Review: New Futurama episodes (potential spoilers)

[Lord Destroyer]

SEASON SEVEN (assuming the direct-to-DVD movies were season 6)

Episode 1 - "Rebirth"

This one picks up where the direct-to-DVD movie Into the Wild Green Yonder left off - the Planet Express ship flies into a giant wormhole, not knowing where they'd wind up. They were being pursued by the Nimbus, with the pompous windbag Zapp Brannigan in the captain's chair.

Turns out the Nimbus followed the PE ship into the wormhole and they were near Earth - they traveled through the interstellar equivalent of the Panama Canal. The PE ship takes damage and crashes near PE headquarters, and so does the Nimbus.

Seems like Fry and Professor Farnsworth are the only survivors - Farnsworth unveils what happened to the others who were aboard. He uses a vat of stem cells to rebuild the bodies of all the others (Leela, Bender, Amy, Kif, Zoidberg, Hermes, Scruffy, LaBarbara, and Zapp) - they all pop out one by one, none the worse for wear, except for Leela who appears to be in a permanent coma, and Zapp is nowhere to be seen. Farnsworth puts one of his doomsday devices into Bender to give him a boost of energy - it puts forth so much that Bender has to party 24/7 to stop himself from exploding like a nuclear bomb.

Fry winds up building a robot equivalent of Leela, and Farnsworth inputs her memories and what-not so the robot assumes the form of Leela. After a few fruitless attempts at reviving Leela, they execute a provision in her will that she be fed to something called a cyclophage - a monster that devours cyclopes. However, a fiery belch from Bender rouses Leela from her coma. They beat a hasty retreat and Fry has to deal with the fact there are TWO Leelas, both of them wanting his attention.

It leads to a fight between the two Leelas, and Fry is holding a laser pistol. He has difficulty figuring out which one is the real one and which one's the robot. He shoots himself...turns out he's a robot too? Farnsworth explains - moments before the crash, Fry threw himself in harm's way if only to save Leela - only thing left of him after the crash was his hair and a mass of skin cells. Farnsworth attempted to rebuild him with the vat of stem cells, but nothing happened. Leela was so upset she built a robot equivalent of Fry, Farnsworth inputted Fry's memories...you know the rest. They were in the middle of a kiss when something happened that made Robot Fry's hair stick out like he had an Afro and Leela was lying there with only her head and skeleton intact.

Both robot clones of Fry and Leela remove their skin and talk a bit like Ah-nold in the Terminator movies. They leave, and finally a human Fry is ejected from the stem cell vat. Shortly thereafter, the cyclophage shows up but goes after Bender because one of his eyes fell out. It eats Bender, but he hits critical mass and explodes inside the cyclophage, killing it. Everything seems to be fine after that.

This episode...I give an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 2 - "In-a-Gadda-da-Leela"

Word gets out that a satellite called V-GINY is destroying planets and is making a beeline for Earth. Farnsworth unveils his two-man stealth fighter, and Zapp and Leela volunteer for the mission. The mission fails and Leela regains consciousness on a planet she thinks isn't Earth. Her legs are pinned under a large branch and Zapp is unable to move it.

While that mission is going on, the rest of the PE crew try to convince others to ditch their perverted ways, but to no avail. They go to an island far away from everybody else and prepare for the end, hoping their pure ways would make V-GINY veer away from Earth. It was revealed earlier that V-GINY was the result of two satellites colliding with each other - some kind of interstellar explorer with the FCC's satellite version of the V-Chip.

Back to Leela and Zapp - Zapp seems to be able to scrounge up some food and water, and they have ditched their spacesuits. The both of them are wearing fig leaves. Leela is worried about the fact their mission failed and if Earth is gone - Zapp hands her a "telescope" and she sees V-GINY vaporize Earth. She is upset...mostly because Earth is gone (and so is everyone she loves), but also that she's the last female. We're talking Adam and Eve from the Bible here.

Leela eats an apple from a nearby tree, but somehow realizes something isn't right. She confronts Zapp about it, and it turns out he lied to her about where he got the food and water, he could've moved that branch that was "pinning" her legs easily, and other things - he was trying to score points with her so she would do it with him again. (Cue Kif groan from Yours Truly here).

Leela frees herself from the branch, and...Fry shows up. Zapp explains he set up a simulation that made it look like V-GINY vaporized Earth using methods I'm sure would be approved by MacGyver. They were on Earth the whole time, and it was by chance that the PE crew went to the island where Leela and Zapp crashed.

Leela proceeds to beat the tar out of Zapp (the high point of the episode for me, though I wanted to see blood and broken bones as a result of that pompous slimeball doing what he did). Shortly thereafter, V-GINY shows up and demands that Leela and Zapp do it, or Earth will be destroyed. Leela is willing to "take one for the team", but Zapp is hesitant. The ensuing off-camera antics make the PE crew (especially Fry) cringe in horror.

This episode, IMO, kinda dragged, and I hoped Zapp would get it through his thick skull that Leela hates him and would never come back to him after this...only time will tell whether he finally wises up and leaves Leela alone, or if another beating is in the cards for him. I give this episode a B-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 3 - "Attack of the Killer App"

The episode opens up with the disposal of e-waste (e.g. old cell phones, TV sets). After the PE crew deals with it by leaving it on a planet called Third World where the e-waste is incinerated, they go back to Earth and learn about the latest in cell phone/telecommunications gear.

Mom (of MomCorp) unveils the eyePhone and demonstrates how useful it is. Everyone in the PE crew line up to get one - the eyepiece thing is placed within the eye socket, and the ear piece (which resembles a railroad spike) is hammered into your ear. They all get their eyePhones and are having a grand old time. Fry and Bender make a bet as to who will be the first to get a million subscribers to their videos and musings (a rip on YouTube and Facebook or Twitter, I daresay). The loser has to dive in the hot tub filled with vomit and diarrhea made by this two-headed goat (one head at each end). Scruffy sets up a diving board with a 2X6 wood plank and some brackets to hold it in place (doesn't look too sturdy to me).

Fry is intending to not sink to Bender's level, but loses subscribers left and right - he's down to about 15 subscribers at one point, while Bender's somewhere around the 800K subscribers mark. Fry is at a loss on how to top Bender and be the first to hit the million mark when by accident, he makes a video of Leela lancing an ugly-looking boil that sings songs like "Amazing Grace" (and from the way it looks, it's an obvious rip on Susan Boyle).

Leela tells Fry to delete the video and he's about to when he sees Bender doing something he thinks is cheating. He accidentally sends the video...lo and behold, his subscribers are jumping to untold heights - he and Bender are around 950K subscribers. Leela eventually finds out what Fry did and is very upset. Here, I thought Fry would be an inhabitant of Dumpsville.

Unknown to the population in general who invested in the eyePhone - Mom has a computer virus set up for when someone attains a million subscribers. That virus turns the subscribers into mindless zombies. The last push for a million subscribers between Fry and Bender reaches new heights...they both hit a million subscribers AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. Mom unleashes the virus...all the zombies do is proceed en masse to a MomCorp distribution center where the eyePhone 2.0 is on sale. And because both Fry and Bender hit a million subscribers at the same time, neither of them has to dive into that hot tub full of...bleah! :barf:

Meanwhile, Fry is feeling so awful what he did regarding Leela that he's sitting outside PE headquarters and Leela finds him. He tells her he felt so terrible about what he did that he sends her a video about what he did. He dives into the hot tub full of you-know-what...the board breaks, he falls and rolls into the gunk. Leela laughs but tells Fry that online fame is fleeting - that by the next day, people will have forgotten about it. She came to terms about her singing boil in the meantime and forgives Fry for what he did. Oh, well.

I give this episode a B+.

[Lotus666]

Sounding good, LD - can't wait to get hold of them here. :yes: :cool:

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 4 - "Proposition Infinity"

Amy and Kif are arguing - Amy's calling Kif a wimp, and Kif attempts to make it clear he's not into violence. Meanwhile, Bender is vandalizing billboards, buildings, and whatever with mosaic-type pictures of himself. He winds up vandalizing URL (a robot cop) and winds up in the slammer. He calls Amy, who drags Kif down to jail to bail out Bender. Kif sees Amy flirting with those in the clink and says he's had enough, it's over.

Fry, Leela, Bender, and Amy go to enjoy themselves and Bender gets all in Amy's face. It leads to Amy and Bender having some intimate time later on. They try to hide their love for one another until they go to harvest a tornado from an all-tornado planet. The Planet Express crew finds out what they've been up to and everyone is understanding except for Professor Farnsworth and Amy's parents, Leo and Inez. Apparently, a relationship between humans and robots (called robosexuality) is frowned upon in that time period.

Amy is kept at her parent's place while Bender goes through some kind of robot deprogramming thing run by the Robot Preacher. Fry manages to get Amy away from her parents, then Amy launches a maneuver to spring Bender from the deprogramming center.

Amy then starts up a political push to get something like California's Proposition 8 (called Proposition Infinity) approved by the voters. However, Farnsworth launches a massive counter-movement and appears to be winning the push to keep robosexuality illegal. It goes to a televised debate (with George Takei's head as moderator) - Bender starts with his opening statement, it devolves into a shouting match when Farnsworth interrupts, but it's all explained.

Long ago, Farnsworth was in love with a woman named Eunice, but one day he catches her in bed with a robot. He's been against robosexuality since then. But then, he realizes he got things mixed up - the woman was actually a fembot named Unit, and HE was in a robosexual relationship. He concedes his position, Proposition Infinity passes...but Bender ditches Amy for a couple of cheap hookerbots.

Amy's pondering about being left alone again, when she hears a song dedication to her - she looks out the window and sees Kif leaning against a motorcycle, wearing leather clothes (trying to fill out the "bad boy" image he thinks gets her so hot). They ride off into the sunset.

