Futurama - "Proposition Infinity" - Talkback [7/8]

Meh. It was an easy out to completely return things to the status quo.

Good points about the continuity from others. I'd forgotten. The fact is, this was pretty much Futurma standing on a very well worn soapbox. Other shows got here first a long time ago. For me too many jokes were expected, the twists obvious...yeah. I can't help feeling they just went through the motions for this one.
 
Believe it or not, Futurama loves to throw status quo out the window in a lot of ways.

On the surface it sames that status quo is god, until you scratch underneath. There is very look status quo barring the cast keep their jobs and no one of the main cast is killed permanently.

The series loves to go back and reference previous episodes.

For example, in this episode at the beginning Amy and Kif's relationship was on the rocks because of the events in "Beast of a Billion Backs", Amy even went to far as to say that being Kif's fanfanroo (not sure the spelling) was not the same a legal marriage.

Kif's new look might actually stay, or at least he will keep the hoverbike.
 
This is the first of the new eps I didn't like. At all. If Futurama gets too heavy-handed with the social commentary, I'm out. And...Amy and Bender sleeping together? Whaaa???? Too weird and too unfunny for me. Bummer, I liked the first 3 eps. Well, they're entitled to a clunker now and then.
 
I thought it was funny....Granted,it was predictable that Amy and Bender would somehow break up (turns out,Bender doesn't want a monogamous relationship),and that Amy and Kif would end up back together...

My favorite lines....

Amy: My parents may be evil,but at least they're stupid...
*********
Preacher Bot: The only lies worth listening to are in the Bible!!!
*********
Farnsworth (on Amy and Bender getting married) : At least I'm not alive to see this!!!...(checks pulse)...NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!
 
Remember all the way back in season 2 when we got "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" A sort of Amy focused episode where she built a relationship with Fry? Yeah that didn't wind up working due to the fact that Fry in a fairly OOC fashion got a high paranoid opinion about himself being in a not even too serious relationship and wound up broking it off so we could have Leela/Fry. Yeah since then Amy really hasn't had any spotlight episodes besides building a relationship with Kif in the last couple of seasons. In truth it was really more about Kif's development in most of the episodes (except for "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch" that showed Amy wasn't ready to be committed to a family) then it was about Amy. Finally that changes though as Kif gets tired of Amy's attraction to dangerous bad boys (which kind of makes sense with her personality. She does seem like someone who wants a nice guy, but can't help be attracted to danger and risque actions) and winds up breaking up with her, as Amy winds up in a relationship with Bender. Some people claim that dosen't work considering that the two haven't really built up much of a relationship over the years (the nicest thing Bender's ever said about Amy is she's rich and probably has other nice qualities) but the two do seem quickest to actually become attracted to others, considering Amy's more floozy relationship before Kif and Bender's string of loves.

Moreover, this episode actually does what "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" failed to do: have a complete realtionship between Amy and one of the Planet Express team. The former failed about the halfway mark and made it more about Fry getting grafted to Amy and still wanting to break up with her. This one actually showcased the two as a couple becoming romatincally involved and then actually finding out they care about one another and want to be together. And it actually made sense why they'd break up: Even if Amy's ready for just a happy monogymous relationship, Bender sure isn't. I also liked seeing Kif at the end try to play up the bad boy image to try and appease to Amy. And unlike the last episode where the satire felt a bit too comparable to modern day times, I thought the Robosexual stuff worked better here. As shown in "I Dated A Robot" there is some biasy of people who dislike humans and robots getting too close and becoming robosexuals (a term actually used in the pilot I believe). So it actually does feel like a justified obstacle to get over. I don't know if the Professor's story about being in love with a robot holds up too well but considering he was to apparently design robots to what they are today, I can swallow it fine.

And unlike the last episode which I fairly disliked there were a lot of great bits in this one. The opening with the reporter's last words, Bender spray painting his face onto everything and getting caught when doing it on the robot cop's ass, Amy checking out a prisoner's animated tattoos, "Let me play you a song. It's called when are we getting out of here?", Amy and Bender coupling at the end of the first part, Hermes clown disease, Bender having on Amy's pants, the various storm collections and Bender and Amy making out in a tornado, Bender noting the professor's innocent whistle, "My parents may be evil but at least they're stupid", everyone hiding out in the human dummy costume, the professor finding out he's alive and later realizing he was the debater against proposition infinity, the various things allowed to marry including horses and ghosts, "Robosexual marrige is just the same as any other kind of marrige, except it's hotter, because I"m in it", and as I mentioned before the ending. I'd say about as good as the first episode of the season and the standard Futurama should be at not what they were doing last week.
 
This week was a definite step up, and the best episode of the season yet for me. While it was admittedly preachy, the episode seemed like more of a return to the style of the original episodes rather than last week's pop culture-fest.
 
