Futurama, Episode 7.10: "Near-Death Wish"

Tonight's Futurama starts off with the annual Clippie Awards, honoring the best delivery boys… and good ol' Fry is nominated for Best Delivery Boy - Newspaper, Phone Book or Miscellaneous! Fortunately, Fry manages to pull off the win… if only because all the other nominees in his category were previously featured in the show's death reel. But, his win is dampened by the fact that Professor Farnsworth didn't show up for the Clippies. Farnsworth's excuse? "I came down with a searing case of 'Who gives a crap?'" Yes, Fry is saddened that the only living relative he knows doesn't care about him… but Fry perks up when he realizes that Farnsworth's parents are still alive… or, in suspended animation on the Near-Death Star. And thus, we're off!

Using the surprising power of his Clippie win, Fry manages to locate Farnsworth's parents - hereafter referred to as "Gram-Gram" and "Shabadoo" - amidst a handsomely-animted organizational structure that will quickly remind viewers of the innards of The Matrix. This leads to the episode's best sequence: a ridiculously lengthy discussion in which Fry, Leela and Bender mock The Matrix for its concept of humans being able to generate significant amounts of electricity… even though this is, magically, a feasible idea in this version of the future! (And if that's not enough, the episode quickly follows this up with a brief bullet-time jab!) The gang manages to insert themselves into Gram-Gram and Shabadoo's virtual-reality retirement home, where Fry quickly hits it off with them… to the extent that Fry wishes that he could bring them back with him. You can imagine what happens next!

Once Gram-Gram and Shabadoo appear at Planet Express and reunite with Farnsworth, he quickly expresses his hate for them for what they did to his childhood. And, in what I can only assume is Comedy Central's need to meet the required man-ass quota for a basic cable channel, a naked Farnsworth regales Leela and Amy with the story of how his parents ignored his interest in science, held him back from MIT, and moved the family to a country farm because "city life was filling [his] head with an unhealthy respect for higher education". This caused Farnsworth to go crazy, run away, and never speak to his parents again… until now, that is. But now that they're back in his life, Farnsworth is losing it again, leading to him running through the streets of New New York while naked. (Says Bender, "That is one crazy, uncircumcised old man!")

As it turns out, Farnsworth ended running off to the old family farm in Queens, sobbing inside his bed (complete with Transformers bedsheets… well, sort of). As it turns out, Farnsworth was "a crazy-ass nut job" in his younger years, and his parents read from his favorite book - The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics - to calm him down. (Hearing guest voice Estelle Harris - best known from Everybody Loves Raymond and as Mrs. Potato Head in the Toy Story sequels - reading the periodic table during this scene is a weird pleasure in and of itself.) This ultimately led to his parents putting him in a mental institution, partially on account of the toll he took on their free time. (Also of note in this sequence: Farnsworth discovers he has a younger brother named Floyd, who's currently a homeless rodeo clown. We don't get to meet him in this episode, though… perhaps next season?)

The emotional core of the episode - the complicated relationship between the Professor and his 'rents - isn't as fully-formed as I would've hoped - it doesn't reach the pinnacles of the show's tearjerker episodes, that's for sure - but the final scene, in which the Professor recreates the old farm days of his childhood for his parents to spend their virtual-reality retirement in - is sweet and touching enough to leave the episode on a good note. I also liked many of the moments between Fry, Gram-Gram and Shabadoo, such as Fry's holophonor recital and Fry's excitement in showing off a fork that's stuck in his lung. (Yes, it's as bizarre as it sounds.) All in all, it's an amusing enough episode to help pass the time. Now, let's all go take a nap!

Random notes:

• "Ooh, hefty! You could really bash a skull in with this thing!"
• "Let's boldly go where we've gone before!"
• Quickie Pop Culture Reference of the Night: the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" doorbell!
• For translation's sake, "Trop Vieux Manor" translates to "Very Old Manor". "The more you know!"
• Squeakers!!!
• FYI, there are only three episodes left this season. The 11th, "Viva Mars Vegas", will air next Wednesday at its regular time. The season's final two episodes, "31st Century Fox" (guest-starring Patrick Stewart!) and "Naturama", will air back-to-back on Wednesday, August 29th. Hopefully, Comedy Central's penchant for double-episode weeks this summer doesn't mean that they're simply trying to burn off episodes as quickly as possible… I'm not ready for this show to be cancelled again! :-(