The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory (2007)

18 corrected entries in season 4

(13 votes)

Correction: Sheldon actually says "I suppose she will have to have access to our progeny".

THGhost

The Agreement Dissection - S4-E21

Corrected entry: Amy has a monkey in her apartment smoking a cigarette for a study. At one point, he asks for another cigarette. Amy gives him one and walks away without lighting it, but a few seconds later, he's puffing smoke.

MovieFan612

Correction: Watch closely, while she's talking to Sheldon, you see her lean and light the cigarette. There is also an occasion where she gives the monkey a cigarette but comments on not lighting it.

Ssiscool

The Robotic Manipulation - S4-E1

Corrected entry: While driving towards the restaurant, Amy mentions she uses dandruff shampoo for her "dry" scalp. Dandruff and dry scalp have the same main symptoms, which are falling flakes and an itchy scalp, but they are two different conditions. In dry scalp, the skin gets irritated and flakes off. With dandruff, the cause is too much oil on the scalp. That excess oil causes skin cells to build up and then shed. Therefore dandruff shampoo should be used for an oily scalp, not a dry scalp. (00:11:19)

Correction: Except there are dandruff shampoos that specifically treat dry scalp. In addition, dry scalp is commonly caused by dandruff.

Bishop73

More of a continuity error regarding this is that much later she claims that lice isn't attracted to her hair cos of her naturally oily scalp (contradictory).

Then that should be entered as a mistake. What was entered isn't a mistake.

Bishop73

The Toast Derivation - S4-E17

Corrected entry: Sheldon makes fun of Leonard's idea to go to Raj's for dinner by speculating that they could stop using the letter M, which would be "isguided and oronic. Later he says that "This is adness. Complete and utter adness. He should have said "This is adness. Coplete and utter adness., leaving the M out of the word "complete" - and there is no way a pedantic, obsessive genius like Sheldon would make a mistake like that.

Correction: I viewed this scene more than 10 times and listened closely and Sheldon says, "This is adness; this is utter and coplete adness. He does in fact take the "m" out of the word complete.

Correction: However, Penny's father might not know that. Also, it could be a case that since he works as a theoretical physicist that he may have to work weekends, like when he worked nights.

Ssiscool

The Zazzy Substitution - S4-E3

Corrected entry: The proposition that danishes wouldn't exist if Copenhagen were flooded is wrong, because "danishes" were created by Austrian bakers. They are called danish in English-speaking countries because they're very popular in Denmark. The Danish word for this pastry is wienerbrød, which translates to "Viennese bread."

Tanngrisnir

Correction: The origin of the Danish pastry is often ascribed to a strike amongst bakery workers in Denmark in 1850. The strike caused bakery owners to hire workers from abroad, among them several Austrian bakers, who brought along new baking traditions and pastry recipes.

The Agreement Dissection - S4-E21

Corrected entry: For an obsessive genius Sheldon makes a stupid mistake when he blackmails Leonard into signing a new roommate agreement - any contract signed under duress is invalid. He gains nothing from Leonard signing the new agreement as no other action on his part is required. Effectively Sheldon has got his autograph. Big deal. Leonard is free to ignore the new agreement if he feels like it - and his lawyer was there to witness the fact that he was forced against his will to sign in the first place. This also begs the question of why Priya gets in such a panic about Sheldon blackmailing Leonard by threatening to reveal details of their relationship to her parents - why didn't she just advise Leonard to sign on the dotted line, explaining later that he signed an invalid contract? It would certainly have saved her a lot of grief.

Correction: Priya might have brought the idea of the letter of the law in, but Sheldon has never actually sued anyone for violating the roommate agreement. Leonard abides by it because otherwise Sheldon will become unliveable with. Priya won't give Leonard any more advice because of the risk that Sheldon will tell Priya's parents about Leonard's relationship.

Moose

The Robotic Manipulation - S4-E1

Corrected entry: Howard explains the ease with which he "borrowed" the programmable robot arm thus : "You just have to take it out to your car as if you own it". Howard doesn't have a car - he has a Vespa scooter, and there is no way he could carry the robot arm on that. (While we are on the subject, how does he transport it from Sheldon and Leonard's apartment to his house?).

Correction: His mother very likely has a car (we've heard her say that she's driving back to the grocery store), which Howard very likely used for this occasion.

Knever

Deus ex Machina explanations for errors do not invalidate them. Howard does not have a car and at no time does he mention borrowing one from anyone.

The Irish Pub Formulation - S4-E6

Corrected entry: Sheldon is playing an online game he found. He yells to Leonard "I'm trapped in quicksand, the axe is dragging me down." Leonard then tells him to "Drop axe." Shortly after, Sheldon heads to bed, but he comes back saying "I know how to get the bucket. I can turn the axe around and use the handle to reach it." However, he does not have the axe as he has already dropped it. (00:06:05 - 00:07:45)

Kat Haggith

Correction: Sheldon is playing an old text and type game, many of which have only one way to beat them, so once Sheldon died, he would be sent back to the start, eventually reclaiming the Axe.

MasterOfAll

The 21-Second Excitation - S4-E8

Corrected entry: Sheldon steals the 35mm movie canisters and 2 exterior metal cases for "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" so that they supposedly could see it at a later date. We then see Sheldon running with the movie canisters and cases. That would not even be remotely possible as the 2 sets of film weigh approximately 140-160 pounds. Each individual reel (of which there would be a total of 4) has a weight of somewhere between 30 and 35 pounds including the film and individual canister. If you add in the weight of just 2 canisters plus the carrying cases they come in, that's well beyond Sheldon's carrying capacity.

