach evolution to creationists. When Mary corrects Sheldon on that as his personal opinion, he finds the Christian atmosphere unbearable and agrees to return to Pasadena with the guys. Mary then takes this as a demonstration of the power of prayer.
Leonard and Penny together.
Back at home, Penny and Leonard finally hook up, but both of them now feel their relationship has gotten weird.
Credits
- Guest starring:
- Teleplay: Steven Molaro, Chuck Lorre & Jim Reynolds
- Story: Bill Prady, Lee Aronsohn & Steve Holland
Critics
- "I don’t think this show is in terminal decline just yet. Of course my standards for it and desires for it are different to its producers. But I still think it will stay fresher for longer with a little more care and attention than it currently receives." - The TV Critic's Review
- IMDb user reviews
Notes
- The title refers to the appliance that Leonard, Howard and Raj used to give Sheldon false results in lieu of killing him.
- Chuck Lorre's vanity card [1]
- This episode was watched by 12.96 million people with a rating of 4.7 (adults 18–49).
- This episode aired in Canada on September 21, 2009.
- Episode transcript [2]
Science
- Sheldon's experiment was to track slow moving magnetic monopoles at the magnetic North Pole.
Logic
- Sheldon accuses his mother of having resorted to post hoc, ergo propter hoc, an informal fallacy in the form of "X occurred, then Y occurred, therefore X has caused Y to occur". The error is one of mistaking correlation with causation. In simple language, he is saying "one cannot assert that I came home safely only and only because my mother prayed for my safety". However, Sheldon himself is committing an informal fallacy because there is no evidence that his mother has said "only and only". In fact he is famous for dismissing anything that he himself cannot quantify as "hokum".
Culture
- Sheldon believes his work on Magnetic Monopoles will gain him a Nobel Prize.
- Howard and Leonard say that Sheldon has Vulcan hearing, referring to the race of people from Star Trek.
- Sheldon makes reference to emoticons (himself being :D, then Raj noting he became :O following the revelation).
Costume Notes
 Celestia |  Ames Bros Ray Gun |
 BDG stripes |
| Sheldon wears the green Goodnight celestial graphic shirt, his Ames Brothers Flash RayGun t-shirt, and his BDG multi-colored pin striped tee (discontinued from Urban Outfitters). | ||
 Turntable |
 Red Tiger |
 Unknown moon/pagota |
| Leonard wears the Turntable shirt by Heavy Rotation, his red tiger head shirt from Zazzle, and an unidentified olive colored shirt with a moon/pagoda design. | ||
Set/Props Notes
New on the set:
 The Incident by Eric Joyner |
 Lgd/Drk Knight #159 |
 The Demon #32 |
 JLA #92 |
| The Incident by artist Eric Joyner Bookshelves behind couch | Batman/Dark Knight #159 November 2002 Issue Comic bins/Sheldon's room |
The Demon #32 February 1993 issue Comic bins/Sheldon's room |
Justice League #92 March 2004 issue Comic bins/Sheldon's room |
Trivia
- First of eight episodes to have a "Previously on The Big Bang Theory" review of past events. It summarizes "The Monopolar Expedition" (S2E23) and it is narrated by Kaley Cuoco. The other seven are "The Cohabitation Formulation" (S4E16), "The Skank Reflex Analysis" (S5E1), "The Countdown Reflection" (S5E24), "The Date Night Variable" (S6E1) and "The Locomotion Interruption" (S8E1), "The Matrimonial Momentum" (S9E1) and "The Positive Negative Reaction (S9E16).
- Leonard says, "You can still publish the actual results." Since it was an NSF expedition, it is not simply a decision to publish their results, it is a requirement.
- Sheldon doesn't seem surprised that Leonard and Penny are beginning to date, as he was the one who correctly hypothesized that Penny wants him in the previous season finale (S2E23), just before the gang's expedition.
- Penny described a scene from the new movie Star Trek in this episode, meaning she probably saw it even though the others didn't, which could indicate that she has begun to like their geeky things. This time was the only time she knew something about Star Trek that Sheldon didn't.
