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2ACV07: Put Your Head On My Shoulders
First UK airing: Sky One, 7:00pm, 7-5-00
"Congratulations, Fry, you snagged
the perfect girlfriend. Amy's rich, she's probably got other
characteristics..."
I had to wait almost four weeks for a new Futurama
episode, thanks to Sky arsing about with the schedules. This
naturally built up certain expectations -- when you're deprived
of something you like for a while, you expect its return to be
extra-good to compensate. So, was it?
Abso-bloody-lutely, matey!
You may have noticed that I'm something of an Amy
fan. (G'uh. If you hadn't noticed, maybe you ought to check out
Ain't No
Such Thing As Too Much Amy Wong.) That being the case, this
episode hit the bull in so many ways. It was a new episode of
Futurama, for a start. It was also
an extremely funny episode of Futurama.
It gave Amy her biggest role to date, and rounded out her character
more than any other episode (as well as giving her more to do
than in the past eight episodes combined). It had a hilarious
Bender subplot that didn't overpower the main story (unlike many
of the 'Homer does [X]' B-stories on The Simpsons). It proved
that Fry wouldn't know a good thing if it bit him on the ass.
It also left open the Fry/Leela option and the Fry/Amy
option for the future. Those writers, their cake is so simultaneously
had and eaten...
Speaking as somebody who's had more than the occasional
Valentine's Day where, like Fry, he's 'forgotten' to get a girlfriend
(what can I say? I'm just too busy. That, and the whole geek
thing), this episode worked perfectly as an anthem to the lonely
loser, a social group of which Futurama
seems to have a disproportionate number. Away from Fry and Amy's
doomed kinda-romance (in 'Slurm Factory' he was dumb; here, he
was dumb) we also had Leela's pitiful February 14th, and
Zapp's even more pathetic date. This was actually Zapp used the
best he's been for a while; he is something of a one-joke
character, so it makes sense that the one joke should be a good
one.
Most of all, 'Shoulders' allowed our favourite C-student
room to develop. Reassuringly, the episode confirmed that my
assessment of her over in ANSTATMAW was right -- she is
one of the nicest people you could hope to meet in the 31st century
-- while still giving her the chance to show some new sides.
For a start, her patience isn't infinite. It's a lot longer than
anyone else on the show, but it's not infinite... She also has
just enough depth to have an affecting relationship with Fry,
while at the same time being just shallow enough to let him go
and move on to new (hell, unique) comic ground when the story
demanded it. Hey, this is a sitcom, not David Mamet. The only
problem is that now I'm going to be demanding more Amy on a regular
basis, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it. Now, how
does that Martian curse of hers go?
All in all, this was a top episode for one-liners,
sight gags and general sci-fi refs (I loved the 2001 monolith
and the 'Plymouth V'ger'), and since yes, I'm afraid that the
dread 'shipper nanovirus has got into my system, it had all the
requisite 'shippy stuff that makes episodes worth watching and
rewatching. And we even got to discover that from the looks of
things, all major planetary bodies in the solar system have been
terraformed, or at least terratmosphered. And about time too,
since otherwise they're just wasted real estate.
One final thought. His closest friends. His relatives.
His co-workers. And now, his girlfriend. Hell, even himself.
Does anybody ever actually call Fry by his first name?
Rating: 
PS: Were my eyes playing tricks, or
was there a Borg woman in the background of one shot in Elzar's?
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