Written by: David X Cohen
Directed by: Ira Sherak
“My Simputron uses more electricity than a hundred bug zappers! Which reminds me, I had to unplug our bug zappers.”
Wow. I honestly think this season, while a bit shaky and low on fresh ideas, has managed to follow the usual standard of the show – the majority being pretty funny, one or two stinkers, and one or two pretty amazing episodes. This is in the ‘pretty amazing’ category, and more specifically fits with the more ambitious episodes like “Godfellas” or “The Sting”. Fitting with that shakiness, it doesn’t quite manage to reach those heights – more on this at the end – but it’s very fun to watch. My favourite part is how elegantly the episode switches between layers of reality, with the simulation having the faint glow to it once it upgrades; I almost thought this was going to be another wraparound-stories thing like “The Prince And The Product”, but it turned into something akin to Rick & Morty and how it threads multiple stories in an absurd context.
“My last five dollars on cup number one! In fact, make it my last ten dollars!”
This ends up spinning together multiple classic Futurama ideas – not just a riff on an old scifi concept, with the are-we-living-in-a-simulation idea, but the concept of Bender caring about things which remind him of himself. Bender ends up treating the Professor as God, wondering how he can allow bad things to happen to mediocre people. On the other hand, this has something extremely rare for this show: what feels like half an episode of people just talking to each other. It’s obvious why Futurama so rarely goes to that well – plumbed to the depths by your cheesiest multi-cam sitcom, let alone something like Community, but less necessary as a cost-saving measure by an animated show and less obvious a creative choice to a wacky scifi comedy. In this case, we have a wacky scifi way of watching people sit around talking.
“The plug is stuck! Or maybe I’m extraordinarily weak.”
Fry’s conclusion here is heartfelt, sensible, and matches what I have long thought of the question of ‘are we in a simulation?’.., which brings me to my thoughts on this season as a whole. I honestly think that the vast majority of negative reaction – especially the reactions before the show actually came out – was lazy, reflexive cynicism that I have no interest in engaging with or interrogating. More interesting to me are two separate but equally important groups: people who were upset that every episode wasn’t as moving as “Meanwhile” or “Jurassic Bark” or “Time Keeps On Slippin'”, and people who were outraged by the show doing things it’s been doing since season one.
In the interest not of fairness but of exploring every angle, there is reason to be frustrated that Futurama can’t be everything it was at once. The crew have had time to think through what has worked and what hasn’t, and to shift the tone to include all these various versions of itself in some mystical blender, the way the original run blended all these influences into one unique result. But then I keep coming back to my initial reaction: that’s asking the show to be something it isn’t and never was. Futurama could and would do many things and serve many masters, but its primary goal was to be funny, and in a very particular way – blunt one-liners, simple characters with a few different jokes attached, lots of scifi concepts.
“That orange guy sure is dumb.”
One thing I’ve come to learn (and even value) from writing criticism for so long is how mutable my perspective is; even the process of writing my thoughts changes them, quantum physics style, let alone releasing them into the world and seeing you guys react to them. One thing that did bother me about this episode was that the solution seemed to obvious to me – it didn’t blow my tiny mind the way “Godfellas” did. But then, I’m twenty years older than I was when “Godfellas” first aired; my reaction is more a reflection of how smart I am than how dumb Futurama is.
As a result, I feel willing to let my reaction to Futurama and what I get out of it evolve with me. As I frequently note, I’m a big fan of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, a show which made a virtue out of being comfortable to watch without being dull and predictable; I love it the same way I love people I’ve known for many years, where the rhythms are an inherent pleasure. I’m willing to age with Futurama, to get very different things out of it than I used to. As long as I’m still getting funny one-liners and something interesting to think about, I’m happy.
Title Card: Veni, Sedi, Vici
Cartoon Billboard: Pong, 1972
“Professor, you created a universe of conscious human beings, so now you’re responsible for them. I want you to swear you’ll do everything in your power to keep them alive.”
“I barely make any effort to keep myself alive.”
I will concede that making part of the episode out of the first episode of this season implies a bereft of ideas. The animation is quietly really good this episode; I love the glow on the simulated universe to differentiate it. I do love that Fry, for once, was pushed back to the background only to become an MVP. The title card translates to “I came. I sat. I watched.” I do enjoy that the episode only strongly implies that we end with a higher Bender coming down to take over.
Biggest Laugh: Bender and the Professor placing each others hands on each other, climaxing in this:
“Now the feet.”
“Forget the feet!”
NEXT WEEK
I’ll be starting my Seinfeld run next week – same Drunk time, same Drunk channel – and I’m very excited for that!