This episode made me laugh at some points, and was pretty clever every so often. I give this episode a big solid A.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 5 - "The Duh-Vinci Code"

Fry makes an appearance on a future version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire", hosted by Morbo. Right off the bat, Fry gets the first question wrong and he is jeered as a dumbass.

Professor Farnsworth unlocks his personal alcove filled with stuff about Leonardo da Vinci. Fry tries on Leonardo's beard, but sneezes and scatters the hair everywhere. Farnsworth finds a folded piece of parchment in the remains of the beard and looks at it. It's the schematic for Leonardo's ultimate creation, which prompts Farnsworth to analyze The Last Supper with help from Bender.

It is discovered one of the apostles in that particular fresco is actually a robot, so it prompts Fry, Leela, Bender, and Farnsworth to fly to Rome in an attempt to uncover the secret. They find the robot, still not working, but a rat jumps into its open chest cavity, spins a wheel (kinda like a hamster on a hamster wheel), and the robot activates. It attempts to keep the PE crew from discovering the truth about Leonardo, but to no avail.

It leads to Leonardo's hidden workshop and Fry sits in one of the chairs of something resembling very primitive aircraft. Somehow, Farnsworth is catapulted into the other chair and it sets off a Rube Goldberg kind of contraption - everything lying around the workshop is really an ancient version of spacecraft, and Fry and Farnsworth go on its maiden trip.

A month passes, and that spacecraft lands on another planet. They meet Leonardo da Vinci...turns out he was an alien from another planet. He went to Earth because he was derided as a moron on his home planet, but came back because it was infuriating seeing Earthlings being a lot dumber than him. Farnsworth attends a calculus lecture, only for him to realize it's way out of his league. Fry helps Leonardo complete his ultimate creation and then drum up attention to Leonardo's presentation.

Fry opens the presentation with an armpit symphony, then it goes to Leonardo. Turns out his ultimate creation is a doomsday device and he intends to flatten everyone who laughed at him and called him stupid. Fry and Farnsworth seem to be all for it, but Fry changes his mind and somehow sabotages Leonardo's doomsday device, at the cost of several broken bones, cuts, and a wrenched neck.

This episode was okay in some respects, but for the most part, I had difficulty understanding what was really going on. All the same, I give this episode a B.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 6 - "Lethal Inspection"

It begins with the Planet Express crew partaking in some kind of war re-enactment - they're dressed up like Union soldiers from the American Civil War and they're "fighting" a bunch of wannabe Sith (I mean, names like Darth Urderer, Darth Stroyer...yeesh!)

The Sith wannabes win and everybody in the PE crew is scuffed and aching, except for Bender. Farnsworth calls for his wheelchair and Bender rolls to him in it - Farnsworth sees a telltale oil stain. Turns out Bender is leaking oil and he's not as immortal as he claims - he doesn't have a backup unit if his old body conks out (it makes sense, he waited a little more than a thousand years in Roswell that Ends Well, and all those thefts in Bender's Big Score...his body's aged something fierce).

Bender swears to get at Inspector #5 for overlooking that fatal flaw and Hermes is ready to help him. They go to the HQ for bureaucrats and Hermes lets himself in through the entrance for bureaucrats - before he left PE headquarters, he put Leela in charge of filing any papers that come in. Hermes unlocks his cubicle (used for when he wants to get away from everything else, it's set up like a cross between a Rubik's Cube and Hollywood Squares) and starts looking up Inspector #5.

After searching for a while, he had no luck, so he goes to the physical files and looks - nothing on Inspector #5. Bender goes into a phone booth and calls tech support for Mom's Friendly Robot Company...she sends some killbots modeled after the Hunter-Killers from the Terminator series. Bender and Hermes run for their lives and manage to hitch a ride on a freight train. The killbots are annihilated when the train goes through a tunnel (Hermes and Bender limbo underneath - it's a VERY tight squeeze).

The train gets to the end of the line near the U.S./Mexico border and Bender recalls since his last name was Rodriguez, he came from Mexico. He and Hermes cross the border and look for Inspector #5 - no sign of him/her at the old robot factory (appears it was shut down years ago) or at a boarded-up house not too far away. Another batch of killbots zero in on them and start blasting away. Bender exits the house through the back door while Hermes manages to trick the killbots into thinking Bender has been destroyed - they end up destroying themselves.

Bender and Hermes go back to PE headquarters, only to find things have devolved into chaos - Leela can't keep up with the paperwork. Hermes manages to clear everything up quickly and Bender comes to terms with his mortality. While he and the other PE employees are getting drunk, Hermes deals with some last bits of evidence.

Turns out Inspector #5 was Hermes himself! He dealt with Bender as he came off the assembly line as a smaller baby robot drinking beer. Hermes couldn't bear the thought of putting Bender in the recycle bin, so he overrides the fatal flaw and puts in the "approved" slip. After doing that, Hermes tendered his resignation and found employment elsewhere. Hermes destroys the file folder about Inspector #5, and while he was on the computer at the boarded-up house, he also deleted all records about Inspector #5.

This episode had a bittersweet kind of ending, but did quite well in terms of character development. I give this episode a B.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 7 - "The Late Philip J. Fry"

Fry is trying to sleep, but Bender is getting it on with a hookerbot and the noise is keeping him awake. When the noise finally subsides, Fry is able to sleep - he sleeps until near 11:30 am. He gets to work - late as usual...Bender's the first one to jeer (geez, talk about inconsiderate - Bender was making that noise all the previous night so Fry couldn't sleep). Fry recalls he was supposed to take Leela to a birthday meal, but he's running late.

Turns out Leela's not too pleased about Fry's tardiness and she ordered a rather pricey dish for Fry and saddled him with the check. Fry attempts to make up for the tardiness by saying he'll take Leela to Cavern on the Green (reference to a New York spot called Tavern on the Green, you'd see that place in the first Ghostbusters movie - however, the Tavern closed down last year).

Fry is all set to meet up with Leela when Farnsworth makes him stay to be a guinea pig for his time machine - it only goes forward in time because of what messes can be created by messing with the past (a case in point was Fry doing it with his grandmother in Roswell That Ends Well). Farnsworth claims he'll set it to go a minute ahead in time. Fry is recording a video message on a birthday card for Leela, but something goes wrong in the time travel that makes him lose the card - the card's lost and Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth wind up in 10,000 AD. New New York is complete ruins, and Fry sees half-buried Statues of Liberty for 5 different societies and he sounds off like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes.

Apparently, the technology to get them to go back to 3010 isn't there, so they go forward again and again, but no dice. At one point, they end up in a future kinda like in the Terminator movies (machines rebel against humans, humans fight to survive) and Bender wants to stay there. Fry and Farnsworth find a future where men are seen as prized means of keeping the species alive (forget which year, though) and the means of making a time machine that goes back in time is available. However, Bender yanks on the start throttle and they jump forward to 1,000,000,000 AD - it's all a baked, desolate wasteland. There's nobody alive anywhere. Fry finds the ruins of the Cavern on the Green and is hit by a surprise...a note to him from Leela.

Turns out Leela's steamed about Fry not coming through with his promise, but is misled into thinking he went to Hedonism Bot's bachelor party and that party devolved into chaos because of a nuclear hookerbot exploding and killing everybody except for Hedonism Bot. Leela is both angry and upset, but it doesn't stop her from smashing the TV. Cut forward 20 years to 3030 - Planet Express is very successful, and Leela and Hermes have both aged considerably. She makes goo-goo eyes at Cubert (he kinda resembles Fry, and she figures she can love again).

Cut forward to 3050 - Planet Express is even more successful. Hermes is now a head in a jar on a pogo stick, Leela's hair is gray bordering on white, and somewhere along the way she married Cubert - but it fell apart because he did it with Amy (who is now a wrinkled human head on a robot body). Something comes out of the air and hits Leela - it's the birthday card that Fry lost while the time machine was going haywire! She watches the message and realizes Fry wasn't at Hedonism Bot's bachelor party - he just jumped forward so far in time that she would be long dead when he popped up again. She goes to Cavern on the Green (it apparently closed down some time ago) and she remembers what the waiter said about how stalactites and stalagmites are created. She takes out a laser pistol and shoots at the ceiling - the end result is the note Fry found on the floor in 1 billion AD. The essence of the note was Leela telling Fry that the time she had with him was the best in her life.

Fry goes back to Bender and Farnsworth at the time machine and they're set to watch the end of the universe from the time machine. Suddenly, another Big Bang (assuming the theory is correct) happens, and everything goes through as before. Farnsworth makes a quick stop and blasts Hitler, then moves forward in time. They're about to stop at when they took off, but he jerks the control the wrong direction and they're back in 10,000 AD again. They go through all that time again, it goes through once more same as before, and this time, Bender stops the time machine at the exact moment they were going to take off. The time machine lands right on Fry, Farnsworth, and Bender as they were about to board the time machine and kills them. However, I can't help but think in doing that, wouldn't the current Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth cease to exist?

Anyway, Fry dashes to the Cavern on the Green and meets up with Leela - he's on time for once. They have a good meal, and they're in Central Park (I think) watching the stars. I thought Fry and Leela would start making out...instead, Leela rests her head on Fry's shoulder. But then again, you gotta go to first base before you go to second. Unknown to them...Bender is burying the bodies of the Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth crushed by the time machine when it stopped.

This episode was funny at times and had a fair amount of shippy woven into it. I give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 8 - "That Darn Katz!"

Nibbler is doing his business in his litter tray, and Leela talks to him the way I'm sure most pet owners do. Down below, in the basement, Amy and Farnsworth are working on something regarding a crater of magma - apparently, it's something regarding Amy's doctorate and her presentation is tomorrow. Farnsworth comes clean that she could've gotten her doctorate 6 years ago, but that's by the by. He urges her and some others to go kick back and relax.

Fry, Leela, Bender, Amy, Kif, and Nibbler all go to The Hip Joint and get drunk. While Kif, Amy, Bender, and Fry are carousing on the dance floor, Leela confides in Nibbler and Nibbler lays off the cute act long enough for him to make it clear he's tired of the baby talk. Leela agrees to treat him like a member of the crew.

