‘The Big Bang Theory’ season 6, episode 8 review: Flirting and the number 43

As great as Bernadette and Amy are as characters on “The Big Bang Theory,” there is something that is still rather special about seeing the original cast of five back together working their magic. Thursday night’s new season 6 episode was the strongest one of the entire season, as it combined a pretty great humor with a surprise that really managed to push the story forward.

So what was that surprise this week? Penny admitting to Leonard that she loves him in the middle of a random conversation that was all about jealousy. Leonard was convinced that Penny was getting hit on by her classmate, who turned out to just be a pretty nice British guy who may or may not have had a passing interest. However, the irony here was that Sheldon’s assistant Alex was definitely interested in Leonard, but he was far too busy dealing with his own feelings for Penny and paranoia to even notice.

Now, we turn to the great “bazinga” moment of the episode: Sheldon using Raj and Howard’s curiosity about what he does at 2:45 every day and transforming it into one of his classic pranks. The only thing that made this better is what Sheldon actually does in this room every day: just sit around and play with a hacky-sack for a few minutes and see how long he can keep it up without it hitting the ground. His record is 43, which he believes that he will never actually match again. The prank involving the wormhole and alien was the great comedic payoff here, but the hacky-sack ending was such a great non-joke that proved that sometimes, our characters are curious for no good reason.

This episode was really just a delight: all of the characters had a role, and Penny’s admission is likely to change the show moving forward.

What do you think about the episode, and did it meet all of your expectations?