Futurama - "Fun on a Bun"

Season 7, Episode 8

“WE WERE GOING OUT!?”

In my review of the season premiere, I brought up one of pet peeves with Futurama, the show’s inability (especially in the sixth season) to maintain a logical throughline to the Fry/Leela relationship. This doesn’t mean that I expected the show to always address the existence of a relationship from episode to episode, but rather to at least have it follow on a consistent line and give tacit acknowledgement when the relationship status changes. Given how many times over the seasons that the show has asked that we care about these two as a couple, it only seems right that the show treats the actual relationships with the same respect and effort that was given to the courtship. If not, then suddenly it seems as if none of it matters.

Tonight’s Futurama might not have marked a change where the show give the relationship the proper level of reverence, but it certainly was a step in the right direction.

At the end of my review, I closed out with the thought that I didn’t particularly expect the show to continue the Fry/Leela relationship onto future episode, mostly based on past evidence. I was therefore pleasantly surprised that this season has so far been littered with various small acknowledgements of the romance between them. Granted, there’s been no one episode, or even a subplot, dedicated to their great love or anything. But those small moments, whenever they cropped up, did seem to serve as the writers’ acknowledgment that they were more aware of the problem they had in season six of not treating the relationship seriously. I realize that this probably isn’t a big issue for most of Futurama’s audience, but for me it was a delight, and I hoped that this meant the writer were subtly building towards something later down the line.

That those moments seemed to culminate somewhere in the middle of act one of “Fun on a Bun”, where Leela, in a fit of embarrassment with Fry’s actions, breaks things off with him, to which he incredulously replies that he didn’t even know that they were in a relationship. It’s a small meta moment in a show that’s been deploying them regularly since being brought back from cancellation, but it mostly works here, both as comment on Fry’s general cluelessness as well as the show’s own ADD in regards to the issue.

Unfortunately, what follows through the rest of the episode doesn’t live up to the smarts of that one singular moment. “Fun” seemed to recycle the same sort of track that the show has done many times in the past, where Fry and Leela are separate by insurmountable odds, only to their love for one another fight against those circumstances. It’s a formula that’s paid solid dividends in the past, but doesn’t work as strongly here, perhaps having grown tired through the mere act of repetition.

Of course, it could also be because there was a good deal of other things going along in this episode as well. I don’t want to call the episode overstuffed, as it moved swiftly and logically from one plot point to the next, but it sort of relegated Fry and Leela’s love as a framing device for the action onscreen. While this did save us from yet another episode that’s only about Fry and Leela’s relationship, it sort of stole the ending moment from feeling large and important. Instead, Leela’s chicken dance for Fry was more of a gentle grace note than a moving moment. (Of course as a rule, Futurama’s has always been better with moments of self-sacrifice in the name of love as opposed to happiness, so that also led to lighter stakes here.)

That being said, all of those other bits were solid in their own right. Bender’s run at the sausage competition – as well as he later theft of the second and then first place awards – were perfectly strange and fueled by Bender’s gleeful (for us) jealousy and ego. And the Neanderthals animal-based attacks against civilized society made for some great sigh gags (giant attacking sloth, anyone?) as well as serve as commentary about society’s overreliance on technology. (That’s actually been a fairly common theme is this run of episode, but whatever.)

Unfortunately, all of these good bit didn’t really add up to a workable whole, and it times felt like the episode lost sight of it’s main goal of telling a moving story about Leela and Fry. However, this was a step in the right direction of treating the subject as a serious, ongoing aspect of the show, and given how much of a struggle that’s been, that’s victory enough for one night of television.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

If there was one underserved moment in the episode, it was Leela’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-like subplot, which didn’t seem to move past reference. That being said, I did get a big laugh out of Bender, Amy, and Hermes using the escape pod inside Planet Express to avoid tipping Leela off as to her disconnected memories.

Exactly how many times has the Nimbus crashed or otherwise been taken out of commission over the series run? It’s got to have been at least ten, right?

This week in opening subtitles: “50% More Colors than Bargain Brand Cartoons”

“Most folks just call me Orange Joe.”

“Aw man, I can’t beat that with a Craigslist pig. Sorry, Grundy. I’ll have to kill you later for some other reason.”

“And the worst part is, I had to have the break-up sex by myself.”

“Wait until those judges get their hands on my mammoth sausage.”

“Like this one here: Fry falls off the animal train.” “He thought he recognized one of the monkeys.”

“And I do have vague memories of people refusing to breed with me.”

“I should be happy. Bender’s sausage just won 3^rd place.” “3^rd place??? This is the greatest injustice that Germany has ever committed.”

“Battalion A – smash things. Battalion B – smash different things.”

“In recognition of your overwhelming victory, let’s call it a draw.”

“I didn’t recognize you with your head all swollen. But it looks better now.” “The blood must have rushed someplace else.”