If water is so easy to mimic, why don't you explain how it's done.
To be fair, algorithms for simulating water have gotten much better over the years. Here's something from 2002:
Oh yeah, totally agree. What we can render these days is basically sorcery, no doubt. But the fact of the matter, to create the interactions, lighting effects, fluidity all within an environment that is hyperrealistic takes gobs of money, time, and artists. All of the ISS footage we see, to fake it, would take gobs of money, time, and artists.
Not to say that it couldn't be done, just seems highly impractical and actually quite pointless. As well, you won't see these types of effects on TBBT because of the aforementioned gobs of money, time, and artists required.