Next morning, Amy overslept and her doctorate presentation at Mars University is in 10 minutes - she set her alarm, but Bender messed around with her alarm clock and kept hitting the snooze button or something. Amy gets to Mars U. in time with a disorganized pile of papers and it turns out she didn't get properly dressed (she's still in her underwear) - but Farnsworth lends her his lab coat. The basis of her presentation has something to do with harnessing the magnetic fields surrounding Earth and its rotation through space. During the presentation, a Dr. Katz, who kinda reminds me of Ernst Blofeld in the early James Bond movies down to the white cat in his lap, lets his cat run around loose. It turns out Amy is allergic to cats, and the cat keeps getting close to her, making her sneeze repeatedly and mess up her presentation. Her presentation - no doctorate for her.

The PE crew all fly back to headquarters, unknowing the white cat stowed away. While they were all consoling Amy at the meeting table, the white cat showed up and everybody all flocked to it except for Amy and Nibbler. Nibbler gets increasingly jealous and annoyed that Leela is ignoring him, and he and Amy find out the cat basically hypnotized Leela. Said cat also made a reference to the Meow Mix commercials (I kinda remember one about a cat meowing at a UFO and a giant bag of Meow Mix appearing from within the UFO) and a lot more cats show up.

All the cats end up hypnotizing everybody else except for Amy and Nibbler and they find out by sneaking into the basement that they were going to use her idea from her doctorate presentation to get the cats' home planet to start rotating again, but the Earth stops rotating in the process. Amy and Nibbler fly to Mars U. and confront Dr. Katz...turns out he was basically a puppet for that cat. They rush back, find out the awful truth, and unfortunately, the plan works - the cats' home planet starts rotating again, but Earth slows down and stops in its rotation. All the space cats leave for their home planet after that.

New New York is in the middle of a massive heat wave because the Earth is no longer rotating on its axis when Amy hatches an idea. Although she can't turn the crank used in the plan the other way, she theorizes that they can get the Earth to rotate again by spinning that crank even more. Sure enough, it works, but the Earth's rotation is now backwards (sun rises in the west, sets in the east). Amy is awarded her doctorate after it's all said and done.

I give this episode a B+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 9 - "A Clockwork Origin"

The Planet Express crew are having a meeting when Cubert (Professor Farnsworth's clone, only a lot younger and a nose reminiscent of a pig) shows up, saying he couldn't get to school because of a bunch of protesters outside his school - looks like 1,000 years still didn't settle the evolution vs. creationism debate.

Farnsworth and the PE crew go to Cubert's school and Farnsworth rips on the protesters - it soon gets to a heated debate between an orangutan that speaks perfect English, named Professor Banjo, and Farnsworth. Farnsworth continues proving there are missing links between monkeys and humans, but there is still one more missing link. The PE crew go to Olduvai Gorge (the place where the Leakey family did their famous digs regarding ancestors to Homo sapiens) and start digging. Farnsworth eventually finds a skull that fits what he was looking for regarding a missing link.

It leads to a presentation where Farnsworth's find is jeered at when Professor Banjo puts forth a picture of Farnsworth's missing link riding a dinosaur. Farnsworth decides to leave Earth and settles on an uninhabited planetoid - but before doing so, he leaves Cubert in the care of Dr. Zoidberg back at PE headquarters. After setting up his cabin, Farnsworth puts some nanobots into a puddle full of polluted water so the water is fit to drink. Time passes, suddenly the nanobots are changing!

The changed nanobots crawl out of the water and eat the Planet Express ship and Farnsworth's cabin, making the entire PE crew flee for a nearby cave after those nanobots nearly ate every scrap of their clothes (still enough to cover certain areas, nudge-nudge). They sleep for the night inside the cave and awaken to see the nanobots aren't hanging around. Farnsworth analyzes the water...it's fit to drink. Fry is fooling around on a large metallic leaf in the center of that purified lake when he is attacked by some kind of robotic sea monster. Apparently, the nanobots evolved into robo-dinosaurs!

It's looking grim for the PE crew when a solar flare kills off the robo-dinosaurs. Farnsworth builds a spaceship with the remains, but they can't take off because it's solar-powered and there's not enough juice in the batteries to make it get back to Earth. They sleep for another day, only to find another stage of evolution in the robots - there are now robot cavemen, and they kidnapped Leela and Amy. It takes too long for suitable weapons to be built, so the men of the PE crew sleep for another night, then are ready to charge in and rescue Leela and Amy...turns out no need for it. The robots have now evolved into the equivalent of civilized human beings.

The PE crew is captured and put on display, but Farnsworth is placed under arrest for making a claim that he created them instead of saying they evolved. In the trial that follows (Bender representing Farnsworth), Bender goes for the insanity angle and the prosecution rests. The jury goes to deliberate, but another day goes by. They awaken...the robotic evolution went even further! They're now just glowing spheres of light that explode after a short while.

They get back to Earth in the rudimentary spaceship built a few days ago and Farnsworth's findings and observations make Professor Banjo rethink his stance.

This episode was alright by my standards, though it dragged a bit. I give it a B.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 10 - "The Prisoner of Benda"

The PE crew is watching TV news and hears of a Hungarian robot ruler coming in New New York via his caviar-powered yacht. Bender hears of the Hungarian robot crown jewels being aboard that yacht and plots to steal it. However, nobody else wants to get involved - he planned for Amy to keep the guards busy with a sexy dance, Zoidberg to cut the metal detector wires, and Fry to be the patsy to take the fall.

It goes to Amy and Professor Farnsworth tinkering with some kind of mind-switch machine and they try it out - Farnsworth wants more meat on his bones and long ago, Amy had a penchant for pigging out; and Farnsworth is tired of his decrepit old body and wants something much younger so he could indulge in what he missed out long ago.

They do the mind-switch and it WORKS! However, Farnsworth finds himself bored with being young pretty fast, and Amy gets fed up with Farnsworth's unpredictable colon. They try doing the mind-switch...but it doesn't work! Somehow, they have to do some creative switching around if they want their minds back in the bodies they inhabited. Bender volunteers to swap with Farnsworth in Amy's body so he could pull off part 1 of his crown jewel heist (the sexy dance as a diversion).

Part 1 of Bender's heist goes well, but part 2 hits a major snag because he couldn't get Zoidberg to tag along or do the mind switch with him somehow. Amy gets fed up with being in Farnsworth's body and switches with Leela. Fry sees Amy in Leela's body pigging out and he seems grossed out - Leela in Farnsworth's body yells at Fry because she's convinced Fry loves her only for her body, not what's within. Fry is determined to prove her wrong and starts looking for someone to do a mind-switch.

Meanwhile, Bender attempts to talk his way out of the sticky situation he got himself in with the robot ruler of future Hungary and it seems like they're having a grand old time. The ruler wants to be an average Joe robot for a day (fits well with Bender's idea of getting close to the crown jewels so he can swipe 'em). A couple of mind-switches follow - Bender in Amy's body with the automated mop bucket, then Bender in the automated mop bucket with the ruler after that.

Shortly thereafter, Fry finds the perfect one to do a mind-switch with if he intends to prove to Leela (in Farnsworth's body) that he loves her for more than her body - he switches with Dr. Zoidberg. He finds Amy (still in Leela's body) pigging out like nobody's business and Leela's body had bloated up to (I daresay) around 275 pounds. He seems grossed out and Leela was like "I told you so - you love me only for my body", and Fry challenges her claim. Fry in Zoidberg's body and Leela in Farnsworth's body go to dinner at Elzar's that night.

Farnsworth (in Bender's body), runs away to a robot circus and becomes Nonchalanto (or something like that) where he doesn't care what feats he does because his body can take the abuse. He becomes the main attraction. The automated mop bucket's AI (in Amy's body) goes to Scruffy (the janitor) and professes its "feelings" for Scruffy. Bender (in the Hungarian robot ruler's body) finds out the ruler's wife had been cheating on him for 700 years with a robot cousin of his who's also captain of the guard - they both try to waste him. Amy (in Leela's body) switches with Hermes because she can't control her out-of-control appetite.

Fry (in Zoidberg's body) and Leela (in Farnsworth's body) have that dinner at Elzar's, but it seems like they're both one-upping each other in terms of gross-outs. But somehow...they end up making out on that table (EWWWWW!).

Bender (in the ruler's body) flees for the UN and flies through the speech the ruler was going to do, then does battle with the treacherous captain of the guards. Farnsworth (in Bender's body) is launched over there via an old robot cannon and uses some robot clowns in the chest cabinet to turn the tables on the captain (turns him into scrap metal). Fry (in Zoidberg's body) and Leela (in Farnsworth's body) find out about what's going on at the UN while they're in bed together, presumably after (TMFI!).

Somehow, the Harlem Globetrotters (their first appearance - Time Keeps on Slippin' (a pre-cancellation episode)) get involved and solve the problem regarding the mind switches. After some hassle and fuss...everything's back to normal.

This episode...though sickening at times, made me drink LMAOnade and go for a ride in the ROFLcopter. I give this episode a solid A.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 11 - "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences"

Lrrr, the ruler of Omicron Persei 8, is lounging in his palace, taking a nap in front of the TV when his wife, Ndnd, gets on his case about not going out and conquering other planets. He keeps saying he'll do it tomorrow and all that jazz, which leads to Ndnd really nagging him so he goes out and attempts to conquer another planet.

During the time that is taking place, Fry is showing the PE crew his latest attempt at drawing a comic strip with some kind of digital tablet thing. After some constructive criticism, they go to a comic book convention and Fry gets some criticism from Sergio Aragones's head in a jar. He realizes he has to rework his strip a bit. They all go to a sneak preview of something called Futurella worked up by Matt Groening's and David X. Cohen's heads in jars. The Q&A portion starts and Bender shouts out a question about a second Simpsons movie - it earns him a brief volley of bullets from Matt Groening's head in a jar.

