
Mensa-fied best friends and roommates Leonard and Sheldon, physicists who work at the California Institute of Technology, may be able to tell everybody more than they want to know about quantum physics, but getting through most basic social situations, especially ones involving women, totally baffles them. How lucky, then, that babe-alicious waitress/aspiring actress Penny moves in next door. Frequently seen hanging out with Leonard and Sheldon are friends and fellow Caltech scientists Wolowitz and Koothrappali. Will worlds collide? Does Einstein theorize in the woods?

Leonard is happy to meet new neighbor Penny, but his roommate thinks he is chasing an impossible dream.

Koothrappali is worried people won't take him seriously in his own field after publishing a paper that suggests he may have discovered alien life; Leonard wants to be the principal investigator on a plasma physics study.

Leonard is horrified when his mother (Christine Baranski) visits.

Raj's honesty comes back to haunt him when his new girlfriend is unfriendly to Penny; the guys think about becoming part owners in Stuart's store.