The first episode of the sixth season and Futurama is back with a bang! Picking up the cliffhanger ending of the fifth season finale "Into The Wild Green Yonder Part Four", this episode begins with the crews of the Planet Express and The Nimbus crash-land and die. Now THAT'S how to bring back a show.
It turns out that Professor Farnsworth survived the crash and he manages to resurrect the others but Leela is a 'stillbirth' and Bender has to keep partying or else he'll destroy the universe. Both of these are changes that only last for this episode and will prove important to the story. Basically, Fry mourns his dead now-girlfriend and creates a robotic duplicate of her only for the real Leela to wake up at her funeral and treat us to some brilliant moments with two Leelas competing for Fry. This premise is magnificent and it does not disappoint.
The ending is confusing when Fry turns out to be a robot too and we end up with two Frys. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was already here" is his beautifully absurd response. We've seen Fry interact with himself before in season five's "Bender's Big Score" but this doesn't feel like it's retreading old ground and finds a fresh perspective on the idea. You have to pay attention to the plot here -- it may take repeat viewing to understand what happened -- but it's a great payoff to the episode's absurdity and what everyone did is all perfectly in character.
This episode isn't quite up to the standard of the first four seasons or the better bits of the fifth season but it's still pure Futurama and a great re-return for the show. I guess the writers just said to themselves "Let's create the most absurd story possible" because that's what they did. If only Bender could have kept his requirement to party non-stop for just a few further episodes... that would be funny and could have lead to some wonderful background gags as you can see him dancing away in the background. Still, you can't have everything and the episode we get here finds a way to resolve his predicament in a manner that gives the episode an excellent conclusion.
It turns out that Professor Farnsworth survived the crash and he manages to resurrect the others but Leela is a 'stillbirth' and Bender has to keep partying or else he'll destroy the universe. Both of these are changes that only last for this episode and will prove important to the story. Basically, Fry mourns his dead now-girlfriend and creates a robotic duplicate of her only for the real Leela to wake up at her funeral and treat us to some brilliant moments with two Leelas competing for Fry. This premise is magnificent and it does not disappoint.
The ending is confusing when Fry turns out to be a robot too and we end up with two Frys. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was already here" is his beautifully absurd response. We've seen Fry interact with himself before in season five's "Bender's Big Score" but this doesn't feel like it's retreading old ground and finds a fresh perspective on the idea. You have to pay attention to the plot here -- it may take repeat viewing to understand what happened -- but it's a great payoff to the episode's absurdity and what everyone did is all perfectly in character.
This episode isn't quite up to the standard of the first four seasons or the better bits of the fifth season but it's still pure Futurama and a great re-return for the show. I guess the writers just said to themselves "Let's create the most absurd story possible" because that's what they did. If only Bender could have kept his requirement to party non-stop for just a few further episodes... that would be funny and could have lead to some wonderful background gags as you can see him dancing away in the background. Still, you can't have everything and the episode we get here finds a way to resolve his predicament in a manner that gives the episode an excellent conclusion.
