Mayim Bialik to guest on ‘Night Court,’ reunite with ‘TBBT’ costar Melissa Rauch (exclusive)

Night Court will soon be back in session, and it’s set to feature the ultimate Big Bang Theory reunion.

Entertainment Weekly can exclusively reveal that Mayim Bialik is set to guest star in an upcoming season 3 episode of the legal sitcom, marking a reunion with Melissa Rauch. Bialik will play a version of herself, who turns up in court as a defendant and befriends Rauch’s Judge Abby Stone. Abby is a huge fan of the 1990s sitcom Blossom and is excited to get to know the star, but things take a turn when Abby learns that Mayim is stalking her.

The episode marks the first on-screen reunion between the pair since TBBT concluded in 2019. Bialik played Amy, a neuroscientist who marries Jim Parsons‘ Sheldon, while Rauch played Bernadette, a microbiologist who marries Simon Helberg‘s Howard. Connecting with EW by phone from set at Burbank’s Warner Bros. Studio, Bialik calls reuniting with Rauch a “surreal” experience.

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“It feels like I should be dressed like Amy and she should be dressed like Bernadette,” she quips. “There’s definitely a lot of surreal moments and just a huge nostalgia factor. Melissa and I were next to each other for nine years of our lives and shared a huge section of our time together, as did the entire cast. She and I were brought on together in season 4 on Big Bang, so we really trudged a very similar path in terms of our timing.”

Of course, a reunion would not be complete without “meta references” to TBBT on Bialik’s episode. But she’s remaining mum on what that entails. “That’s all I can tease,” Bialik says. “The episode is kind of meta in the most meta way. Not fully breaking the fourth wall, but breaking the fourth wall of the mind of the audience. So it’s pretty cute and I laugh a lot during rehearsal, so I’ll have to get that out of my system for tape day.”

Bialik’s upcoming cameo isn’t the first TBBT reunion in the courtroom: Kunal Nayyar guest starred in season 2 as British fashion designer (and Abby’s love interest) Martini Todd Wallace — a cameo that admittedly made Bialik a bit jealous. But shortly after, Rauch extended an invitation to come and play. “I said, ‘Anything for you,'” recalls Bialik. “I literally said, ‘Whatever you want. You can make me as silly as you want. I’ll do whatever you want.’ And indeed, I’m a really funny, evil version of myself. It’s a lot of fun.”

It’s very much a family affair too, as Bialik’s episode also marks a reunion with John Larroquette, who reprises his role as Dan Fielding in the reboot. Bialik played Larroquette’s daughter on his ’90s sitcom The John Larroquette Show.

A reboot of the sitcom of the same name that aired between 1984 and 1992, Night Court stars Rauch (also an executive producer) as the daughter of the late Judge Harry Stone (played by the late Harry Anderson in the original), who fills her father’s position at Manhattan Criminal Court’s night shift alongside a ragtag crew of eccentric courtroom coworkers. Call it a dream gig for Bialik, who was a fan of the original sitcom — despite her parents not allowing her to stay up to watch it during its late night time slot.

“But I ended up, of course, as I got older, sneaking out of my bedroom at 9:30,” recalls Bialik. More importantly, though, “I’d be happy to support anything that Melissa Rauch does, and the fact that there’s so much overlapping interest here and it’s such a great project for her just made me so excited to be even included in the small part of it.”

Season 3 of Night Court premieres Tuesday, Nov. 19, with a new 8:30 p.m. ET/PT time slot on NBC and will be available to stream the next day on Peacock.