Futurama Season 6 episode 1 reintroduces us to our favorite delivery crew with a sappy sci-fi love story infused with the magic of stem cells and the Build-a-Bot workshop. So did it live up to fans’ expectations? Here’s a quick look at what happened in season 6 episode 1:
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: The Return of the Hypnotoad
Like Family Guy, another FOX show that was cancelled and experienced a rebirth, Futurama took a dig at the network by using the Hypnotoad’s image to try and make us forget that the show was ever cancelled by the network. Bender’s voice tells us that “On the count of three, you will awaken feeling refreshed as if ‘Futurama’ had never been canceled by idiots and then brought back by bigger idiots.” And then the show begins.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: Into the Wild Green Yonder and Right Back Out Again
For those that missed the Futurama movie, ‘Into the Green Yonder’, you may have been slightly lost plot-wise (luckily, Comedy Central showed the movie right before the first episode of the new season). The crew had just entered a wormhole and a world of uncertainty, unsure if they would ever make it home. Fortunately, the wormhole turns out to be a “Comedy Central channel” that conveniently delivers them back home.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: It All Starts with a Big Bang
Unfortunately, the ship crash lands on Earth, although, according to the Professor’s story, the safety spheres save his crew members’ heads (except for the Professor’s; he’s designed his to protect his whole body). When Fry appears with a funky fry-fro and sees the crewmembers heads hanging on skeletal bodies, it seems as though they’ll be delegated to jars during the rest of the show, until the Professor reveals that a giant soup of stem cells from murdered adults (not embryos; that would be too controversial) can be used to perform a rebirth of sorts, making the crew brand new. One by one they are reborn, but Bender, being a robot, experiences a complication. Luckily, the Professor tosses a doomsday device in Bender’s belly, warning him that he must party nonstop to keep it from going off (great premise for ‘Speed 3’). Oh yeah, Leela plops out of the pool of goo in an irreversible coma (which the Professor determines by poking her with a stick), and Fry is devastated.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: Death Becomes Her (Well, a Robot Becomes Her)
And so Fry does the only logical thing: he purchases a clunky, jelly bean-loving robot from the Build-a-Bot shop as a replacement. He then uses it to create a robot version of Leela by using footage of her from the ship’s security cameras (which can be found in the bathrooms, showers, etc.) to give the bot Leela’s personality. Fry is confused by his feelings for this more-than-adequate Leela replacement, and the Professor tries one last drastic measure to try and awaken Leela, an advanced piece of technology that plucks her body right out of bed; shakes her a bit; and yells at her to “wake up!”. Alas, it does no good, and her last wishes, to be eaten by an endangered animal whose diet only consists of Cyclops (which is odd, since Leela is a mutant and never runs into other one-eyed freaks), are carried out (well, her last wishes as per Bender). And so Zoidberg gets to use his expertise in his area of medicine: pronouncing victims- er, patients, dead.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: Leela Gets Two Eyes
So as the Planet Expess crew are bidding Leela farewell on the alien home of the Cylops-eating alien straight out of ‘Avatar’, Bender’s partying attracts the beast. But before he can chow down on Leela, she conveniently awakens to tell Bender to shut the hell up (but he has to stop shutting the hell up when his doomsday device starts rumbling again). Leela is also devastated to see Fry making out with her double at her own funeral, leading to a lot of complications and a Leela fight for Fry.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: The Classic Clone Cliché Ends with a Twist
In a move straight out of many sci-fi movies and TV series, Fry is thrown a gun and told to destroy the robot Leela. He can’t do it and shoots himself instead, revealing that he, too, is now a robot. And so the Professor reveals what really happened: Fry had tried to protect Leela in the crash and was literally fried. The Professor tried to toss his bits in the stem cell soup, but he just couldn’t reconstruct Leela’s beloved lump of flesh. And so Leela made her own Frybot to deal with the loss, over-stuffing his jelly belly with electrical wires and electrocuting herself and the rest of the Planet Express crew (whom all suffered from amnesia after the incident). The Frybot was fried a bit during the electrocution, which explained his bubbly skin and fry-fro, but he was the only crew member that survived with his whole body intact.
Futurama Season 6 Episode 1: And the Robots Lived Happily Ever After
Amazingly, Fry finally pops out of the Professor’s womb at just the right time, apologizing when he sees his double by saying, “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was already here.” He and Leela are elated at being able to be together in their human forms once more, while their robot doubles decide to shed their human skins and run away together (which means the Frybot gets to use a catchphrase you won’t hear every day, “hasta la vista, wiener”). Then the Cyclops eater shows up and swallows Bender right when he’s had enough partying (One of his eyeballs pops out and the monster mistakes him for the real deal), so Bender just allows the doomsday device to go off in the monster’s belly. So everything is back to normal (well, normal for Planet Express), and we can now get away from the TV movies and return to the Futurama future of old.