With the EyePhone, this episode, and the upcoming Da Vinci Code parody, I'm starting to get worried that Futurama is trying too hard to be modern & topical. And then this line...

"The only lies worth believing are the ones in the Bible!"

Please, Futurama. I beg you, do not become Family Guy.
 
When Kif broke up with Amy at the beginning of the episode, it was because he said that Amy flirted with every "badboy" she came across, and that was true.

At the end of the episode, Kif shows up as a badboy biker, with he and Amy riding off into the sunset on his hoverbike.
 
Man, I remember reading up the summary for this episode and wondering, "Wait? Amy and Bender? But what happened to Kif?" I had this bad feeling they were working from "The Beast with the Billion Backs" when the two experienced marital issues while forgetting "The Wild Green Yonder" when they're shown back together.

So imagine my relief to see the two together again. Futurama is usually so good with their continuity that it'd have been a shame otherwise. ...Though there is one minor mishap. I haven't watched the episode in question in a long time, but I specifically remember the entire Planet Express crew absolutely against robot/human when Fry was dating Robot Lucy Liu because of the serious impact it can have on the human population. As far as I'm concerned, they never fully accepted it by the end of the episode. Outside of Farnsworth (and even that was due to a related incident in the past), everybody had no problems accepting Amy and Bender.

The overall episode is decent, but it's utterly predictable because it's easy for Bender to dump her given his personality. Even more so for Amy to return to Kif. I don't mind the latter's reuniting (I like the pairing), but it's haphazard because seeing bad boy biker Kif has almost no baring when there wasn't anything to back up how he got there. Amy calls him off for his weakness, but they skipped a pivotal moment of character growth of him working to get there. Granted, he may revert back to his normal ways in a future episode, but from a storytelling perspective, it lacked.
 
What a lot of people are forgetting is, the original run has plenty of pop references to the 90's and early 00's -- there was an episode about Ally McBeal and they made fun of the Florida recount at least twice. This is not a sudden shift. What everybody wants is Luck of the Fryrish and Jurassic Bark every single week.

That said, I despised that line as well. I hate it when my TV straddles the line and then suddenly says "Just so we're clear about this, I hate your guts."
 
I understood it just fine, myself. A monogamous relationship is one in which you stay with only 1 person for the rest of your life. I'm sure that a lot of us here are familiar with that term.
 
These episodes are good an all but I can't help but feel that the eyephone and robosexual episodes will be dated in a few years.

Despite being a show about the future the entire series seems to date itself by referencing so many current events as others have said.
 
I wouldn't say so. First, it's not like Futurama hasn't been doing this sort of thing already. In fact, robosexuality was briefly mentioned all the back in the pilot episode "Space Pilot 3000". Second, I can understand saying making that point about the EyePhone, but I fail to see how "robosexualtiy" is a soon-to-be-dated reference. Robosexuality is merely a metaphor for other "forbidden" sexual practices that are or were at one time looked down upon by so-called normal society, such as homosexuality and interracial romance, all of which have been going on for centuries., long before people starting talking about them. So when you think about it, these subjects aren't really that topical, so Futurama isn't dating itself by referencing them.
 
Actually thinking about it there is a reason for that. See in that episode "I Dated A Robot" Fry was with a Lucy Liu robot programmed specifically to love him and nothing else. And Fry was only with her because he wanted to be with something that looked like Lucy Liu as she didn't even have the real Lucy Liu's personality. Which is different then being with a robot who you actually have legitimate feelings for that aren't just because you find the robot imitating someone attractive. Thus the term robosexual: A robot who is in love with a human or a human who is in love with a robot. Really what Fry did in "I Married A Robot" is just imitation robosexual. Just being with someone because they are convientant and are made for you, which is completley unhealthy. However robosexuality in the future seems to be like homosexuality: Something you didn't exactly plan out and just realized you were one day when being with someone society may not want you to be with. So really it is a different scenario then that episode.



I agree with you and Martianinvader on how this is a part of Futurama's core that has been around BEFORE the relaunch (even "I Dated A Robot" had a parody of Napster called Kidnapster on it) so calling it out now is as being bad is being hyproticial. On the same notion, I do think it is a weak idea, and truthfully not something Futurama does that well. Futurama's strength is more in it's visual humor, it's twisted dialogue you don't exactly see coming, and compelling story twists. On the other hand parodying current issues just isn't it's thing because by the time they parody it, people have kind of move passed that phrase and it does feel rather dated. Really mocking current issues are fine if you have the right jokes for them which isn't always the case for this show. Really South Park does a much better job on current issues because not only are they able to be more current but also are able to implement them better into the plot then Futurama can.
 
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