Television Sitcoms

Look, even the most fervent fans of "The Big Bang Theory" can probably admit that not every single episode is a winner; there are nearly 300 of them in total, after all. The adventures — and misadventures — of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) were plenty entertaining throughout the show's whopping twelve seasons, but whether you're cruising through "The Big Bang Theory" for the very first time or you're on your millionth rewatch, there might be a few episodes you can bypass as you race to the finish line.

One of those eminently skippable episodes is definitely Season 10, Episode 13, titled "The Romance Recalibration." When Leonard and Penny hit a slump in their relationship, they end up turning to Amy Farrah-Fowler (Mayim Bialik) and Sheldon for advice — and if that isn't bizarre enough, things only get weirder and worse from there as the installment fundamentally tweaks characters (albeit temporarily) and contributes nothing to the overall narrative. Here's why you can — and should — skip "The Romance Recalibration" in Season 10.

The Romantic Recalibration lets all its characters be.

.. totally out of character

Basically, what happens is that, after fantasizing that she'd come home from work and find Leonard making a romantic gesture with wine, dinner, and flowers, Penny is miserably disappointed when she's faced with the reality that Leonard mostly plays video games in his underpants. She turns to her girlfriends for advice, only to hear that Amy and Sheldon's relationship is going swimmingly — and when Penny invites Amy along for a spa weekend instead of Leonard, the girls are set to leave while Amy and Sheldon are all over each other, leaving Penny and Leonard to just watch it all happen.

Eventually, Amy and Sheldon help Penny and Leonard draft their own version of a "relationship agreement," and all is well — sort of.

The biggest problem here, at face value, is that Sheldon famously hates physical intimacy, even with his partner Amy. A huge focus of the series is his fear of what he very attractively refers to only as "coitus," and it's heavily implied that he and Amy are only intimate with each other once a year on her birthday. And yet, in "The Romance Recalibration," he's making out with Amy like he's about to go off to war? Penny and Leonard also hate Sheldon's rules, so the idea of them voluntarily signing a "relationship agreement" feels ludicrous — but that's presented as their happy ending.

Between the two couples, a lot of major character tweaks happen in this episode, only for everyone to revert right back to normal later.

This episode contributes nothing to the larger plot of The Big Bang Theory

Considering that Amy and Sheldon's relationship never reaches this level of physicality again — and the show still has two more seasons to go at this point — the series drops this more amorous side of Sheldon pretty quickly, and that also makes this episode totally unnecessary.

It contributes nothing to the overall story of "The Big Bang Theory" other than to demonstrate that sometimes Penny and Leonard have problems, which could almost certainly be explored in a different way.

Skipping an episode of a show typically means that it doesn't bring much to the table, and that's definitely true of "The Romance Recalibration." Sure, it's common for "The Big Bang Theory" to feature one of its couples having a relationship issue only for it to never be explored again; in fact, it's one of the show's biggest problems that frequently goes overlooked. This is a particularly lazy example of it, though, and setting Amy and Sheldon up as some sort of idealized paragon of a relationship is pretty ridiculous, considering that they may very well be the most problem-riddled relationship on the entire show.

"The Big Bang Theory," including "The Romance Recalibration," is available to stream on Max now.