- Sheldon's beard looks like the one Spock has in the "mirror universe" episode "Mirror, Mirror". Along with that, Howard and Leonard mention his "Vulcan hearing".
- Sheldon's hair is pretty much the same length as usual while the others let theirs grow out. In the later episode "The Werewolf Transformation" (S5E18), it was developed that he likes to have it cut by a preferred barber so there isn't really an explanation how he accomplished this, other than knowing that he wouldn't be able to get a trim for two months and planned it out how to do it himself.
- When Howard says to Mary Cooper he'll take a Diet Yoohoo in the DVD, she says he'll take a Coke, but on TV, she says "you'll take a cola".
- Raj suggests Howard's hat is reminiscent of Woody's in Toy Story. Laurie Metcalf (who plays Mary Cooper) is in all four Toy Story films as the voice of Mrs. Davis.
- Howard previously referred to cyanoacrylates in "The Work Song Nanocluster" (S2E18), as Leonard attempts to define them in this episode.
- The preserved snowflake from North Pole appears again in the later episode "The Toast Derivation" (S4E17).
- In the special features for this episode on the DVD release, the actors actually grew real beards for filming, but they were told to shave them so that the make-up department could put fake ones on. It is never stated why this decision was made.
- This season premiere episode takes place three/four months after the last episode of the previous season (S2E23).
- Despite his statement to the contrary, Sheldon does mention Howard and Raj in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in the Stockholm Syndrome, although it was for a different achievement.
Quotes
- Penny: Leonard, you’re back.
- Leonard: Yeah, I just stopped by to say… (She grabs him and kisses him passionately.) Yeah, so, hi!
- Penny: Hi! (They stumble, kissing, into her apartment and slam the door shut.)
- Howard: Dammit, I should have gone over and told her we were back.
- Raj: (Sarcastically) Yeah, it was first come, first served.
- Leonard: Hey. Listen, since we got, you know, interrupted last night, I didn't have a chance to give you this.
- Penny: Oh, Leonard, you shouldn't have. Oh, boy! What is it?
- Leonard: It’s a snowflake. From the North Pole.
- Penny: Are you serious?
- Leonard: Uh-huh. It’ll last forever. I preserved it in a one percent solution of polyvinyl acetyl resin.
- Penny: Oh, my God. That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me that I didn't understand.
- Sheldon: I just want you both to know, when I publish my findings, I won’t forget your contributions.
- Howard: Great.
- Raj: Thanks.
- Sheldon: Of course, I can’t mention you in my Nobel acceptance speech, but when I get round to writing my memoirs you can expect a very effusive footnote, and perhaps a signed copy.
- Raj: (to Howard) We have to tell him.
- Sheldon: (overhears) Tell me what?
- Howard: Damn his Vulcan hearing.
- Sheldon: You fellows are planning a party for me, aren’t you?
- Howard: Okay, Sheldon, sit down.
- Sheldon: If there’s going to be a theme, I should let you know that I don’t care for luau, toga or under the sea.
- Howard: Yeah, we’ll keep that in mind, look, we need to talk to you about something that happened at the North Pole.
- Sheldon: If this is about the night the heat went out, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
- Raj: It’s not about that.
- Howard: And we agreed to never speak of it again.
- Sheldon: So we slept together naked. It was only to keep our core body temperatures from plummeting.
- Howard: He’s speaking about it.
- Raj: For me, it was a bonding moment.
- Howard: Sheldon, you remember the first few weeks we were looking for magnetic monopoles and not finding anything and you were acting like an obnoxious, giant dictator?
- Raj: I thought we were going to be gentle with him.
- Howard: That’s why I added the tator. And then when we found our first positive data, you were so happy.
- Sheldon: Oh, yes. In the world of emoticons, I was colon, capital D.
- Howard: Well, in actuality, what your equipment detected wasn’t so much evidence of paradigm-shifting monopoles as it was… static from the electric can opener we were turning on and off.
- Raj: He just went colon, capital O.
- Sheldon: (stands up) You tampered with my experiment?
- Howard: We had to.
