For example, I really enjoyed the episode's opening, if only because it pushes Futurama's rapid-fire pacing to comedic extremes. Consider this: in the span of just a few minutes, as the result of wearing his nerd glasses in public, Bender is invited by a college robot to a sorority party, enrolls in college, strikes a deal with the Robot Mafia to cover his tuition costs, attends class, joins a gang, incurs the wrath of the Dean (even though class has only been in session for 32 seconds!), drops out of college, gets his gang tattoo, is shot at by a rival gang, disposes of one of his fellow gang members, prostitutes himself for the Hedonismbot to pay for robot drugs, is beaten up by the Robot Mafia when they come collecting for a loan payment, and winds up in a hospital bed. Whew! Bender credits all this to one bad decision, and attempts to make better choices from here on out… which is immediately followed by Bender attacking Girl Scouts with a broken glass bottle. In jail for the attack, Bender's lawyer plops down the ultimate defense: since Bender is pre-programmed to perform criminal tasks, he has no free will to control said activities. Thus, Bender secures a 'not guilty' verdict… as well as a bout of depression.
This leads to a somewhat draggy second act, as Bender mopes around the Robot Home World looking for purpose in his life. In case it isn't already obvious, Bender isn't exactly fun when he's doing non-Bender things, and having Bender join a monastery doesn't provide much against-type humor… although it does feature some elaborate animation and the reappearance of Bender's rust beard. But, the episode picks up for the third act, as Bender finds out that he has a slot for a free will unit, and attempts to break into MomCorp in order to find the free will device… only to realize that Professor Farnsworth invented the device, and has hidden it all these years in order to prevent a robot uprising. The comedic interplay between Bender and Professor Farnsworth in the final act is fun, especially Bender's attempts to shoot the Professor once the free will unit is inserted into his head. Once Bender does shoot him (the safety was on!), we get the type of happy ending that only Futurama could provide: Bender is found guilty in court for shooting the Professor, invoking cheers from the Planet Express crew and (for whatever reason) a balloon drop!
Even with a script written by Futurama head honcho David X. Cohen, the episode feels a bit unfinished, story-wise, as if it needed a few revisions in order to be truly top-notch. That's not to discredit the episode's ambition, though, which is a perfect opportunity of the ideas that a science-fiction animated comedy can tackle. But the episode is not a complete loss… in fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find any episode of Futurama that was a total dud. I just wonder if this episode could've been better, should the Futurama staff had the larger budget and resources of the Fox network years.
Random notes:
- I sort of wish that a 1980s college comedy actually had a character named Dean Suspendington.
- The tattoo artist at the parlor had an upside-down Epson tattoo… appropriate for the Inkjets gang, no?
- "Bits to live by!"
- Mom sure enjoys her swiveling chair… apparently, the cultural impact of The Voice will last well into the 31st center. ;-)
- "Thanks to you, I went on a soul-searching journey. I hate those!"
- The Bender toy, with the free will unit inserted: "Kill all humans!"
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