Synopsis: May, 1999. A transmitter controller for WNYW-TV, the FOX affiliate in New York City, orders a pizza and beer. He invites the pizza delivery boy, one Phillip J. Fry, to watch the season finale of Single Female Lawyer, a show that revolves around lawyer Jenny McNeil and her various sexual exploits. While yawning, Fry spills his beverage on the control panel, knocking the station and the program off the air. FOX has to replace it with "eight animated programs in a row".
A thousand years later, the signal arrives at the planet Omnicron Persei 8, home of the Omnicronians. Their king and queen, Lrrr and Ndnd, vow revenge on Earth.
Cut to Earth. One Phillip J Fry is dragged from the TV out for a Labor Day trip to the beach. Hilarity ensues... until a UFO shoots lasers at the beach. Lrrr declares that McNeil must be surrendered immediately. President McNeil retaliates by going to war against the mothership, with 25-Star General Zapp Brannigan at the helm. Doesn't work. Fry realizes what the Omnicronians are talking about, and that he must whip up a script for a show he didn't really watch.
Review: On June 23rd, 1998, Time Magazine released an issue that had three greyed-out faces of feminism - suffragette Susan B Anthony, writer Betty Friedan, and activist Gloria Steinem. Right next to them, sat the non-greyed-out face of Ally McBeal, the main character of Ally McBeal. Time Magazine posed the question... Is Feminism Dead?
To accomplish this review, I decided that it would be best to watch the pilot of Ally McBeal. It was... alright, I guess. The main character was a tad bit irritating, though, which you don't really want in a dramedy - it's acceptable in shows like Red Dwarf, where the main character can be irritating for laughs, or Breaking Bad, where you focus on a fall from grace. Not in McBeal.
This episode, from what I could tell, does a damn good mockery of Ally McBeal - it mocks the reason why shows like McBeal are loved. People like comfort food comedy. Sure, you could have shows like Red Dwarf, where characters are fleshed out with vast brilliance. You could just as easily, however, have a show like The Cleveland Show, where shows are unchallenging to the intellect of people, and thus, are bland comfort food TV.
Single Female Lawyer, if anything, lambasts those type of TV shows that patronize their audience. Lines such as...
"Your honor, it's bad enough to proposition a single female lawyer in court, but this is a unisex bathroom!"...represent TV at it's lowest common denominator.
Amazingly, if that one scene was representative of Single Female Lawyer in it's entirety, Fry's script wasn't that far off from the source material. If anything, it was a tad bit better, because it had a purpose - keep aliens from destroying Earth!
Speaking of which, that one plotline is enough to represent just how much the writers treat sci-fi cliches in Futurama. In shows like Deep Space Nine, one maneuver can shift a balance of power, bring worlds into war. Here, it's a TV show.
It's also cool to see just how little, and yet, how much the world has changed. Earth apparently does have a President, modeled after the United States constitution. Satire of perceived US dominance? Do you even have to ask? Thing is, McNeil has almost every right to act in a cowardly manner - the Omnicronians expected everybody to know who Jenny McNeil was, and only said they wanted McNeil. Nothing is cleared up until after Zapp sends McNeil to the Omnicronians... with poor results for the president.
Zapp Brannigan returns again. This being the first time we see him in a combat situation, the results are... less than encouraging... and yet so hysterical. It says something about the dystopia that Futurama is set in when the 25-Star General's battle plan is "STOP EXPLODING, YOU COWARDS!" Oh, he yelled that to his team-mates. Zapp Brannigan, again, is sort of like the Anti-Kirk - whereas Kirk's gambles often (albeit not always) worked out in his favor, Zapp's lead to more destruction. Kirk fights great battles, and Zapp fights retiree planets. Zapp is one of the greatest sci-fi character parodies of all time, and this episode should convince any nay-sayer.
Otherwise, it's just a fun, funny episode that really takes a lick out of the old B-Movie cliche: "What if aliens attacked Earth?" The end result is one funny episode.
Tidbits:
- The title of the episode refers to a bunch of specials seen on the FOX network in the 90s. Y'see, this was before YouTube made videos like these commonplace... and before FOX became a powerhouse. FOX needed schedule filler. It was only after taking the broadcast rights NFC part of the NFL from CBS that the network was seen as more than just a cheap experiment. Even by the mid 2000's, however, the network had a reputation as a creatively bankrupt network running on the lowest common denominator. Not saying anything, but the fact that Futurama and Firefly got shafted, while shows like That 80s Show and Who Wants to Marry A Multi-Millionaire might just show why they had/have that reputation.
- One interesting note on how far technology has advanced since this episode premiered is that no tapes of Single Female Lawyer's season finale exist. The reason, according to Farnsworth, is that many videotapes were damaged in 2443 during the Second Coming of Jesus. I am reminded of Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, where the Boys from the Dwarf are confused by DVDs - Kryten explaining that DVDs fell out of favor because people lost them too much.
- Farnsworth's reaction to the situation is just hysterical, and cements him as the pathetic businessman we all love. He not only is in favor of forced mating, but when the trio go out to fight, he respects their servitude... by appointing replacements. "Oh, God; you're alive! Uh - I mean, thank God you're alive! (whispers to replacements) Sorry, check back in three days - a week at the most!"
- If this episode had any genuine failings, it's the fact that they did a parody of Ally McBeal... and didn't even send up Vonda Shepard. Whoops.
Favorite Scene: Tie between the ultimate battle between Omnicron Persei 8 and Earth - especially Zapp Brannigan's reaction that they didn't take out the mothership - and Fry's season finale of Single Female Lawyer.
Least Favorite Scene: The second-act transition by Lrrr is one of the clunkiest pieces of dialogue I've ever heard.
Memorable Quotes: Tie between "Stop EXPLODING, you cowards!" and "Oh, God; you're alive!", both in how they show just how insane and callous Zapp and Farnsworth can be.
Score: 8.5.
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