- Raj: It was the only way to keep you from being such a huge Dickensian. (to Howard) You see that? I added the "-ensian".
- Sheldon: Did Leonard know about this? Leonard’s my best friend in the world. Surely Leonard didn’t know.
- Howard: Actually, it was his idea.
- Sheldon: Of course it was. The whole plan reeks of Leonard.
- Penny: Well, wait a second, Leonard, come on, how can you not go? He’s your best friend.
- Leonard: Yeah, but I already saw him naked. Just come here.
- Penny: No. I promise I will be here when you get back. Just go help Sheldon.
- Leonard: Really?
- Penny: Yeah. We waited a few months. We can wait a few more days.
- Leonard: Maybe you can.
- (Leonard, Howard and Raj are at Sheldon's mother's place in Galveston, Texas, trying to get Sheldon to come home with them. Howard is wearing a goofy cowboy hat and a mustache. Leonard rings the doorbell.)
- Leonard: Can you please take that stupid hat off?
- Howard: No, I wanna blend in.
- Raj: (he's looking rather puzzled) To what, Toy Story?
- (Leonard chuckles at Raj's remark. Mary Cooper opens the door.)
- Mary: Hi, boys.
- Howard (with Texan accent): Howdy, Ma'am.
- Mary: Howdy to you too, you got here quick.
- Leonard: Ah, we took the Red Eye.
- Mary: Well, come on in.
- Howard (with Texan accent): Thank you kindly.
- Mary: Can I, can I get you something to drink?
- Leonard: Uh, no, thank you.
- Howard (with Texan accent): Uh, if ya'll don't mind, I'm hankering for a Lone Star Beer.
- Mary: (she's rather cross with Howard) There's no alcohol in this household, stop talking like that and lose the hat.
- Howard (In normal voice): Sorry, I'll take a Diet Yoo-hoo if you have it.
- Mary: You'll take a coke. (To Raj) What about you, Raj, is it? Oh you still having trouble talking to the ladies? (chuckles) Because you know at our church, we have a woman who's an amazing healer. Mostly she does, uh, crutch and wheelchair people, but I bet she'd be willing to take a shot at whatever third world demon is running around inside of you.
- Leonard: Uh, if you don't mind, Mrs. Cooper there's a 3:05 non-stop back to Los Angeles and you have no idea how much I wanna be on it.
- Mary: A girl?
- Leonard: Uh, yes, ma'am.
- Mary: Good, I've been praying for you.
- (Sheldon walks into the room.)
- Mary: Oh. Sheldon.
- Sheldon: What are they doing here?
- Leonard: Uh we came to apologize.
- Howard: Again.
- Leonard: And bring you home, so why don't you pack up your stuff and we'll head back.
- Sheldon: No. This is my home now. Thanks to you, my career is over. And I will spend the rest of my life in Texas, trying to teach evolution to creationists.
- Mary: (she really is cross with Sheldon) You watch your mouth, Shelly. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
- Sheldon: Evolution isn't an opinion. It's fact.
- Mary: (she's completley furious for the last time) And that is your opinion
- (She now frowns whilst Sheldon is glaring harder at his mother for a few seconds)
- Sheldon (Turning to the guys): I forgive you, let's go home.
- (Goes to get his stuff.)
- Mary: (she chuckles) Don't tell me prayer doesn't work.
- Sheldon: (Knock, knock, knock) Leonard. (Knock, knock, knock) Leonard. (Knock, knock, knock) Leonard.
- Leonard: (whispering) Do not make a sound.
- Sheldon: Whispering "do not make a sound" is a sound.
- Leonard: Damn his Vulcan hearing. Not a good time, Sheldon.
- Sheldon: (Knock, knock, knock) Penny. (Knock, knock, knock) Penny. (Knock, knock, knock) Penny.
- Penny: Oh, this is ridiculous. (Opens door) What?
- Sheldon: Hello, Penny. I realize you're currently at the mercy of your primitive biological urges, but as you have an entire lifetime of poor decisions ahead of you, may I interrupt this one?
- Penny: It's great to see you too. Come on in.
Gallery
| Episodes | Season 3 | ||||||||||||
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