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Close your eyes and try to imagine a nerd. What images does the word conjure? Big glasses, suspenders, pocket protectors, and a froggy voice? That’s accurate imagery according to TV producers from the 1980′s, but stop thinking of Urkel and Saved By The Bell, and try to think of their 21^st century equivalent. A 21^st century nerd more accurately evokes imagery of computers, comic books, Mountain Dew, and heated debates over Tribbles. But what one facet links nerds together always regardless of chronological placement? Their inability to talk to girls.

The cast of The Big Bang Theory subverts this in their own weird ways. Leonard spent a season and a half with Penny, exploiting a level-headed sensibility and an aww-shucks mentality. Howard has his own nerdy girlfriend, Bernadette, despite her questionable absence these past few weeks. And while Raj has never had a serious relationship, he has proven capable with women after getting past his own crippling insecurity (usually with the help of alcohol). But Sheldon, good ol’ Sheldon, there’s a trooper who refuses to let a good stereotype die.

Despite opportunities falling in his lap (such as Martha in The Psychic Vortex, and Ramona in The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem), Sheldon remains either oblivious, apathetic, or repulsed by the process of romantic love. This week’s episode might be the closest Sheldon ever reached to a prospective girlfriend, but was so mishandled it was also one of his weakest encounters

Over lunch, Sheldon announces he will be hosting Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton, a respected and noteworthy cosmological physicist during a brief two-day visit to California. Sheldon graciously offers his living-space to his esteemed colleague after she confessed her displeasure for hotels. Sheldon sympathizes, citing an array of problems such as “windows that don’t open, multi-user linens, and keys shaped like credit cards, as if one walks around with unassigned slots in one’s wallet.”

Sheldon’s connections with the eminent scientist isn’t completely out of the blue. Sheldon had been conversing with Dr. Plimpton for years discussing the various theories regarding cosmology, making his invitation one out of genuine friendship instead of territorial misunderstanding. A rare strike for Sheldon. Leonard is taken aback, however, as he is a huge fan of Elizabeth and her work. Suddenly, it’s a two-way race between who can make Elizabeth seem more welcome; the socially incapable but well-meaning Sheldon, or the level-headed but easily flustered fanboy, Leonard.

When Elizabeth arrives (played expertly by the hilarious Judy Greer), she is different than the standard super-scientist. The flirty redhead writes various notes on her hands (in big, black permanent marker), rambles on about questionable subjects (such as the state of her digestive tract), and seduces Leonard at night.

Wait, what was that last part? Yes, despite Sheldon’s boundless efforts to make Elizabeth comfortable, even going so far as to share both his coveted comic book collection and his apocalypse survival kit, Elizabeth fights off insomnia by surprising Leonard in bed. Catering to his fanboy desires, Elizabeth recites passages from her book while flashing her bare breasts like… well, this is a family site, so any applicable comparison would surely be censored here.

The next morning, a completely oblivious Sheldon greets both Elizabeth and Leonard, simply shrugging off both of their mile-wide smiles and giggling. At that moment, Penny enters, asking for a ride to work. With the break-up of Leonard and Penny still casting a gray cloud over them, Penny seemed notably disturbed that Leonard had slept with another girl in such short time. But more importantly, Sheldon, couldn’t believe a notable vanguard in the field of physics would sleep with a man she just met.

As Sheldon introduces Elizabeth to Howard and Raj, Elizabeth immediately forgets her previous night’s tryst with Leonard, and spontaneously begins making eyes at Raj. Later that evening as the group amasses at Raj’s apartment for a Halo match, all are surprised to see Elizabeth, ready, willing, and able to do any number of sexually promiscuous things. As the characters arrive one by one, her roleplaying grows more and more elaborate until it features movers, landlords, and soup delivery boys.

While Raj, Howard, and Leonard attempt to make sense of the situation, decide their course of action, and race to find a solution before they get in too deep, Howard drops an unfortunate bombshell. His girlfriend for the majority of season three, Bernadette, would be no more. Because actress Melissa Rauch is both a featured actress on True Blood and headlining an upcoming ABC pilot, the writers unceremoniously wrote the popular character out of the script with little more than Howard muttering, “we broke up weeks ago.”

Eventually, the three boys get flustered upon seeing Elizabeth in her lingerie. Howard darts off afraid to preform a four-way sexual act. Leonard walks away in sadness, foolishly believing what he and Elizabeth had the night before was special. As for Raj, he had been downing NyQuil throughout tonight’s episode, which according to his calculations, is about ten percent alcohol. Raj stays, claiming Elizabeth all for himself,.

This episode is a pretty solid C. While Dr. Elizabeth Perkins is a great character, full of interesting deviancy the writers clearly had fun exploiting, she just didn’t seem utilized to her full potential. Perhaps now that the character traits are established, she can redeem herself in subsequent appearances. In addition, Sheldon was written out halfway through this episode. A final confrontation between him, Leonard and Elizabeth would have been delightful and full of even more comical misunderstandings, but none was to be had. But the greatest trespass of all was the aforementioned mishandling of Bernadette’s departure. For whatever reasons, Bernadette has become a fan favorite, leading many to speculate she would join the main cast for the fourth season. But sadly, such seems not to be the case.