Continuing it’s curve upwards, the latest Futurama comes with a perfect plot for yours truly and brings in a surefire element to sell me this episode as golden: cats. That’s right. My number one favorite thing in the world besides comic books gets an antagonistic starring role in the latest episode, and it was almost definite before I even saw it that I’d love the episode.
In this episode, Planet Express is expertly infiltrated by a tiny white feline, who charms all of the employees with it’s cuteness. Amy, having just attempted and failing at graduating from Mars University, teams up with Nibbler, who demands to be respected beyond his cuteness, to figure out what sinister plan the cat has. However, as it turns out, the cat has much bigger plans for everyone than they could have guessed, and it’s up to Amy’s apparent scientific knowhow to save the day.
Click behind the cut for my thoughts on the latest episode. As a note, some mild spoilers are discussed.
Obviously, the hope is that with an episode centered around cats, I’ll love it. Of course, it is impossible not to note that this episode is going after a popular element in the internet culture: lolcats. Cats have definitely become much more of a phenomenon in the internet age due to their inability to type and their inherent dull minded nature. However, the question is if the episode goes too far with it’s humor like in previous episodes or if it manages to walk a good line of parody/satire without overdoing it.
I’d say that it’s somewhere in the middle over all. The episode surprisingly doesn’t take too much time with the lolcat jokes, featuring only one “haz” joke in the entirety of the episode. The episode primarily focuses on the actual humor of cats – their laziness, their cuteness, and their favorite kinds of toys, as well as our insane love of these adorable little creatures. I was fairly stunned that the episode didn’t spend it’s half hour making lolcat jokes, but as the owner of two cats I found that the jokes were actually quite hilarious in and of itself. I loved how lazy the cat planet was, and completely related to how the Planet Express crew fawned over the animals (although granted it was mind control). The cat element of the episode was as good as I hoped it would be.
Where the issue fell flat for me was it’s focus on Amy as a heroine. This season has done an interesting split of lead characters per episodes, but usually one of the main three has presence throughout the entire story. This was the first episode that starred only ancillary characters: Amy and Nibbler. I enjoy Nibbler, but he’s best used when some kind of odd disaster is on the way and he has to reveal his intelligence to save the planet. To give him an episode of this kind is a bit off putting, but when he acts cute in order to help motivate the crew near the end, it’s pretty damn funny. I can’t really get over Amy as the star though. She’s not that interesting of a character, and only works well when paired with someone more interesting, like Fry or Bender. Giving her Nibbler doesn’t really propel the episode, and I find myself wanting more cats and less Wongs.
I’d say that the episode is pretty good all in all. It’s not as good as the previous two weeks, but it’s certainly better than the other episodes of this season. Hopping on the cat bandwagon but not over doing it is how all the of episodes should attempt their commentary humor, where the element that’s being lampooned is there but not over bearing. You never get the feeling that Futurama is trying to go at the lolcat phenomenon in the way it was going after other things, and the plot still feels organic and as ridiculous as you’d want in any episode. Also, who wouldn’t want to visit a planet entirely made of cats? Am I right?
With a reported 13 episodes for this season, we’ve officially passed the halfway point. The Duh-Vinci Code picked this show back up and it’s had a steady rise in it’s comedy output for the passed couple episodes. While That Darn Katz does drop a notch or two on the greatness level, the episode is still definitely funny enough to stand with Futurama’s greatness as a whole. Plus: cats. Cats, people!! They’re ADOWABEW!
