On November 1st CBS aired an episode of its comedy sitcom The Big Bang Theory where one of the main characters challenged no one less than the famous British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking on a game of Words With Friends. So, what did we learn from this episode?
The plot – spoiler alert
If you haven’t seen the sixth episode of the sixth season of The Big Bang Theory, you should first do before reading on. I am definitely going to tell you about it 😉
The episode was aired under the titel The Extract Obliteration. There are two plots in this episode, but just one of interest for word game enthusiasts like us. The super smart but very egocentric character Sheldon is challenging Stephen Hawking, who already appeared as himself in an earlier season, on a game of Words With Friends. Sheldon is obviously playing it online on his tablet but more technical details are not revealed. He calls Words With Friends the “popular online game”.
Words With Friends, not with Strangers
Bragging to his friends about the fact, that Stephen Hawking accepted his invitation to the “battle of wits”, Sheldon emphasizes the fact, that Words With Friends is not called Words With Strangers or Words With Acquaintances. So in his idea, he is now officially friends with Stephen Hawking. Sheldon is taking the Friends part obviously too serious starting to think about nick names for each others. But I am going to spare you this part.
Stephen Hawking is a bad player?
While Sheldon is playing longer words with high scores, Stephen Hawking surprisingly plays short words with less points. Finally, Sheldon faces the same problem one or the other of our readers probably already faced too – Stephen Hawking is not responding anymore. After 3 days not having played a word one of Sheldon friends is telling him that Stephen Hawking hates to lose. So after even his Jedi mind tricks didn’t work and his opponent finally played a word, Sheldon decided to give up his pride and lose on purpose in Words With Friends to not harm his digital friendship with Stephen Hawking.
At the end, Sheldon even got a call directly from his “friend”. It shows that the famous physicist really is a bad loser who does not find the nicest words for his opponent.
If you are in the US you can watch this episode on CBS’ online channel. All the others have to wait for the DVD or a local channel to air it.
Have you seen other shows with a plot around a word game? Write us. We would love to read about it.