It's followed by fans dressing up like favorite comic book characters - Bender tries looking like Leela and Leela is dressed up like Princess Leia from Star Wars. The judging is interrupted by Lrrr showing up and demanding everybody surrenders. He's not taken seriously and he goes back to Omicron Persei 8 in disgrace. Ndnd kicks him out as a result and he asks to crash at PE headquarters for a while.

Bender shows Lrrr around and gets him a few things to really rev him up - apparently, Lrrr is having the Omicronian's equivalent of a mid-life crisis. He has some horn extensions put in, gets a nice suit, and parties at the Hip Joint. He meets up with another Omicronian - it turns out it's really a girl who loves dressing up like other beings from other planets.

Lrrr is so unsure of his masculinity that Fry calls in Orson Welles' head in a jar and they do another version of Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast and beam the signal to Omicron Persei 8. Ndnd sees the broadcast and thinks Lrrr is finally doing something right - she's turned on and goes to Earth. Unfortunately, that signal is also intercepted by the Nimbus and Zapp Brannigan goes to Earth, hoping to get things straightened out.

It looks like it's all coming together according to plan when the Nimbus arrives and Zapp pulls one of the French's usual tactics - surrender at the drop of a hat. He offers up Kif as a sacrifice and Lrrr eats one of Kif's legs. Ndnd arrives shortly thereafter and things are all cleared up. However, Ndnd thinks Leela has stolen Lrrr's heart and challenges her to a duel of sorts - before she does, she pulls out a disintegrator ray and vaporizes the girl in the Omicronian outfit. It's up to Lrrr to decide with a disintegrator ray who he prefers. He hesitates, and Fry jumps in the path of Lrrr's shot aimed at Leela - he gets vaporized. While Ndnd is overjoyed that Lrrr prefers her over Leela, Leela is upset over Fry's demise.

Shortly after that, the Omicronian impersonator shows up - that disintegrator ray is really Farnsworth's teleportation ray. Everybody goes looking for Fry and finds him back at PE headquarters, reworking his digital comic strip. He shows it off and Leela actually likes it - the ending earns him a smooch on the cheek.

This episode was nicely constructed, and so far it seems like Zapp's finally understood that Leela's not coming back to him (he didn't flirt with her at all during his screen time). That said, I give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 12 - "The Mutants Are Revolting" (100th episode!)

The PE crew celebrate their 100th delivery - they deliver a chocolate souffle with a drop of nitroglycerin on it from Elzar to a Mrs. Astor far from Earth. Bender is asked to hold the souffle because the slightest jolt...BOOM. It was a rough flight, but they made it in one piece and delivered the souffle. They were invited to an upscale luncheon in memory of Mrs. Astor's late husband, who died on the Land Titanic roughly twenty years before Fry came out of the deep-freeze. The Land Titanic was like the original Titanic, only it traveled on land like a giant train. It sunk under the pavement after it struck a mailbox, and Mr. Astor was aboard it when it went down. Fry opened his big mouth and told Mrs. Astor about Leela being a mutant, leading to Leela being exiled underground.

Leela, of course, is pissed off about her being stuck underground because of Fry's big mouth. The PE crew go to appeal to Mayor Poopenmeyer regarding Leela, but they all get chucked underground for 2 weeks because they harbored a mutant above the surface (except for Bender, who's celebrating the 100th delivery with a major party at PE headquarters). Fry tries to apologize to Leela, but she tells him to get lost because he'll never understand what it's like to be like her and her family.

The PE crew find the wreck of the Land Titanic and explore it. They crack open a safe and find a large green gem for Mrs. Astor and the passenger manifest for the Land Titanic's last trip before it went down. In the meantime, Leela feels she was too rough with Fry and wants to make it up to him. Fry feels rotten about opening his big mouth and getting Leela exiled underground, so he decides to jump into the glowing green lake that is the center of the mutants' underground town and become mutated as well. Leela finds him about to jump into that lake and attempts to talk him out of it - no luck. Fry jumps in, Leela gets in a rowboat and rows where Fry went under, and fishes him out - he turned into a shapeless blob with 3 eyes, a couple of tentacles, and is able to reach out with arms from time to time - Leela is so freaked out that she pukes into the lake.

The rest of the PE crew catch up to Fry and Leela and they have the same reaction that Leela did - barf city (yep, even Zoidberg hurled). Leela kicks into activist mode and vows to end the mutants being stuck underground per some ridiculous law. Leela and Fry get the other mutants joining their cause and make plans to overtake the streets. Fry gets to PE headquarters via a secret passage and talks to Bender, who is feeling lonely since he ended the party abruptly because it didn't feel right that everybody else wasn't around to enjoy the party. He comes underground with Fry and bends the main sewer pipe so the sewage goes back up to the surface and floods the streets.

The mutants ready themselves for retaking the streets and surge out of the sewers. They make it to City Hall where they run into Mrs. Astor and Mayor Poopenmeyer - apparently, the backed-up sewage is being pumped into Madison Cube Garden, so the streets are clear of waste products. Mrs. Astor launches a mini-missile at the mutants and misses - it strikes Madison Cube Garden and the sewage threatens to swamp everybody. Fry makes use of that special gem from the safe on the Land Titanic's wreck and diverts the flow. He shows that gem to Mrs. Astor, who remembers it but feels no attachment whatsoever to it because she has a lot more of 'em.

Shortly thereafter, Fry presents the passenger manifest of the Land Titanic and makes it clear there were mutants aboard its ill-fated trip. One mutant apparently got on the escape pods. That particular mutant had a small mutant child with her. A much older mutant with three eyes and white hair comes forth and tells the story - Mr. Astor gave up his spot on the last escape pod to let her and her mother get off the ship before it went under street level. That older mutant is the mother of Leela's mother, Munda. Leela demands of her mother why wasn't she told of this and Munda tells her Granny is crazy. Mayor Poopenmeyer rescinds the law regarding mutants living underground.

Leela, although grossed out about Fry's appearance at first, is willing to kiss him now. They kiss, only to find out she's not kissing Fry at all - she's kissing a mutated Mr. Astor! Fry is completely intact in Mr. Astor's throat and is disgorged. The PE crew, as well as Leela and her family (her parents and grandmother) all go to PE headquarters and party in their own way.

This episode is one of the best I've seen in a while - it took the writers a few episodes to get their minds in stride, but all the same, the renewal so far is worth it. I give this episode a solid A+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 13 - "Futurama Holiday Spectacular"

This episode covers 3 different holidays - Xmas, Robonukah, and Kwanzaa. I would have written this sooner if I didn't get so wrapped up in Red Dead Redemption last Sunday that I missed both times it aired - luckily, it aired Wednesday evening, and I watched it while in Lake City.

It starts with the Xmas part - Fry is grumping about how Xmas just isn't the same without pine trees. They promptly buckle down in preparation for Robot Santa's rampage and he somehow still gets in. Unfortunately, Scruffy (the janitor) meets his demise in Robot Santa's rampage. Shortly thereafter, Farnsworth recalls there is a seed depository in Norway (here I somewhat expected a dead parrot joke) and they go there. It's next door to some germ warfare warehouse and one of its shutters is open (cue creepy foreshadowing). They get a couple of seeds of the kind of tree used in Christmases past and Fry plants one. In almost a year's time, it looks kinda scraggly (not an awful lot like an honest-to-God Christmas tree, but bigger than the one Charlie Brown grabbed in A Charlie Brown Christmas). That tree is taken to Earth's capital and planted - it sprouts to tremendous sizes and spews out pine cones with explosive seeds. The seeds, after the initial explosion, sprout new pine trees, the cycle continues until Earth is completely covered in mutated pine trees. Farnsworth sees on a meter that the oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere is climbing rapidly - they start worrying when the content goes to 80%. Bender lights a cigar...big puff of flame, and Earth is a scorched wasteland. Robot Santa gloats over that and goes back to his HQ.

On to Robonukah - Bender is incensed that people don't celebrate it, but the rest of the PE crew is convinced that he made it up just so Bender could take time off. It somehow involves fembots wrestling in a bubbling crude (oil, that is...black gold, Texas tea). But, if you watched the previous episodes of Futurama, you know crude oil ran out hundreds of years ago. Bender is convinced there's a tiny amount left somewhere within Earth and they drill for it. The Planet Express crew go deeper and deeper in the PE spaceship although the pressure gets to the point the ship can't take much more. Suddenly, there's a rock fall, crushing the PE ship and everybody inside except for Bender. Fast-forward about 50 million years later...the PE crew has become crude oil! Although it's 50 million years later, Bender doesn't care and celebrates Robonukah the way he wanted it.

Now, on to Kwanzaa. The PE crew go to Hermes' house and partake in the festivities. After an informative song about Kwanzaa, they find out they don't have beeswax to make the kind of candles they need for Kwanzaa festivities. They go to a bee farm of sorts...the bees have been infested with some kind of crab-like parasites, and there's no beeswax to spare. They all go to the Space Bee hive (they went there before in The Sting, where Leela was stung and was in a coma for 2 weeks) and find out the Space Bees are warring with each other because they all have those crab-like parasites as well. The worker bees are getting at each other like gangsters and Mafia wiseguys until Hermes convinces the queen bee to get the other bees to work together. Lo and behold, the parasites die and fall off the Space Bees' bodies. They turn on the PE crew...I'm sure you can guess the rest. It fades to black, then you see the PE crew looking like oversized Kwanzaa candles. There's a final bit involving Al Gore's head where he promises there will be more episodes of Futurama next year, it's a matter of waiting for them to air.

So far, Comedy Central hasn't made the same mistake Fox did - let's hope they don't do that after next season. I give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 14 - "Neutopia"

Planet Express is about to go bankrupt when Farnsworth bursts onto the scene, saying they have a delivery - it turns out it's a letter to him. The letter says unless they make good on the mortgage payment, they'll lose the building that houses Planet Express.

