Futurama: "Law & Oracle"

Season 6, Episode 17

A few movie references too many

“Fry, we have no idea what you do around here, but we desperately need you back.”

-The Professor

Futurama exists in this weird middle ground in the world of television comedy. Though the show can often get away with making high-minded gags about the laws of physics or Schrodinger’s Cat, it often seems hampered creatively by this unexplained need to be like its predecessor, The Simpsons. That show takes place in our present time, so when it goes after modern day problems or does movie spoofs, it often is able to do so in a way that comes off as deep and biting. Yet when Futurama does the same kind of jokes – like they did last summer in “Attack of the Killer App” – it tends to feel a bit off, if only because the inherent 1,000 year time difference between the show’s timeline and the events that an episode is satirizing. Now Futurama has always meant to be satirizing our current society by reflecting our social problems back unto us, mostly by presenting us with a future that’s quite similar to our time socially, but such moves only work when the episodes deal in generalities.

Thus is was a bit of chore to get through sections of tonight’s episode , especially when it felt as if there has been placed three movie references – Police Academy, Tron, Avatar, and Minority Report – practically back to back to back to back. Two of these references were major letdowns. The Tron bit was yet another rip-off of the Light Cycle scene, something which at this point it feels like every other comedy show has done. (Though to be fair, there were some nice non-Tron jokes during the sequence, and the animators did try to give the scene some additional flair.) And while I appreciated that the Avatar reference was mostly just a set for the 3D joke, having only one joke after bringing up a piece of pop culture feels half-assed.

That Police Academy and Minority Report made their way into the episode was slightly more acceptable, considering that they at least tied directly into the plot, and thus weren’t references for the sake of reference. (Okay, we probably could have done without the Police Academy jokes, but I kind of liked watching that sound effects robot interact with everybody else.) And while stealing the entire skeleton of MR feels like a cheap way to write (the bulk of) an episode, I at least appreciate that the writers mixed things up a bit by having someone other than Fry be the culprit in one of Pickles’ visions (and I also appreciate how it ended up not being Bender).

I don’t want to say this episode wasn’t funny. All of the lines that took place around these references were at least good, if not great, and that helped keep things moving considerably. But for those sections where a reference was used to needlessly push the plot forward, the episode felt staid, and I couldn’t wait for that particular reference to be over. (The Tron sequence seemed especially long.)

Which leaves us with discussing the emotional side of things, which was surprisingly lacking for an episode that could have pulled off something great out of Fry leaving Planet Express. By having Planet Express accept him back only because they missed having someone to make them laugh – and not necessarily him – it feels like the show was applying cold cynicism to something that they would normally dump large piles of warm fuzzies on. I mean what about Fry and Leela’s relationship? Couldn’t she have missed him? (Are they even still going out? The show’s really dropped the ball in that department.) Or maybe Zoidberg could have missed Fry taking him on walks. Something would have been better than the out of place emotional distance presented here.

And speaking of flaws in characterization, I could go on about how it doesn’t make sense that Fry the idiot did so well in the academy (and again as a cop), but I feel like I’ve bagged on this episode enough already.

Quotes, Etc:

Say, those ontological paradoxes and alternate timelines were pretty cool. Why didn’t this episode deal with that?

Okay, I really liked the Chief’s many manly actions.

“Winners don’t play videogames.”

So apparently Scruffy is a zombie. Huh.

“And for every 5 minutes I don’t get it, somebody is going to get stabbed in the ass!”

“Police Academy: Not associated with Police Academy IV.”

“You think you can just waltz in here with no pants and become a police officer?”

“And Smitty was just a few days from retirement.” “What happened?” “He took an early retirement. Damn.”

“Can’t we just send out avatars?” “No, it’s cheaper just to have you die.”

“An electric wall, eh? I can’t see the harm of peeing on that.”

“Wow, where’d my man learn that?” “Sunny D commercial.”

“The cat, is it alive or dead? ALIVE OR DEAD?”

“There’s also a lot of drugs in there.”

“He’s going down. Cat’s gonna testify.”

“You ever heard of Future Crimes Division.” “I have tomorrow.”

“Put on 3-D glasses a minute ago.”

“We call him…Pickles.”

“What’s the pink polka dots?” “Clown slaughter. It happens more often than you think.”

“Mazletov, Chief. That’s a beautiful bathroom baby.”

“We had to listen Bender’s Eagle album for 27 hours.” “Beats talking to you, witchy woman.”

“Police Station: Call here when you are being murdered.”

“That’s me! I recognize the face!”

“Angry? Frustrated? Apply to be a cop.”

“Fools should have known it’s fatal to anyone but robots and Billy Dee Williams.”

“I’ll be upstairs putting batteries in things.”

“Oh yeah baby, 210 proof!”

“..to know the punch line of every joke hours before it happens?” “Like watching Leno.”

“Shall we adjourn to the dungeon?”