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2ACV15: The Problem With Popplers
First UK airing: Sky One, 7:00pm, 9-7-00
"They're great! They're like
sex, except I'm having them!"
Who would have thought it? Zapp actually came up with
a plan that very nearly worked! Next week, Fry engages in a spot
of particle physics.
The energy level of Futurama
seems to be tailing off a bit as we get near to the end of the
season (and yes, I know there's another three episodes being
held over to season 3). 'Popplers' wasn't bad, but it wasn't
outstanding either. Like 'Bender Gets Made', though not nearly
to the same extent, the amount of plot took a toll on the jokes.
Even the best jokes (the billboard, "Oh, all right. Cottage
cheese." and the whole 'eating a hippy' bit) were smilers
rather than laughers, and there were a couple of clunkers. Bender's
"tasteicles" gag was good, but Leela's follow-on joke
was overplayed and overlong. And the bit where Leela told off
Fry after he complained about waiting for destruction seemed
as though it was missing a punchline. Although the way Sky's
been cutting the show lately, maybe it was!
If a show's going to have a plot, then it's only fair
that people like moi pick holes in it. If the Planet Express
gang wanted people to stop eating popplers, why didn't they just...
stop supplying them? After all, as the song explained, they're
the only people who know where to find them. And with a four-day
round trip to the planet, even with a trailer, how did our heroes
manage to bring back 198 billion popplers? Which, incidentally,
would have netted the gang a grand total of $16.5 billion, probably
putting Planet Express on a par with the Wong family business.
A couple of weird observations -- the Empire State Building is
still standing, despite pretty much everything else from Old
New York having been destroyed by various alien attacks, and
Leela, the hippy and Fishy Joe were all in front of appropriate
backdrops during their interviews (the Planet Express ship, a
bead curtain and a skyscraper office) -- but then they all turned
out to be in the same studio! BTW, did anyone else spot that
Hermes was using a 3001 version of an iBook?
Even though I already knew Leela's real name (sometimes
it's just impossible to avoid spoilers...) it was still funny
to hear it for the first time -- and even funnier to hear Fry's
first name actually spoken out loud for once. It only took two
years -- and hey, it was Amy who said it. Well, I suppose you
can't date someone for a while and never use their first name...
Rating: 
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