Correction: I worked with 35mm for 10 years. Each case weighed about 35 lbs for 3 reels.

Correction: Like the Relationship Agreement, the Roommate Agreement is designed to be entirely for Sheldon's benefit. There's almost certainly an Exception Clause that lets him stretch the definition or alter it however he wants. Leonard would know this and probably not consider it worth fighting about.

Captain Defenestrator

Correction: The four of them plus Penny is 5 people. It is closer to $6 each.

XIII

The Zarnecki Incursion - S4-E19

Corrected entry: When the characters are driving in the car during this episode, it looks to be a black car (when they film in front of the car). When they run out of gas, there is a shot of them pulling over. The problem is, the car is white when pulling over.

*BleuFever

Correction: There are several episodes where Leonard's car is visible in daylight and it has always been a dark silver color. When viewing that car in low light it would appear to be black. Later when Leonard pulls the car over it is not white, it is silver.

Correction: You can clearly see a gap between monitor and main computer unit, indicating that they are separate units. Also the colors are different, further indicating they were made separately.

XIII

Right, but then why would Sheldon take the monitor with him, when it's isn't attached, is nothing to do with Woz, and is very impractical?

Moose

The Love Car Displacement - S4-E13

Corrected entry: At the end of the show Sheldon states on the walkie-talkie, "I spy with my little eye, a ferrous metal," Later he reveals that what he spied was the aluminum rims of a police car. Aluminum is a non-ferrous metal - definitely not a mistake Sheldon would make.

allensis

Correction: Sheldon does say a non-ferrous metal.

The Roommate Transmogrification - S4-E24

Corrected entry: Bernadette tells Howard that she chose the premature ejaculation project because neither of them has any heart diseases. However Howard has stated more than once that he has transient idiopathic arrhythmia. Also in the previous episode he actually emphasizes that his family has a history of heart diseases and alludes to a cave painting showing one of his ancestors clutching their chest.

Tanngrisnir

Correction: Transient idiopathic arrhythmia is not a disease, it is a disorder. They are different things.

The Justice League Recombination - S4-E11

Corrected entry: At the end of the episode, when Sheldon imagines going to the Grand Canyon to scream about Leonard, that's not the Grand Canyon, signs not withstanding. The location is Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah (near the town of Moab), with the view looking roughly south into Canyonlands National Park. [GPS near 38°28'12" by 109°44'30".] It's several hundred miles upriver from the Grand Canyon. [At least it is along the Colorado River.] The first national park sign looks authentic, but the small one at the overlook is fake, since that's not the Grand Canyon. And by the way, since it's just after New Year's, there would likely be snow at both the Grand Canyon and Dead Horse Point; the images used are not winter scenes.

Correction: But it's all occurring in Sheldon's mind. He does have an eidetic memory, but if he has never been to the Grand Canyon he can't remember it. He's imagining what it would look like if he were there.

Grumpy Scot

The Boyfriend Complexity - S4-E9

Corrected entry: Penny's father says, "I want grand kids before I die, and I want them to grow up in a house without wheels," but in season 2, E20, Penny asks Leonard to buy a comic book for her 13 year old nephew. Her nephew would be her father's grandson.

Correction: Her mother may have had a child with another man before marrying her father, which would make the nephew a step-grandson and not a "real" one in her father's eyes.

Captain Defenestrator

The Excelsior Acquisition - S3-E16

Plot hole: In Series 1, Episode 7, "The Dumpling Paradox, " Sheldon makes an oblique reference to his financial status: "Frankly, if I could afford the rent, I'd ask you [Leonard] to leave, " meaning he cannot pay the rent on his two bedroom apartment by himself - not that he doesn't want to, he can't. However, in "The Execlsior Acquisition, " we find that he does not even cash his pay cheques. He doesn't even deposit them into a bank account - he leaves them in a drawer in his desk. In Series 2 Episode 14 "The Financial Permeability", he lends Penny a large amount of money from a huge bankroll he just happens to have lying about - again, without cashing his pay cheques! He is obviously independently wealthy. Either he doesn't have enough money to afford the rent or he has enough to work without being paid while practically giving large amounts of cash away. Can't be both.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Not being able to afford doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have the money, especially a man like Sheldon. He works with a budget and he sticks to it. In his budget he has a certain amount set aside for rent, anything more than that and he can't afford it alone.

Nonsense. If he was sticking to a "rigid budget" he wouldn't have even thought of lending a hopeless credit risk like Penny a single cent. Instead he throws a huge bankroll at her without even discussing a repayment plan.

Rubbish, I stick to a strict budget but still have the money to lend to close friends. Like Penny is to him.

He might have different budgets for different things. People could get a higher margin because they could be of more use to the scientific mind of Sheldon.

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The Euclid Alternative - S2-E5

Question: Though it comes up in other episodes as well, this one is focused on Sheldon needing a ride everywhere he goes because he can't drive, not to mention his not being welcome on the bus. Of course, this story element would be nonexistent if there was a simple answer, but it does beg the question: Does Pasadena not have taxicabs?

MFWills

Chosen answer: It does. The variable cleanliness of the cab and the habit of taxi drivers to engage customers in small talk would be too much for Sheldon to handle, and not an option for him.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: Sheldon DID finally use a taxi when going to the airport to see and propose to Amy in New Jersey.

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