The pilot episode introduces the main characters in the series, and also guest stars Vernée Watson and Brian Patrick Wade as Althea and Kurt.
Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper are two intelligent young physicists who have a combined IQ of 360 and claim to have "beautiful minds" that understand how the universe works at the beginning of the series.
After fleeing a visit to a sperm bank for high-IQ donors, they return home and meet Penny, an aspiring actress who has moved into the apartment adjacent to the one they share.
Sheldon is quite content spending his nights playing Klingon-language Boggle with their socially dysfunctional friends, fellow geeks Howard Wolowitz, a wannabe ladies man, and Rajesh Koothrappali, who has selective mutism in front of women.
Jim Chamberlin of IGN praised the episode, calling it "a great start for the series", and stating that the writing was "some of the best we've seen in a standard sitcom in some time".
Club was very negative about the episode, giving it a D+ rating: Really bad television shows tend to pander to the mean: In affirming the superiority of Joe and Jane Average, they mock both the egregiously stupid ... and the hyper-intelligent, who are struck down for the arrogant, unpardonable sin of… um… knowing stuff.