The only TBBT episode its own showrunner flat-out hates

On the latest Official Big Bang Theory Podcast, Holland told host Jessica Radloff which episode he'd erase if he could: season 4, episode 10, "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis," from December 2010. He didn't hedge.

"It's my least favorite episode of the whole run of the whole series."

— Steve Holland, on The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast

Then, to make sure nobody misheard: "I hate that episode."

What happens in it

Amy Farrah Fowler, who up to that point had shown as little interest in sex as Sheldon, goes out with Penny and Bernadette, sees Penny's handsome ex Zack, and feels something she can't explain. She asks Sheldon about it. Sheldon, happy in a strictly platonic arrangement, essentially encourages her to go for it. The episode ends with Amy reaching for Sheldon's hand and letting it drop.

Holland's problem is that the relationship had already started to mean something, even if it moved slowly:

"It was slow, but Sheldon liked her in a different way... so I didn't like Sheldon sort of pimping her out to Zack."

— Steve Holland

He also called the ending "the wrong tack on that relationship." Back then, he was what he calls a "middle-level writer," and the room was still arguing about what Amy actually was to Sheldon. He lost.

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Hate, with an asterisk

What makes Holland's take worth hearing is that he doesn't pretend the episode failed. "I'm sure it's a good episode, very funny," he admitted. He even credits it with something important: it "probably allowed that relationship to grow nice and slowly, which I think was really important for it."

So the showrunner hates the episode, thinks it's funny, and thinks it helped make Shamy work. That's not a contradiction. It's what it sounds like when a writer is still annoyed, years later, about a fight he lost, even though the show came out fine.

Holland lost the argument over "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis" as a mid-level writer in 2010. He later ran the show, and Sheldon and Amy got married.

There's an extra twist for anyone keeping score. Zack's return in this episode came after his original season 4 storyline, where he was supposed to coach Sheldon on women, was scrapped following Kaley Cuoco's riding accident. His comeback turned the premise around: instead of Zack advising Sheldon about women, Sheldon advises a woman about Zack. Brian Thomas Smith says the original script wasn't good. The showrunner says the one Zack came back in is the worst of the run. Zack, meanwhile, comes out of both stories as everyone's favorite himbo.

Previously we wrote: How did they make The Lord of the Rings? Aragorn's most famous scream wasn't acting