The crew brainstorm on how to raise money, and Amy and Leela come up with the idea of an interstellar airline - that idea is mocked and jeered. Farnsworth (or Hermes) came up with the idea of a risque calendar (they state there's something in their contract saying females must be nude when requested) featuring the female employees of PE, but there's only two of them (Leela and Amy). Hermes talks LaBarbara into working with PE, but they're unable to come up with enough photos to make a calendar.

Farnsworth then steals Leela's idea of an interstellar airline and they modify the PE ship to look something like an old WWII bomber. Fry and Hermes are the pilots; the women are the airline attendants (wearing skimpy outfits, no less), Bender serves the drinks, and Zoidberg takes another shot at stand-up comedy. However, Fry and Hermes doze off at the controls and they crash-land on another planet.

The men and women bicker with each other, blaming each other for the crash. A rock creature makes an appearance and makes a challenge - the next day on that planet will turn them all into smoldering ash, but they have a chance if they get to some cave in the distance. The men and women go their separate ways but get nowhere fast. The women decide to go to where the men are holed up and swipe Bender's gas jet thing so the robotic fridge (with a female personality) acts as an air conditioner so they can make it to the cave despite the horrific heat. LaBarbara is able to swipe it, only to meet up with Hermes - he swiped the Freon circulating thingamajig from the fridge-bot - it leads to the Conrad spouses jawing at each other, but then it devolves into them getting their freak on.

The next morning dawns, and everybody realizes how boned they are when suddenly, they're teleported to the cave by that same rock creature. It turns out that journey was an exercise in getting them to work together and they failed. With some hocus-pocus, the rock creature makes everybody sexless (no secondary sex characteristics - they're basically spayed and neutered). It doesn't seem to work out, so the rock creature zaps them again and the women are men and the men are women. Oh God...Amy with a six-pack, Leela with a beard, and Fry with boobs?

Turns out the rock creature screwed up and was about to set things right when along comes a certain egotistical bloated jackass playing hero - he blasts and kills the rock creature, leaving them the way they were left. Zapp makes passes at Fry - here was a time I wished Amy and Leela jumped him and beat him so soundly it would be a miracle he'd be alive.

Everybody is brought back to Earth, and it turns out with the original PE crew being switched around in terms of gender, they're now able to complete the risque calendar (pics of Bender, Fry, Scruffy, Zoidberg, Hermes, and Farnsworth as women...*shudders*).

Luckily, sales of the calendar brought forth enough money to stave off bankruptcy, and then they got a visit from some other creature on that planet they crashed on - it was somebody called Borax Boy, and he sets their genders all right.

This episode made me laugh at times, and at other times, made me cringe. I'd give this episode a B.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 15 - "Benderama"

Farnsworth demonstrates his newest invention - it resembles an overhead projector. He lays a sweater on the screen, opens a panel on the side and inserts a book into the shredding gears, then activates it - the device creates two smaller sweaters. Farnsworth then asks Bender to fold the sweaters (by telling him to bend them), and Bender puts the duplicator in his chest cabinet. He then consumes a couple of things and his chest cavity spews out a couple of smaller Benders.

Soon, they have to make a delivery to this creature that is self-aware he is ugly and they should treat him with respect as they deliver large amounts of acne cream, toothpaste, and other items to him. Bender and his smaller clones rip on the guy and he somehow takes it in stride. Fry says something about the giant's mother and he loses it.

Back on Earth at Planet Express, the original Bender asks the two smaller Benders to fetch him four cigars. The smaller Benders somehow replicate four much-smaller Benders which deliver the four cigars to the original Bender. Before you know it, there are tiny Benders everywhere - Leela thinks one of them is a mouse, Amy shrieks about a roach when she comes out of the decontamination shower and sees a tiny Bender.

The PE crew set about destroying the mini-Benders by any means necessary - stepping on them, frying 'em with a magnifying glass, everything. They think they got 'em all, but it turns out the original Bender spared one of them and substituted it with a talking Bender doll. That one that was spared replicated until there was a ton of microscopic Benders. It is decided that nothing is to be done because they run on alcohol and they shut down when there's no alcohol.

When a news report is made about the lack of booze in the world (you actually see Linda (the female anchor) freaking out), the PE crew think they averted disaster until it turns out the water in the world has been turned into alcohol. Somehow there are a LOT more Benders in a subatomic sense and they somehow manipulated water and carbon dioxide molecules to turn water into alcohol. Everybody is staggering around drunk when suddenly the ugly giant from earlier shows up and throws a fit when he's dangerously close to losing his cool and he can't reach his therapist. The subatomic Benders merge with the original Bender and the huge Bender fights the giant. It seems like the giant won when the subatomic Benders swarm on the giant and consume him. They then leave Earth and go to some other planet.

Next day - everybody's feeling the pain of major hangovers, and it seems like everything's back to normal. I give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 16 - "Ghost in the Machines"

After Hermes breaks the news that if nobody does anything for the next 15 minutes, the company's insurance will be reinstated. Everything seems to be doing fine until Amy freaks out about a giant hot dog floating outside PE headquarters. The PE crew all go to look when they see various groups having a parade. Fry learns that because so many different groups wanted recognition via parades long ago and it took up all days in the year, they lumped all the parades in one day and left it at that.

Nothing goes wrong with the parade until the Jamaican float (complete with stereotypical cloud of weed smoke) gets too close to the Doritos float - the collision sends this giant red polyhedron rolling down the road and a human and robot are dangerously close to being crushed. Fry rushes in and saves the human in the nick of time, the robot isn't as lucky. Fry gets the keys to the city and after the celebrations are over, Bender blows his stack at Fry because Fry allegedly places human lives above those of robots.

Bender threatens to kill himself and uses a suicide booth - he actually goes through with it. His powered-down body is delivered to the PE building and everybody else helps themselves to parts of Bender (Fry takes an arm and uses it as a back-scratcher, Hermes uses the head as a trash can, etc.). Unknown to them, Bender's "spirit" (or rather, programming) is floating around and nobody knows what he's doing. Bender's ghost goes to Robot Hell and he learns from the Robot Devil that because he killed himself, he's stuck in Robot Limbo.

Bender's ghost signs a deal - the Robot Devil is still seething over the hand-swap that happened back in The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings (the last episode Fox ever aired before the plug was pulled long ago) and wants Fry dead. Bender's ghost is told to scare Fry to death and Bender's body will be restored - if he fails, he'll be stuck in Robot Hell listening to the Robot Devil sing some banal song for eternity.

Bender's ghost tries to scare Fry but fails until he learns he can possess mechanical items (e.g. Fry's electric toothbrush, hair dryer). It makes Fry freak out to the point he suffers a heart attack and winds up in the hospital. The doctor says Fry should be sent to the Amish planet where electric implements are not allowed. Fry is sent over there and he's adjusting nicely until the PE crew comes to visit. Somehow, the Robot Devil stowed away on another flight and disguised himself. The Robot Devil sets things in motion so Fry will be killed. However, Bender's ghost finds out Fry misses him terribly and doesn't actually place human lives over robot lives. Bender's ghost goes into action and possesses the Robot Devil - he warns Fry, then gets crushed by a polyhedron-shaped barn. The ghosts of both the Robot Devil and Bender go to Robot Hell, but the Robot Devil has a few spare bodies and Bender's still SOL.

Bender's ghost, because of his act of selflessness, is sent to Robot Heaven and he hassles the Robot God to the point he's kicked out and reincarnated.

Overall, I'd rate this episode a B+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 17 - "Law and Oracle"

This episode starts off kinda like the opening for the very first episode of Futurama (Space Pilot 3000) - Fry's playing a video game and showing off for somebody else, only to be called a loser or some such. Straight after that, Fry is to deliver a pizza to Applied Cryogenics and it's yet another prank name (in Space Pilot 3000, it was I. C. Wiener, in this one, the name was D. Frosted Wang). Unlike Space Pilot 3000, it isn't New Year's Eve and Fry doesn't fall into a cryotube.

Fry gets back to Planet Express and fumes about how he was jeered and mocked for falling for that and asks if there is room for promotion at Planet Express - he's tired of being a delivery boy. It turns out unless someone bites the dust, Fry's not gonna get promoted (and same with everybody else). The meeting is abruptly interrupted by Roberto who takes the PE staff hostage and threatens that unless his demands are met, he'll start stabbing members of the PE staff.

Along come the cops Smitty and URL, who promptly defuse the situation and arrest Roberto. Leela says something about loving a man in uniform, but then indicates the uniform has to be long pants, not shorts. Fry then tenders his resignation from Planet Express and goes to join the police force.

Fry goes through Police Academy alongside a robot called Sound Effects 5000 (let's just say it's a robotic version of Michael Winslow, the guy who played Larvell Jones in the Police Academy movie series). Fry passes and gets his certification, then he is assigned to URL as a partner (for some reason, Smitty took early retirement a few days before actual retirement).

After some successful arrests and commendations, Fry is assigned to the Future Crimes Division, where a robot with a human brain, called Oracle, determines what crimes will happen when and where. He ejects a certain-colored ball (e.g. green for larceny, red for murder, white with pink polka dots for clown slaughter) into the tub where he is, the ball is fished out and plugged into a supercomputer where the cops see some details of what is to be. They're able to stop a murder attempt on Hattie MacDoogal (an old lady with a glass eye, she appeared in the episode Future Stock, I think).

