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3ACV08: That's Lobstertainment!
First UK airing: Sky One, 8:30pm, 4-3-01
"This is one death Dr Zoidberg
won't be responsible for!"
And with this episode, Sky's broadcasts of Futurama
go completely pear-shaped. Obviously things were screwed up in
the States by Valentine's Day, the out-of-order airing of 3ACV07
and the outright banning by Fox of 'A Tale Of Two Santas', but
in the UK 'The Day The Earth Stood Stupid' applied equally well
to Sky's programme planners. Where was it?
Just on a sidenote, am I the only person -- in the
world -- who has absolutely no interest in 'reality shows'
like Big Brother, The Mole and Temptation Island? I ask only
because the last of these directly follows Futurama
on Sky, and in all honesty I'd rather eat my own toenails in
a bun than watch another bunch of tedious meathead egomaniacs
cry about their relationships. Oh boo hoo hoo, I really feel
for them. "I've got this beautiful girlfriend, but some
other stunning woman is throwing herself at my meaty torso."*
Let the white-toothed publicity-seeking bastards rot in a big
pot of their own buff-yet-cretinous juices, say I!
Anyway, I think Futurama
was meant to be discussed at some point here.
When the episode started, I thought "Great! It's
this year's Zoidberg episode!" After all, 'Why Must I Be
A Crustacean In Love' was one of last season's highlights. Unfortunately,
'Lobstertainment' (maybe that should have an exclamation mark,
but I just can't summon up the enthusiasm) suffered from 'gueststaritis',
a common Futurama complaint. Harold
Zoid, a character we've never seen before and quite probably
will never see again, was the one who got this episode's 'emotional
arc'. (Hey, I was in Hollywood a few weeks ago, so I get to use
the lingo.) Once again, Futurama's
writers decided to tell a story about some new guy they've made
up on the spot, as opposed to the seven perfectly good regulars
already there. Hell, even the stars -- Fry, Leela and Bender
-- didn't get much coverage. Bender was Calculon's lackey/water
heater for much of the show, and Fry and Leela spent most of
the episode stuck in a tar pit! Doesn't this seem a bit like
doing a Seinfeld episode starring Mickey or the Soup Nazi, or
a Frasier episode with Kenny as the hero?
No, sorry -- if you're going to take the piss out
of Hollywood, you should go for it whole-heartedly, instead of
just deciding that getting Hank Azaria to do a guest voice will
carry an episode. I mean, Jesus Christ, silent movie stars? Cutting-edge
stuff, guys! You can't just bring in a completely new character,
go "He's Zoidberg's relative so the audience will have sympathy
for him", and expect that to carry an episode. Only Zoidberg
and Bender were in any way involved in the main plot, and that
was so casually they hardly needed to be there at all.
On the other hand, there are so many things about
Hollywood that could have served as an opportunity for satire,
and they were all but ignored. (The nearest they got was with
the gag about Fox's reality shows.) A quick joke about product
placement (even if it did answer how Hermes knew about Star Trek
back in (I think) 2ACV02) doesn't really serve to ridicule the
sheer banal blandness/awfulness of 99% of current movies. I know
I'm not in charge of the show, but really, "Hey, why don't
we base an entire episode around a washed-up silent movie star?"
should have gone straight in the bin. But then, maybe "Let's
bring Fry's 20th century girlfriend out of cryonic suspension!"
sounded good in the story meeting.
Oh, and the air in LA seems to have cleaned up quite
a lot in the last few weeks, since 'The Cryonic Woman'. Just
an observation...
Rating: 
*In case you were wondering, I currently
have neither a meaty torso nor a beautiful girlfriend. So, no
bitterness there.
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