The guys have to give a lecture to teenage girls! The poor girls are so bored that they call Bernie and Amy to show how women can succeed in science. The girls are dressed up as Disney princess's so the irony is in your face!

It was so funny watching Doctor Cooper being the one who knew how to talk to the teenage girls, I thought it would have been Leonard, but he struck out worse than he did with Penny. It was a really good episode.

Howard, Sheldon and Leonard went to a school to encourage some girls to think about contributing to the science in the future. They tried their best but lets just face it: they sucked. Meanwhile, girls went to Disneyland, which is related to an awesome ending scene, I especially enjoyed that part about Howard and Bernie.

Warning: full episode spoilers follow. This week's Big Bang Theory has one of the longer episode titles I can recall. At first I assumed we were slated for a Sheldon/Amy-focused episode as their relationship contract came back into play. But this was nothing of the sort. Instead, the contractual obligation in question was a requirement that Sheldon. Leonard, and Wolowitz pool their brains and find some way to encourage gender equality in the hard sciences. A noble goal, even if at this point it seems like the issue is getting American children of any gender to show an interest in that area. This plotline started out strong but sort of fizzled out after a while. The early brainstorming scenes offered a fair amount of humor as Leonard played the despondent nerd who was forced to do the group project all on his won while everyone else played video games. And appropriately for a discussion based on sexism and gender politics, Sheldon and Wolowitz were shown to be playing Soul Calibur rather than the usual "invisible game with Atari sound effects" that passes for authenticity on TV most of the time. Between that and Wolowitz's copy of Batman #17, the show flaunted its nerd cred this week. But it was Sheldon who shouldered most of the humor burden here, particularly with his narrowly aborted attempt at searching for ways to excite 12-year-old girls on Google. It was Sheldon who also had the only bright idea of the brainstorming session, and so our heroes left the comfortable realm of their apartment for the harsh wastelands of middle school. Here is where this segment of the episode started to falter. There was a lot of predictable humor - Wolowitz reminiscing about being shoved into a locker and still being pushed around by preteens, Wolowitz once again going on and on about his space excursion, etc. Wolowitz's forced attempt at being cool was a little funny, especially with his shift into M.C. Hofstadter mode, but also unnecessarily awkward. I guess after "The Bakersfield Expedition" I'm just tired of seeing these guys fail so miserably when they're required to interact with the general public. At the very least, I would have liked a greater sense of resolution to this little conflict, with an acknowledgement that their efforts paid off and at least one of the girls in the class was inspired to pursue science. The parallel field trip featuring Amy, Penny, and Bernadette was entertaining, if sort of an afterthought relative to everything else. I always enjoy seeing Bernie's dark side come out, and in this case the transformation was brought about by the war over which of them got to have a Cinderella makeover. It would have been fun to show the trio actually getting into mischief at Disneyland, but that would also have required more ambition than just one simple set decorated with a bench and a few hedges. If nothing else, though, the closing scene in the episode was really amusing as we saw all three men react to their Disneyed-up women in different ways. The shot of shirtless Prince Wolowitz galloping to Cinderella Bernie is just begging to be turned into an animated gif. Finally, the blossoming Raj/Lucy (Kate Micucci) romance continued to be a major focus this week. Once again, Raj was consistently the most entertaining character of the episode. His palaver with the girls was a lot of fun, and his actual date and his various attempts to accommodate Lucy's crippling social anxiety were sweet. Framing the majority of their conversation through texting was a nice added touch. I'm not really sure where this relationship is headed, particularly as the writers still insist on highlighting Raj's more feminine interests as if they haven't quite given up on the notion that Raj might be gay. Either resolve that lingering question or move on. But regardless, I'm glad that the show is so focused on evolving his character alongside everyone else for a change. Interestingly, this episode also offered a brief cameo by Brian Posehn. Posehn played Bert, the awkward library patron who tried to cut in on Raj's romantic evening. This is one of those weird cases where you have to wonder why the producers cast such a recognizable comedian in such a minor role. Is Bert going to be a recurring character or something? "The Contractual Obligation Implementation" was nothing terribly special, but it had enough memorable moments and strong Raj material to keep the momentum going after a two-week hiatus. The sporadic schedule of new episodes this spring isn't really doing the series any favors.