One night, Fry is pulling extra hours when Oracle ejects a green ball into the tub. Fry fishes it out, plugs it in, and sees details of someone swiping a bottle of Maltese Liquor. He delves into some further details and finds out Bender's going to swipe it. He meets up with Bender away from Planet Express and tells him what's gonna happen and attempts to coax him away from doing that - it does the opposite. Fry goes back to the Future Crimes Division and looks into some further details - a shot is fired, but who is hurt? It turns out Fry shoots Bender and shatters the bottle of Maltese Liquor. Fry insists he could never do that, and it leads to Oracle ejecting another ball into the tub. Fry and URL investigate that and see that if Fry doesn't shoot Bender for swiping the liquor, Bender gives the liquor to everyone else at Planet Express and they keel over, dead. Fry has a tough decision to make.

The time and date of the alleged theft approaches and Bender goes in - turns out the place in question is Hedonism Bot's mansion. Bender goes into the cellar and is about to commit the theft when Fry shows up. It turns out Oracle made up the scenario just so he could get the Maltese Liquor so his human brain could shrivel down to a much smaller size (the liquor is 210 proof, or 105% alcohol) - he was tired of being used to predict future crimes.

Fry then reveals he knew something wasn't right with the alternate reality that Oracle generated - anytime Bender steals something, he NEVER shares it with others, so there was no way the others at Planet Express would wind up dead if Bender pulled off the heist. Oracle then reveals the bottle that Bender swiped wasn't the real Maltese Liquor because Fry pulled the old switcheroo beforehand. Oracle gets his hands on the real Maltese Liquor and drinks it - his human brain shrivels. Fry shoots Bender just like the future scenario said he would, but the shot wasn't fatal.

Fry then reveals he set things up to nail the real perp - URL and the Chief are watching from another room via one-way glass and they collar the Oracle. Fry got commended for foiling the crime, but because he tipped off Bender, he was canned from the cops. He asks for his old job back, and Farnsworth tells Fry he is now an executive delivery boy - it's basically the same job he was doing, only with the word "executive" tacked on to defuse his insecurity.

I would give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 18 - "Silence of the Clamps"

The PE crew have a local delivery to make - they have to deliver a package to the Donbot, leader of the Robot Mafia. When they arrive, a wedding is taking place - one of the Donbot's robot daughters is getting married and Bender spots the Robot Devil and Calculon at an open bar. The delivery is made - a pair of new clamps for Clamps (his old ones are rusted and/or covered with so much crud they don't work right anymore).

Bender sneaks in and tries seducing the bride, then the Donbot's wife, then a younger daughter of the Donbot, named Belle (when she walks, something that sounds like a bell ringing is heard). Belle and Bender are getting it on when Bender overhears some conversation. Seems like Calculon borrowed money from the Robot Mafia and hasn't repaid them. He begs for mercy, only to get none and get the clamp treatment from Clamps. Bender overhears the Donbot saying he hates welchers (Bender realizes he, too, is in debt with the Robot Mafia), those who seduce his daughter (strike two) and attempt to replicate his meatball recipe (Bender swiped a copy of the recipe and made them, strike three).

Bender attempts to stay silent about what he saw and heard until he learned there was a $50 reward for tips given to the cops. Bender tells the cops what he saw and heard and learns he has to testify in court. Bender testifies, but the jury finds the Donbot not guilty when Calculon shows up and claims he hurt himself by accident (Joey Mousepad made him say it). Shortly thereafter, the Donbot finds out Bender was the witness to what really happened and vows to have Bender terminated with extreme prejudice.

Bender is placed in the witness relocation program and has to leave Planet Express for the time being. After some farewells, he's on his way to a new identity in hopes he won't be found and wasted by the Robot Mafia. Shortly thereafter, Clamps applies for Bender's old position (under his real name, Francis) and is hired. Seems like everybody is convinced that Francis (Clamps) is a lot better than Bender, except for Zoidberg, who claims that snipping is strictly his turf.

Next delivery is to the moon, and when it's completed, Fry sees a robot that looks like Bender. They tail him to a moon farmer and knock on his door - the farmer claims he never heard of a robot named Bender. The robot they think is Bender denies he is truly Bender. Farnsworth examines his programming and thinks the witness relocation program completely purged all of Bender's old memories.

The PE crew is heading back to Earth when they realized they forgot Clamps (or rather, Francis) - Clamps confronts the Bender wannabe and is about to do to him what he did to Calculon when Zoidberg shows up. It leads to a showdown Wild West style - Zoidberg is at a disadvantage when he uses his pincers to snip off Clamps' clamps. The Donbot and his daughter show up shortly thereafter and the daughter wastes Bender.

The PE crew go to a pizza place not too far from Planet Express and they're about to receive their order when the waiter makes an appearance - he's the actual Bender, and the one that was wasted on the moon was an honest-to-God bending unit with hillbilly programming. Bender comes back to Planet Express after being told the Robot Mafia thinks they wasted him. They're about to cut the pizza when Zoidberg warns if anybody does any cutting, it will be him. He cuts the pizza while staring down anybody who is about to make any sudden moves.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 19 - "Yo Leela Leela"

Leela goes to the orphanarium where she grew up because the orphans there want a story - they don't have any books to read. Leela attempts to tell a story, but it winds up terrible.

Leela attempts to write something, but noise all around her keeps breaking her concentration (Fry playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" on a trombone, Bender tooting like a tugboat, Farnsworth complaining of his foot pain to Leela) - she takes the PE ship to somewhere peaceful and quiet so she can work on her writing.

She returns to the Orphanarium the next week with a new story, but has to wait until the representative of a future version of Nickelodeon finishes his presentation (he's running show ideas past the orphans and measuring their enjoyment - but the stuff he puts forth would make just about any adult cringe (I mean, Popular Teen Sluts?)).

Leela tells her story about these five characters from a place called Rumbledy-Hump and tells a story that excites and enthralls the kids (I daresay it's a future version of Yo Gabba Gabba - not that I watched it or anything). The guy who came before her sees the excitement level go extremely high on his meter and he asks Leela if she's willing to do a TV show with her characters. She's reluctant, but she agrees.

Leela enlists the aid of other PE crew to wear the appropriate costumes (notably herself, Fry, Amy, Bender, and Zoidberg) and they shoot the new episode - her show's a major hit. She's nominated for a Kid's Choice Award (or rather, a future version of it) and she wins. After she does her acceptance speech, she gets Slurm dumped on her (kinda like the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards with green slime).

At a party later on to celebrate Leela's win, Bender meets a fembot that is in actuality a massage chair - they stow away on the PE ship before Leela takes it to her quiet spot so she can write the next episode. Bender finds out that Leela just observes these five beings that look exactly like the characters from her show and writes down what they say and/or sing. He threatens to expose Leela's lies unless she agrees to his terms.

Leela reluctantly agrees, but caves in to the pressure after learning one of the orphans made up fictional characters of her own and is intending to be like Leela - she confesses what she does, but the guy she agreed to earlier is wiling to make a few changes. They film the creatures, using the orphans as non-union labor, and it goes from animated show to a reality show of sorts. Leela insists she feels awful enough and pleads that she be punished a lot worse for her lying and hypocrisy - no dice.

Overall, I would rate this episode a B+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 20 - "All the Presidents Heads"

Professor Farnsworth asks the PE crew if they saw his family tree, they said no, so he shows it off via some kind of hologram projector. He's a distant relative of Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of TV, and even shows the branch where Fry figures in - his pic is on a withered branch being torn up by beetles.

Fry is asleep at this point, but is awakened by the holographic image of his branch in Farnsworth's family tree hitting him on the noggin. He realizes what time it is and he says he has to go to his night job. It's at the Head Museum, where he keeps watch on all the heads in jars. His supervisor (I presume it is) is turning it over to him and also addresses him as Lars (reference to Bender's Big Score) although Fry isn't bald, doesn't have any facial hair, or has a raspy voice because of smoke inhalation.

Fry goes to the Hall of Presidents and the rest of the PE employees see him there. It eventually turns into a full-blown party of sorts and Zoidberg drinks the fluid in Lyndon Johnson's jar - he somehow teleports back in time to the 1960s or thereabouts and meets artist Andy Warhol. He calls Warhol's painting of Campbell soup cans schlock. Shortly thereafter, he warps back to where he was and he sees a Warhol painting on the wall - you know that one of Marilyn Monroe with the background and face done over and over with different colors? Instead of Marilyn, it's Zoidberg - and Zoidberg still calls it schlock.

The PE crew dare Fry to lick Hoover's head - he does, and warps back in time to a speakeasy during Prohibition (1919 - 1933). Bender is with him and they're there long enough to see what it was like during the 1920s. They warp back and Farnsworth explains some kind of crystallized opal goes into the fluid in the jars - it somehow keeps the heads in some kind of stasis bubble. The crystallized opal also have temporal properties which go towards keeping the heads in stasis inside their jars.

Shortly thereafter, Farnsworth asks Reagan's head if he saw his family tree. Reagan's head bluntly tells him he asked Farnsworth to leave him alone. Farnsworth pays no attention to Reagan's request and starts talking about it, only to have George Washington's head to interrupt and say the name Farnsworth makes him spit - apparently there was a counterfeiter back in colonial times named David Farnsworth. Fry isn't about to believe him, but Leela calms him, telling him Washington wasn't one to lie (obvious reference to the fictional story about Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree).

It's decided - Farnsworth goes back to colonial times with Fry, Leela, and Bender. Before doing so, he dumps the vial of the last known crystallized opal into Washington's jar and licks the head. The four of them are transported to New York back around 1776.

They have about 24 hours to burn, so they find the Continental Congress and ask if they know anything about David Farnsworth - they show one of his forged monetary notes. After some analysis, they figure it came from one of Ben Franklin's printing presses in Philadelphia. They get down there (don't know how, I mean an overland trip to Philly would've taken months) and ask Ben Franklin. It turns out he had an apprentice named David Farnsworth, but he's nowhere to be found. Bender looks in David's chamber pot and finds a coin in there. He tests it - it's a counterfeit coin, and apparently it came from Paul Revere's silversmith trade in Boston.

