"The Troll Manifestation" is an episode of The Big Bang Theory that first aired on February 5, 2015. Directed by Mark Cendrowski. Teleplay by Jim Reynolds, Steve Holland and Maria Ferrari, based on a story by Steven Molaro, Eric Kaplan and Tara Hernandez.
While eating dinner at Apartment 4B, Penny asks Leonard about his work with a particle detector that uses superfluid helium. This leads Leonard to realize that when it comes to superfluid vacuum theory, no one has thought about surface tension. This suggests a theory that the universe is like a bubble with surface tension.
Leonard goes to Apartment 4A to tell Sheldon about the new theory. Sheldon approves of this theory. Not only does Sheldon work out all the math overnight, he also writes a paper about it. The next morning, with Leonard's approval, Sheldon submits the paper to a preprint server.
As the day goes on, the comments from the scientific community are encouraging, with one calling the new theory "insightful and innovative". In a lab, Howard informs Leonard of the accolades. But then there is a negative comment from an anonymous user:
The whole thing quickly devolves into an exchange of juvenile taunts. Raj tries to be supportive of his colleagues by making sockpuppets who comment positively on Leonard and Sheldon's paper.
Meanwhile, Amy, Bernadette and Penny are hanging out at Apartment 4B. Bernadette wants to watch Serial Ape-ist 2: Monkey See, Monkey Kill, mainly to make fun of Penny, who appeared in both the original and the sequel, but was fired from the set of the latter.
Penny digs up an old video of Bernadette at a beauty pageant, hoping to be selected Miss California Quiznos 1999. It's embarrassing. Since Amy's also enjoying Penny's embarrassment of a horror movie, Penny digs up a Little House on the Prairie fanfic Amy wrote with an additional character named Amelia.
In Amy's fanfic, Amelia meets a mysterious time traveler named Cooper, whom Bernadette and Penny readily understand to be based on Sheldon. Even though this Cooper character is almost as grating as Sheldon, Bernadette and Penny become invested in whether Amelia and Cooper consummate their sexual attraction.
Sheldon challenges the troll to reveal his identity. The troll turns out to be Stephen Hawking (As Himself), who admits that he actually found Leonard and Sheldon's paper to have an "intriguing" premise. Leonard goes over to Apartment 4B to tell Penny about Hawking, but Bernadette and Penny are too engrossed in Amy's fanfic.
Tropes:
- Brick Joke: Sheldon hates scented markers. Leonard tells him he doesn't have to taste them. Later he sees that Sheldon's tongue is blue.
- Call-Back: To Penny's movie Serial Ape-ist 2: Monkey See, Monkey Kill (see "The Gorilla Dissolution").
- "Eureka!" Moment: Leonard came up with an idea about a missing link in vacuum superfluid theory mid-dining with Penny, explaining the theory to her. More awesome as after hearing the idea Sheldon he decided to stay up overnight, work out the math and write a paper out of it.
- For the Lulz: The reason Stephen Hawking was trolling Sheldon.Stephen Hawking: When you're stuck on a chair for forty years, you'd get bored too.
- Hypocritical Humor: Bernadette only thinks it's funny to humiliate others, not when they humiliate her back.
- Hypocrite: Defied by Sheldon, who can't think of a single thing he wouldn't say to someone's face.
- Old Shame: A trifecta between Penny, Amy and Bernadette. Amy and Bernadette learn of Penny's last ultra-low budget film she shot last season being available on demand and watch it at her expense. In retaliation, Penny finds a video of Bernadette competing in a beauty pageant singing Spice Girls songs, which eventually leads to discovering Amy's Little House on the Prairie fanfiction and reading it out loud.
- Self-Insert Fic: When she was younger, Amy wrote a Fan Fic of Little House on the Prairie that featured an Ingalls sister named Amelia that is clearly meant to be her.
- Shipper on Deck: Subverted. Reading Amy's "Little House On The Prairie" fanfic, Penny and Bernadette come to root for Amelia and Cooper to be together. They're all fictional to us, but only Amelia and Cooper are fictional to Bernadette and Penny.
- Time-Travel Romance: Amy's Little House on the Prairie Fan Fic about a girl from the 19th century named Amelia falling in love with a time traveling physicist named Dr. Cooper.
- Troll: Once Sheldon posts his and Leonard's paper online, someone makes disparaging comments about it. In the end, the troll turns out to be... Stephen Hawking, who actually liked the paper but wanted to have some fun with them.
- Your Mom: Sheldon plans to accuse an anonymous critic's mother of sleeping with non-humans.
