Big Bang: The Hunt

I was really looking forward to this episode. In fact, it could have been the highlight of my week. Unfortunately, putting so many expectations on it made it fall short in my eyes. I understand that maybe not everyone would have wanted an extended episode to show ALL of the clues and the run-around, but I feel as if several parts of the episode that weren't shown (like the inside of the bowling alley, the tar pits, and the clue that led the groups to the laundry room) would have been awesome. All of that said, I wish I could have played! I participated in a 24-hour scavenger hunt during my second year of college and it was about as much fun as it gets. My teammate and I worked SO HARD to collect all sorts of objects, answer trivia questions, get pictures of places, and more. Long story short, they never announced a winner, and there was some strange issue with getting our stuff back after scorekeeping, too. Had the University run it, the experience probably would have been better, like apparently at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton!

The Big Bang Theory "The Scavenger Vortex" (S07E03): Nobody attends Raj's Murder-Mystery Dinner Party, so he comes up with an MIT-style scavenger hunt, meaning there is a lot of logic involved. [I would have attended! and why doesn't Raj think of Stuart??] Everyone decides to play, with Sheldon being the hold out... who eventually decides to haul around more equipment than you could imagine, "just in case."

Raj has hidden a golden coin in Pasadena, and ten puzzles must be solved to find it. The group draws names to determine teams, and the pairings are quite interesting. Sheldon and Penny clash at times (like when he insists she start a jigsaw puzzle with the edges, and then demands they finish it, even when she knows the answer), but their "Lightning Sharks" group does well. Bernadette, being one of six children, is very competitive and often yells at Leonard for being slow. Howard and Amy, on the other hand, wind up bonding so hard over a love for Neil Diamond that they eventually give up and just hit a karaoke bar!

The first clue is a jigsaw puzzle that leads them to the comic book store, where The Riddler doles out a riddle: "Arrah arrah, and gather round, the work of this hero is legion-bound. He multiples N by the number of He, and in this room the thing you'll see."

Cliff Lipson/CBS © 2013 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

They go to the geology lab (number for helium x nitrogen = silicon, the most common element on the Earth's surface) and overturn rocks until Penny realizes it's a stone to overturn - there's a Rolling Stones poster with map coordinated underneath: 34.1516; -118.0767. [I would have liked to see the other groups figure out this one!] The location is a bowling alley, vindicating Sheldon for carrying around a bowling ball all this time. [ha!] After that, they have to go down the elevator shaft in the apartment building, the Planetarium, and the Tar Pits before returning to the apartment building's laundry room. There are bags of pants with a single shirt of Sheldon's in each. The tops are stained, making the teams go to Sheldon's spot on the couch to find the gold coins. [I actually figured out this one before the gang did, LoL!] But, it turns out that Raj put the gold coins in everyone's pockets earlier in the day to show that they don't have to win to have fun together. [why? winning matters, Raj!]