Thursday night's episode of The Big Bang Theory featured the death of someone very significant to Sheldon (Jim Parsons), and the incident may have an effect on his own development in the future.

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Professor Proton (Bob Newhart) died offscreen in Thursday night's episode of The Big Bang Theory, causing Sheldon to go through his own version of the grieving process. The professor appeared to Sheldon in a dream as Obi-Wan Kenobi and essentially gave advice on how to deal with death.

One of the sitcom's executive producers, Steven Molaro, spoke with TV Guide recently about possibly bringing back Newhart, Professor Proton's portrayer, for later episodes despite the character's offscreen death.

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"We can definitely bring him back and it's just story dependent," Molaro assured. "We love Bob. He's a part of the family forever and if we find a story that we're excited about that involves him coming back in this way, we'd be more than happy to do it. He's a great character and he means a lot to Sheldon, so just in that, I would think it has an impact on most viewers. But the way it's handled where he's not gone forever from the show, I think makes it OK."

As the series enters its final two episodes of the season, there will be a lot of relationship drama and character development, especially from Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco).

"Leonard and Penny are capable of proposing to each other at any time on Big Bang Theory, for better or worse. They will talk about ... how often they propose and should they really be doing that anymore or should they just do it for real and get engaged? They can't keep playing this proposal game forever. It comes to a head in the last two episodes."

The Big Bang Theory season 7 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.

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