Using Ben Franklin's experiment involving a kite and a lightning storm on Bender, they get up to Boston very quickly and find Paul Revere. They corner David Farnsworth and the Professor conks him good. Revere gets his note to prepare for a ride that went down in history in the meantime. Farnsworth, Fry, Leela, and Bender pile up David Farnsworth's counterfeit notes and set fire to it - Fry is asked where he got a lantern. Lo and behold - Fry fouled up history by taking it from the Old North Church (one if by land, two if by sea) and Revere went on his ride, saying the British were coming by land.

The effects of the time warp wears off and they're transported back - the United States doesn't exist! It's still under British control, and everybody is talking like stereotypical Brits.

For you Brits out there, I'm sure you'd enjoy spotting some British pop culture references - I saw a Doctor Who reference (assuming the phone booth near PE headquarters was a TARDIS - it looked like one to me) as well as a couple of Monty Python references (a Gilliamesque animation regarding how Paul Revere bungled his famous ride and the rebellion was put down quickly, as well as Zoidberg doing a silly walk).

Leela asks Hermes what happened as a result of Fry FUBARing everything - the Continental Congress was forced to sign a "Declaration of Dependence", and the United States never existed as a result. Farnsworth is now a rich person with connections with British royalty. He even gets some physical favors with the Queen and he recognizes an opal in her crown - he knocks her out, takes the opal, and he, Fry, Leela, and Bender beat it to the 'Ead Museum - they find David Farnsworth's head in a jar, Bender grinds the opal to powder and they pour it into the appropriate jar, lick, and back in time they go.

By the time they warp back, Farnsworth brags he conked David Farnsworth even harder, and Fry left the lanterns in the Old North Church alone this time - everything is the way it was before the first trip back in time, with one exception - instead of the "Don't Tread On Me" flag in the Hall of Presidents, it's a pic of Bender saying "Bite my fhiny metal aff" (something covered earlier in the episode, apparently their "S" looked like an "F").

I give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 21 - "Mobius Dick"

The PE crew are having a meeting, but Farnsworth is nowhere to be found. He shows up late for the meeting and admits he was mourning his first Planet Express crew, who went missing about 50 years ago on their first delivery. He explains who was on the crew (one of them was Dr. Zoidberg) and after seeing them off, he soon gets a phone call saying the delivery didn't come through. He orders a widow's walk (the circular walkway around the outside of the PE building's tower) and it's installed. One day, he's gazing at the heavens when an escape pod comes forth and crashes into the PE building - it's Zoidberg, and for some odd reason, he's got a mop of white hair. Zoidberg is unwilling to talk about what happened for some reason.

Anyway, the current PE crew with Hermes, Amy, and Zoidberg accompanying them has to pick up a monument to the first crew, but have to steer clear of the Bermuda Tetrahedron while getting there. They arrive, and Leela gets all anal-retentive about the monument - the monument has a superfluous apostrophe which makes the message all wrong. The monument is redone, but they lost valuable time and probably won't make it back to Planet Express in time for the memorial ceremony. Leela decides to go through the Bermuda Tetrahedron.

They're making it through the Tetrahedron when Leela spots the original Planet Express ship - they check it out and Zoidberg remembers one thing about what happened. He was bothered by the fact something happened that made him bail - the crew was about to eat a McDonald's Value Meal. Zoidberg scarfs the leftover food and says he feels closure. Shortly after that, everybody sees a big white space whale appear and it attacks the original PE ship - they escape, but barely. Leela gets to the controls and floors it - the space whale then gobbles up the monument strapped to the top of the PE ship. Leela goes all Captain Ahab and swears she will kill that space whale if it's the last thing she does.

After raising some solar sails or some such, they pursue the space whale. Amy manages to get a harpoon in it, but it darts off and drags the PE ship with it, even diving into a time doorway of sorts - in the alternate dimension the whale travels in, everybody on the PE ship sees and hears things all screwy like they're all on a major LSD trip. The whale resurfaces somewhere else in space and after awhile, it seems like Leela's obsession is too much to take. It eventually leads to the line to the harpoon being cut, then the space whale takes a big bite out of the PE ship, consuming all except Leela and Zoidberg. Zoidberg jumps into the escape pod, while another pass by the whale leads to Leela being consumed as well.

Back on Earth, Farnsworth is on the widow's walk again when Zoidberg's escape pod crash-lands nearby like last time. Again, Zoidberg has the mop of white hair, which Farnsworth eventually shaves off (apparently Zoidberg grows a mop of hair so it will turn white when something truly terrifying is about to happen). The memorial ceremony starts with the wife and son of the first PE crew captain, Amy's and Leela's parents, LaBarbara and Dwight Conrad, and Zoidberg in attendance. There is a guy selling popsicles, but sales aren't great. The ceremony begins, but since the monument isn't there, Farnsworth wants to start with a prayer.

Back inside the whale, Fry, Leela, Bender, Amy, and Hermes come to and everybody's pretty ticked at Leela - she's the reason why they're inside the space whale. A flood of fluid washes everybody but Leela further down the digestive tract - turns out it travels in an infinite loop, like a Mobius strip. The reason why Leela wasn't propelled into there was because of her obsession - the space whale feeds upon it. She finds the captain of the original PE crew melded with the wall of the whale, and he's aged considerably. Leela, too, winds up melded to the wall because of her obsession with completing the delivery.

Back on Earth, the memorial ceremony is continuing when the space whale makes a crash-landing at PE headquarters. Zoidberg sprouts yet another full mane of hair, ready for it to turn white. The space whale's mouth opens and out comes Leela. She explains how she was able to steer the space whale with her obsession and get it to land on Earth. She uses her obsessions to get it to disgorge everything caught in its infinite-loop digestive tract, and the original PE captain also shows up after being away for 50 years. The monument is delivered without a scratch (although it landed on the popsicle seller and killed him), and apparently Zoidberg had something going with the original PE navigator (a hot blonde by all accounts). It ends with the navigator wanting to pick up where they left off, and Zoidberg styled his hair and uttered the Fonz's catchphrase.

This episode had its moments, and wasn't bad overall. I give it a B+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 22 - "Fry Am the Egg Man"

It begins with Fry, Leela, and Bender fleeing these crazed pogo-stick beings and getting away as they flung battle-axes and wrenches at them and the PE ship. They get away, and Bender asks if anybody wants food. Leela directs the PE ship to a Fishy Joe's drive-thru and they get something. Leela throws a fuss over the menu items and how the word "fruit" is spelled on her fruit cup. After nearly choking on a bone in that selfsame fruit cup, she decides to take them to the local farmer's market. After looking around for awhile, Bender gets some cigars and Leela gets these eggs that were picked up from the floor of a forest some time ago.

Fast-forward to the next morning - Farnsworth demands why is everybody there when they're not the ones who are with him when he eats breakfast. Apparently, Leela blackmailed them into being there so she could fix them a healthy meal. Fry finds out about the eggs and grabs one because Zoidberg called them crushed embryos - he intends to hatch one.

A montage follows of Fry attempting to hatch the egg, and some things that nearly destroy the egg take place. Finally, the egg drops to the ground and half of it is smashed. Fry is about to tell Zoidberg to go ahead and eat it when this strange blue being pushes its way out. It apparently spits acid and melts Bender's feet. Fry takes care of it until Farnsworth digs up info on what it is - a bone vampire (it de-bones anything with an internal skeleton). It was hunted to extinction on some other planet, and Fry decides to take him there so it can bring itself back from the brink (it reproduces asexually).

After letting the bone vampire (which Fry named Mr. Peppy) go, the PE crew find a tavern and learn from the natives about why bone vampires were hunted to extinction - they attacked and de-boned their livestock, making things difficult for them. But, because the bone vampires were hunted to extinction, they now have more livestock than they can handle. It appears Leela was staring to fall for this guy, Angus McZongo (much to my chagrin, but since there hasn't been any Fry/Leela action in this half, I guess the relationship is on an "off" stage).

Nevertheless, it is decided that the bone vampire lives for now, but the next morning - the sheep are all in the yard with not a bone between them. The native who notices this winds up screaming some kind of epithet that includes the name of three of the Houses in the Harry Potter series. Leela wanders outside the next night and apparently she was attacked - but didn't lose any bones. Apparently, Fry raised his bone vampire so it wouldn't hunger after bones, but after the attack on Leela, Fry is willing to hunt it down.

They corner the bone vampire and Fry shoots it - it wasn't Mr. Peppy! McZongo pulled a Scooby-Doo on them and wore an outfit so he looked like a bone vampire. Fry's shot was non-lethal, and McZongo was hoping to impress Leela by not doing what bone vampires do best. Since there is more livestock than the natives can handle, they decide to let Mr. Peppy live. It ends with the PE crew ordering from a Fishy Joe's drive-thru again.

This episode had its moments, and I guess it's for the best that Fry and Leela aren't crawling over each other every episode - I give this episode a B.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 23 - "Tip of the Zoidberg"

The PE crew return from a delivery, and Leela is telling Fry that not all inanimate objects are alien life forms wanting to meet him - Fry has a bunch of cactus needles lodged in his hand. He sees Dr. Zoidberg, who does the completely wrong thing - hits his hand so the needles go clean through. A side-effect of that is Fry gets some kind of jaundice where he resembles someone from The Simpsons.

Zoidberg then tells Leela Fry needs a new liver, and Leela grudgingly agrees - time passes, and Fry's body is rejecting Leela's liver and he looks like Garfield. Leela is missing a few vertebra from her spine and Zoidberg calls in Hermes. Once again, Zoidberg does it all wrong - Leela is more wobbly than the main characters from Weebl and Bob, and Hermes is a LOT shorter. Not only that, Fry's condition has deteriorated so he resembles Kermit the Frog. After some more bungled operations involving more of the PE staff (except Farnsworth, of course), they all go to a real doctor who straightens them all up. The PE staff all tell Zoidberg he's the worst doctor ever and don't understand why Farnsworth keeps him on the payroll.

