"The Big Bang Theory" season 9 has already gotten a few episodes on air but new reports are still pouring in regarding the show's casting. According to a report from TVLine, actress Laura Spencer, who plays Emily Sweeney, has been promoted to a fractional series regular.

This means she will be appearing in more episodes from now on, although not as frequently as the main cast of characters. This is still a major upgrade from her very sparse appearances throughout season 7 and season 8.

Emily was introduced back in season 7, where she met Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) via online dating and the two have been going steady since. She has also added a new layer of depth to Raj's story line in the series, which used to focus on his difficulty speaking to women and his pseudo-homosexual relationship with Howard (Simon Helberg).

However, during season 8, the relationship hit a few bumps after Raj realized that they had vastly different tastes - Emily has a thing for horror and gore while Raj has always been portrayed as a soft-hearted metrosexual geek.

Having more episodes with Emily means that her relationship with Raj could see a sudden improvement or it may see a sudden turn for the worse.

According to a report from Cinema Blend, Raj is the only one of the four male leads to not have a steady relationship. Howard was the first to marry, season 9 started with Leonard (Johnny Galecki) marrying Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and even Sheldon (Jim Parsons) had been with Amy (Mayim Bialik) for several seasons before their recent break-up.

Spencer made an appearance as Emily in season 9 episode 4, "The 2003 Approximation" and will be returning for future episodes, although the full list of episodes where she will be appearing has not been released.

"The Big Bang Theory" season 9 returns this Oct. 19 with episode 5, titled "The Perspiration Implementation."