Episode Title: “T.: The Terrestrial”
Writer: Josh Weinstein
Director: Lance Kramer
It says everything about this episode that the funniest joke was the one that we didn’t see. After Fry safely returns home, we learn that Bender made out with Leela in a closet while pretending to be Fry just to make sure that the Planet Express crew didn’t realize that Fry had been left behind on Omicron Persei 8.
The whole episode is a riff on the 31 year old movie, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Basically, Lrr and his son, Jrr cause an interplanetary incident and they inadvertently earn a blockade of warships that surrounds OP-8 ; which the Planet Express crew promptly ignores in order to retrieve the intergalactic marijuana that the Professor needs.
Soon enough, Fry gets separated from the ship and lost on a very hostile planet before befriending Jrr. So far, so good. But for the most part, the writer, Josh Weinstein seems content to simply retell the story of E.T.’s biggest moments in the laziest way possible. “Feces pieces” was such an obvious joke that I thought the episode wouldn’t go there. And yet it did.
There was one amazingly hilarious scene late in the episode, as Lrr’s followers can’t fly their love-powered bicycles because they’ve been emotionally hurt too many times. Lrr’s out-of-nowhere remark that this was normal for his planet was also really funny. If the rest of the episode had been as amusing, it would have been among the best this season.
The problem is simple. Fry and Jrr’s interactions weren’t funny enough to make the parody worthwhile and their relationship wasn’t strong enough to evoke any real sentimentality. I don’t expect “Futurama” to go for the heart in every episode, but it’s one of the few animated comedies that can do it well. And if this wasn’t going to be a laugh riot, it could have at least had some heart.
Weirdly, the B-plot of Bender attempting to hide Fry’s absence landed a lot more of its jokes. Bender put so much time into convincing the crew that Fry was actually just running errands for all of them that it almost became work. And I loved that Leela just accepted Fry’s recorded voice telling her that he was drunk and that he loved her.Bender’s masterful use of Fry’s answering machine message was definitely inspired.
Eventually, Bender guilts himself into commandeering the Planet Express ship and mounting a rescue for Fry. Not too bad, as far as Bender’s plans go. This story might have played better if it had sent Fry to a world that we haven’t seen before. The Omicronians are frankly, not that interesting and they’re only funny in small doses. And that’s used up early in the episode, when Lrr and Jrr arrive to conquer Planet Earth and Earth President Nixon is all too happy to surrender. It’s not until the headless Spiro T. Agnew clone is destroyed that OP-8 is surrounded by an alien blockade. In this case, the setup was better than the plot, but I’ve always loved watching this show’s incarnation of Nixon.
The only other really memorable jokes in the episode centered on NBC and “The Finder-Outer,” a police detective drama from the future. This was not a horrible episode, but if not for a few brilliant gags it would have been exceedingly mediocre. And I want more out of “Futurama” than candy pellets that fell out of its ass.