In a series of flashbacks, it's revealed that Zoidberg and Farnsworth were once in the employ of Mom and they were part of a strike team sent to hunt down something for her top-secret experiments (top-secret to the level of "rat her out, you get shoved out the airlock") - some kind of yeti from another planet. Problem is, the area is extremely swampy and inhaling the methane may lead to some kind of hyper-malaria that may strike straightaway or lay dormant for a long time before it strikes and leaves the victim sweating buckets, hallucinating, in a coma, and then dead.

Farnsworth fears he'll catch it because he inhaled the methane as much as the strike team - he and Zoidberg hunt down the yeti and manage to get what they needed although Farnsworth took a few scratches and Zoidberg nearly got his head crushed. Because of what they went through, Farnsworth told Zoidberg that whatever happens, when the symptoms of the hyper-malaria start happening to him, Zoidberg must put Farnsworth out of his misery.

Fast-forward to the present day - Farnsworth is starting to show the signs of hyper-malaria, but Zoidberg is hesitant to kill him. The rest of the PE crew set up some kind of crazy contraption where everybody puts a drop of fast-acting poison on one of the axe blades on this wheel (there are 6 blades, one for each member of the staff). Zoidberg finds a hair on Farnsworth's lab coat and examines it in a microscope - it turns out Farnsworth doesn't have the hyper-malaria, but something that transforms him into a yeti!

He goes to Mom and pleads for her assistance. The only thing he has to offer is a coupon for a free tanning, and despite the fact he's extremely poor, Mom accepts the offer and gives Zoidberg what he needs - the severed head of that selfsame yeti who scratched Farnsworth long ago. He gets back to PE headquarters just as Farnsworth is transforming into a yeti and the death contraption falls apart around him. Zoidberg cuts out the part he needs to undo the transformation and gets it down Farnsworth's throat.

A few days later...Farnsworth is back to normal, and to celebrate, the PE staff go to get a tan at a tanning salon. Zoidberg stays behind because his coupon is gone, but Farnsworth is willing to chip in for his session. It ends with the two of them scuttling down the street, going "whoop-whoop-whoop" like Curly from The Three Stooges.

This episode was considerably interesting and made me laugh at some points. I'd give this episode a B+.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 24 - "Cold Warriors"

This episode ties together something from Fry's past with what's going on - Past Fry is going ice fishing with his dad and falls through some thin ice and catches cold. He stays home from school and his brother, Yancy, gives Fry his homework as well as a flyer for a science fair. He decides to enter it - give his guinea pig the common cold and then have it launched into space, hoping the solar radiation or cosmic rays or something will cure him of it. He makes his entry, only to lose - the school nerd (who was the actual winner) put forth some kind of culture in a petri dish consisting of what causes the common cold.

The other part - it's a cold day in New New York, and everything seems fine until the PE staff get back to headquarters. Fry starts coughing and sneezing like nobody's business. He thinks he has the common cold, and just about everybody freaks out. It's because long ago, the common cold more or less had been cured once and for all, but since Fry is from before the time the vaccine was discovered (and eventually forgotten), it could very well make a comeback. The PE building is placed under quarantine shortly thereafter.

Everybody else catches the cold except for Bender - he's basically asked to take care of them, but he tires of it. He manages to get out of there and spreads the cold germs to everybody else in the Manhattan area of New New York. It leads to Manhattan being quarantined and the Nimbus being used to lift Manhattan into space and probably sent into the sun to eradicate the last of the common cold. Before it gets close to there, Farnsworth decides to have Fry ground up into some kind of paste so he can formulate a vaccine - Fry remembers the science project that won and said there may be something left from it.

The PE ship takes off, and thanks to Zapp's blundering, they're able to break through the quarantine plastic and get to where they figured the satellite went after it became space junk - it somehow wound up on one of Saturn's moons. They manage to find that satellite and yep, the virus culture is STILL intact. Farnsworth makes a vaccine, Manhattan is placed back where it belongs, and the quarantine is lifted.

The episode ends with a personal moment between Fry and his dad - Fry understands why his dad gives him a hard time.

Overall, I'd give this episode an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 25 - "Overclockwise"

Fry, Cubert, and Bender are playing a game kinda like Counterstrike or Call of Duty, but Bender's processors are 12 years out-of-date, and as such, they keep losing. Cubert proceeds to take a look at Bender and overclocks him so his reflexes and intelligence are greatly boosted. They play the game again, and it's an easy victory - it turns out they're playing against Larry, Walt, and Igner (Mom's three sons), and they whine and complain they lost a game and the other side cheated (butthurt much?).

Meanwhile, Fry and Leela have a brief talk and Leela feels like she's trapped in a dead-end job and feels their on-again, off-again relationship has entered a rut. She decides to leave Fry and Planet Express behind to find herself, much to Fry's despair.

Back to Mom and her sons - Mom sends a bunch of flying droids to Bender, intending to have him reset to his original settings. Bender quickly outsmarts them and grabs their processors - his intelligence skyrockets, but has to hook up some kind of water-cooled system or else he'll overheat. Mom then sends the cops to PE and both Professor Farnsworth and Cubert are arrested for violating a Terms of Use agreement - apparently, when Bender was placed on the PE payroll, Farnsworth had to read over a Terms of Use agreement and he just clicked on "Agree" without even reading a word of it. Bender, in the meantime, gets so intelligent and powerful that he eventually disappears.

Leela goes through with her intent to leave PE and Fry behind, and Fry finds himself hopelessly alone. He leans on the railing of the bridge he was standing with Leela in "The Late Philip J. Fry" and the railing gives way - he ends up with a concussion and broken legs. He confides in some guy at the park and refuses to believe that Leela left Fry because she wanted something different. Fry is so distraught he decides to take his own life - he goes to Niagara Falls and buys a barrel so he can go over the falls in it (sounds like he took a page out of Woody Woodpecker's playbook - watch the Woody Woodpecker cartoon "Niagara Fools" and you'll see what I mean). He goes over the falls in it, but somehow survives. He finds something odd - something behind the falls leads to a huge water-cooled system...he found Bender!

Fry unsuccessfully attempts to talk Bender into coming back and testifying in favor of the Professor and Cubert. Meanwhile, those two are put on trial, and it looks grim until Bender makes a surprise appearance - he manages to convince the jury that Cubert shouldn't suffer the indignity of being jailed for something he didn't know about. The jury is about to deliver a verdict on Farnsworth when suddenly, Bender says that because Cubert is Farnsworth's clone (ergo, they are one and the same) and the charges were dropped against Cubert, having Farnsworth face charges was a violation of double jeopardy. Good thing, too...the jury was ready to have Farnsworth hanged.

However, Mom sends some more flying droids who manage to capture Bender and take him back to Momcorp headquarters so he can be reset to his original specs. Everything seems to be fine after that, but Fry is still upset over Leela leaving him. Lo and behold, Leela returns - apparently she found a job selling real estate on the outer edges of the universe, but feels there is something missing from her life. Fry asks Bender if he knew whether he and Leela are meant to be together, and Bender supplied them with a sheet saying what Bender (before he was restored to original settings) thought regarding the Fry/Leela relationship. Judging by the facial expressions from those two - I'm guessing it's meant to be.

Overall, this episode was quite entertaining and heartwarming as well. I give it an A-.

[Lord Destroyer]

Episode 26 - "Reincarnation" (season finale)

This episode is viewed through 3 different forms of animation - classic black-and-white (like in Bosco and Honey cartoons), then 8-bit video game, and then Anime.

First off, the classic black-and-white - Farnsworth talks to the PE crew and says something about seeing this comet where its body consists of diamondium and nothing possible can chip it. He sends the PE crew to collect what trails behind the comet for some kind of substance that he needs to complete another invention.

Fry is thinking how to be able to show Leela how much he loves her - he's intending to propose to her, but feels an ordinary diamond ring just won't be good enough. The PE staff go after the comet, and while they're collecting stuff from the comet's tail, Fry attempts to chip off a large chunk of the comet, but fails. He sets the Professor's latest doomsday device to go off, then he reunites with the PE staff before they go back to Earth.

Some time later, he and Leela are watching the comet when the doomsday device goes off on the comet - it somehow splits the comet in half and the sun's rays make a huge rainbow with the first half, then the second half gets in the way and makes another color in the visible spectrum. The two halves collide and the comet vaporizes, sending a hail of diamondium dust to Earth. Fry is about to propose to Leela when the dust buries him and Leela. Fast-forward a billion years later - some weird alien is proposing marriage with a ring, and the stone has Fry and Leela set in it.

On to the 8-bit video game style - Farnsworth calls a meeting and says with this new lens he made from the stuff collected from the comet, he would finally be able to see what consists of matter in the physical world - what makes the components for the parts of atoms (electrons, protons, and neutrons).

During the whole time, it sounds like Leela's itching for some loving and flirts with Fry, but Fry is paying attention to Farnsworth. Farnsworth manages to find the answer to what he is seeking, but slowly becomes more and more depressed because all mysteries are solved. He wins the last Nobel Prize for Science, but it doesn't help. He implores the PE staff to help him understand why they're not upset like he is. He realizes there are a lot more mysteries to unlock - it's a matter of knowing where to look.

On to the Anime version - some pink aliens see the comet they worship get vaporized and they declare war on Earth. The aliens show up on Earth and start their bombardment. Leela attempts a message of peace, but the aliens take her message as an act of war because they have no idea what she means. It's soon revealed the aliens communicate through dancing.

Fry and Bender attempt a message via dancing (DDR style, no less), but their maneuvers only redouble the ire of the aliens. Zoidberg attempts something along the lines of hara-kiri, but only breaks off his outer shell, revealing his soft, pliable pink self. For some crazy reason, he's able to get the aliens to stop their bombardment and convince them of the error of their ways.

This episode was quite entertaining and did well in the humor department. For this season finale, I give it an A-.

Now, bring on the next 13 episodes and the start of Season 8!