Futurama: "Silence of the Clamps"

Season 6, Episode 18

Is ‘not bad’ ever really not bad?

The problem with watching great television shows (or at least those that can occasionally achieve greatness) is that when you get the episodes that aren’t great, but merely good, it can feel like a much bigger letdown than it should. Yet this is just an inevitability that we have to accept, to shrug it off and move on, hoping the next episode will be better. You can see where this is going. “Silence of the Clamps” is a solid episode of Futurama, one that is funny enough but leaves me wanting more. It’s not creatively lacking like “Law & Oracle” was, but it seems to be missing those key things that can make the show great.

For starters, the storyline felt a little rote, if only because Bender’s been in some kind of trouble or another with the robot mafia before. Now granted, putting him a total odds with the mafia – as opposed to say helping them then getting on their bad side, or affecting them indirectly – was a nice twist, as it allowed Bender’s scared, petulant side to come out, but as a whole, it felt as if the writers didn’t fully think this one out, especially in terms of where this episode would end up, and what might teach us about the characters.

Which brings us to Clamps. Up until this episode, I have always enjoyed Clamps and his overuse of the word ‘clamps’, but that was when it was in small doses, and it was his own characters trait. Here, we got many instances of him saying ‘clamps’…and that was his only character trait. With half of the episode turned over to Clamps, and all we learned was that his real name is Francis, it felt as if the show wasted an opportunity to fill out the character – or at least provided us with other character-based jokes than those that we already know.

A similar character-based complaint can be lodged against Zoidberg in this episode. Now Zoidberg has always been one of my favorite characters on the show, in spite of (because of?) the fact that he doesn’t get as many emotional beats as the rest of the characters. He’s kind of a sad-sack and I like it that way. But tonight, as the show flirted with while not actually giving us emotional filled moments – like they did last week as well – I felt kind of cheated. The episode seemed like it was going to delve into some sort of story about how Zoidberg was feeling replaced, but instead it was just a set-up for the closing standoff between him and Calmps, and that threw me a bit.

Luckily the jokes here were far more original here than last week, and win the show cracks away at the jokes, it helps to cover a lot of the plot flaws, or at least help them go down smoother.

Oh well, there’s always next week.

Quotes, Etc:

Maybe it was just me, but all of those bleeped f-bombs felt distracting, especially those that came from Zoidberg. We get it, show; you’re on basic cable. You can stop it now.

This Week in Opening Captions: No Refunds.

“Who like good news? Everyone? Then good news, everyone!”

“Ow! Quit it, Earth!”

“Oh jeez, I forgot my Pope manners…”

“We don’t have anybody there by that alias.”

“Hey! Ho! Piscopo!”

“An affair, huh? Sounds like me…”

“What about you? You’re me third choice.”

“It gives me no joy to do this…because clamps will  be doing it.”

“No! No!...line?”

“I’m scared and great at sex!”

“And then I ate some excellent meatballs…Can I have me fifty dollars now?”

“I especially enjoyed that tasteful love scene.”

“Good day. I would like to say that I am prepared to tolerate some, if not all, forms of intimidation.”

“After a steamy 12-way deliberation, we find the defendant…”

“So I got to hide forever?” “No, just until the robot mafia finds and kills you. They’re pretty good at that.”

“There’ll never be another like him. Let’s hire someone better!”

What does Colonel Mustard gas do, exactly?

“Nice job, Francis. I like how you didn’t get drunk and steal anyone’s orchids.”

“I knew Bender would turn up purely by coincendence.”

“Billy West. What a stupid, made-up name.”

“Well, me and my boyfriend were going to have sex on a burning flag…”

“Stop talking like that, you’re on the moon!”

“I refuse to believe anyone is happy!”

"You're sure you don't want to kill all humans?" "I love all humans." "Sniff. He really is gone."