Contemplating a heavy, oversized box that needed to be moved up several flights of stairs, the lead characters in the popular CBS television comedy The Big Bang Theory (2007-) established their primary identity as scientists. It was the show's second episode. Eager to impress the pretty woman across the hall, Leonard Hofstadter (portrayed by Johnny Galecki) appealed to his apartment mate, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), by calling on their shared vocation. "We're physicists. We are the intellectual descendants of Archimedes. Give me a fulcrum and a lever, and I can move the Earth," Leonard declared, just before he was almost crushed by the box. Broadcast in more than 25 countries, The Big Bang Theory has achieved worldwide commercial success. As Steven Paul Leiva opined in the Los Angeles Times in 2009," The Big Bang Theory is the finest and best fictional portrayal of scientists in any current media-and a series that is carving out a place for itself in the annals of television comedy."
