This week’s episode of Futurama strayed from our previous set. For the first time since the first episode of the season, we have a show without an agenda! Well… to an extent, anyway. See, where the other episodes of this season have been mostly about commentary on all the things that Futurama hasn’t been able to say anything about for the past couple years, this episode does something in a bit more classic sense to the show. This episode is a parody!
As Fry attempts to figure out why he’s so stupid, the Professor feels like it might be a good idea to introduce him to some artifacts of the great thinkers of the 20th century. While showing him the beard of Leonardo Da Vinci, they discover a hidden blueprint within that leads to an adventure across time and space as Farnsworth, Bender, Leela and Fry attempt to find Leonardo’s last and greatest invention (thanks to the help of Zoidberg!) which leads them to Rome (with the first appearance of the Space Pope!) and beyond.
As a note, spoilers are discussed. They’re somewhat mild, but enough that they could probably annoy you if you haven’t watched the episode yet, so just keep that in mind when traveling beyond the cut for my thoughts on the episode.
This week we have an episode that’s good but not great, and still better than the previous entries into the season. I’m appreciative of the fact that this episode decided to keep it’s commentary to a minimum, although the slant against Dan Brown is pretty apparent and humorous. Not being a very big Brown fan myself, I found the moments where they deliberately called out some of the nonsense that lies within Brown’s twisting and turning to create conspiracies one of the funnier aspects of the episode. It’s been a while since Futurama has done a straight up parody, the last really notable one being Fry and the Slurm Factory from the first season (although I’m sure there were more beyond that). In terms of output, though, I’d say this episode is a keeper.
The humor in this episode was really strong. Since the main plot of the episode really relied on Fry’s ineptitude and rather simple mind, it was actually quite easy to move the plot along. To be quite honest, the amount that I already say, “Hi, Animatronio!” is quite a lot, and when Fly and Da Vinci relate for being the dumbest people on their planet it’s actually quite humorously touching. In fact, simply finding out that Da Vinci is an alien (of course he is) and that he’s a comparative idiot (of course he is) is pretty hilarious in it’s own right, and the episode basically sticks it’s tongue out at all the fandom that Da Vinci has gained recently with Brown’s revival of his work.
I don’t really have a lot to say about the episode ultimately. In comparison with previous weeks it’s pretty damn good, but it’s not hard to beat episodes that are bogged down with social commentary. In fact, it’s really quite easy. It’s not a great episode though, and it’s certainly not what I was hoping for with Futurama still. I’d prefer something more original that doesn’t rely on other ideas to tell a story — which this essentially does. It still feels awkward and out of place in the overall scope of Futurama. I know they have it in them to make better episodes than this, so here’s hoping that episode comes soon. Next week would be nice.
