The HBO Max spin-off "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" brought back another "Big Bang Theory" original cast member in its third episode, with Melissa Rauch reprising her role as Bernadette Rostenkowski in a magic-themed instalment that doubles as a pointed joke about the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Co-creator Zak Penn, who developed the show alongside "Big Bang" creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, admitted the sequence contains "inside jokes that will be amusing to only 4,000 people in the world," reflecting the writing team's own WGA membership and lived experience of the real-life strike.

In the episode, Stuart and Kripke seek out Bernadette, now a sorcerer, to help fix their broken reality-hopping machine, only to learn she has been expelled from the fictional "Wizards Guild of America" for using her powers to revive a neighbour's dog during a strike over demands including "better dental" and "residuals for eternal spells." The scene riffs directly on the real WGA strike, which lasted five months in 2023 and secured gains such as a minimum wage rise, streaming residuals and AI protections; it also references the genuine internal debate over the fact that non-working writers make up more than half of the guild's voting membership.