Review: "Raging Bender" (Season 2, Episode 8)

Sticking somebody in a barrel? Yeah, that'll put some butts in seats!

Airdate: February 27th, 2000.

Synopsis: While at the movies (to escape the possibility of Brain Slug assimilation), Bender manages to infuriate a movie patron to the point where he challenges our lovable rascal to "fistycuffs". Catch is, he's actually "The Masked Unit". Only by luck does Bender defeat him. However, he manages to get noticed by the Commissioner of the Ultimate Robot Fighting League, and is signed up to be a professional wrestler, where he learns all about the tools of the trade... mainly, that matches are fixed according to popularity.

Review: Ah, yes. "Raging Bender". Definitely an interesting episode to analyse, if only for the sociological and entertainment aspects of it. This episode not only takes a look at the media empire that is wrestling and pro-fighting, but also tries to take a look at the power revenge. The results, unfortunately, seem a bit underwhelming.

Recently, on my main review blog, I reviewed "Tiger Millionaire" - an episode of Steven Universe that satirized the professional wrestling atmosphere. Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar described her show as "reverse escapism", where fantastical and science-fiction elements try and adjust to real-world elements. In that way, Futurama can qualify as reverse-escapism - science fiction elements work their way into comedy plots, and the utopia of science fiction is downplayed to fit our current society.

While "Tiger Millionaire" analyzed wrestling through the lens of a local league, "Raging Bender" takes note of it through a WWE/UFC-style league, the Robot Ultimate Fighting League. Not an especially interesting use of the material, what matters more is the internal practices of the RUFL - which are brutal. Here, it's all about what makes the sport popular, fighting skill be damned.

In fact, this further reinforces just how different Futurama is to Star Trek - particularly The Next Generation. Whereas the TNG era shows that the Trek universe dispensed of currency, in Futurama, cash is still king. We saw it with Mom's Friendly Robot Company, and the excesses of capitalism still exist here... much to the detriment of Bender's "health". And popularity, even.

To continue making comparisons to Star Trek, looking back at The Original Series from a 21st century perspective, the show did have a bit of a chauvinist streak. The show more than just occasionally featured lines that seemed to indicate that women were purely controlled by the Id, prone to irrational decisions. (Spock said something to that effect in "Wolf in the Fold.") Again, most of this could be explained by the fact that the show came from early in the second wave of Feminism. That, and the show was relatively progressive for it's time (Uhura's placement on the bridge was certainly revolutionary), but the unaware viewer might be a bit stunned that the utopian atmosphere of TOS could feature sexist remarks and behaviour.

Again, this is where Futurama subverts Trek - whereas Trek is set in a post-feminist amosphere (even if the writing somewhat defies it - "Angel One", for example), sexism is still a prominent issue in the Futurama-verse. Women still seem to be treated as absolute jokes, and even "The Gender Bender" doesn't seem to bat an eye. At all. In fact, Bender's presentation as "The Gender Bender" is an attempt to turn the public against him. Master Fong overlooks Leela for the championship, claiming that she lacks the "Will of the Warrior". No prizes for guessing why.

So, yeah, points taken off for this episode not exactly being subtle.

However, this episode did take on another theme in a somewhat more subtle manner - that of revenge and how our hang-ups can almost cause destruction for others. Leela tries to have Bender fight her own battles... which is kinda manipulative, actually. She's placing Bender in the crossfire just to humiliate her former teacher. Sympathetic as her motives are, this does show a rather more insensitive side of Leela. Which isn't a problem - Futurama thrives on it's characters being rather callous to each other.

Unfortunately, the actual content of the episode itself is rather bland. The way the plot evolves is rather predictable, the same goes for the ending, yadda yadda yadda. That, and there wasn't a whole lot of well-executed comedy come the middle of the second act.

That, and this episode, again, suffers from a lack of subtlety when it comes to it's "sexism is bad" plot. Maybe the upcoming episodes will prove me wrong, but from what I've noticed, this is a vice that the writers seem to suffer from when it comes to writing plots that revolve around gender. Again, the idea is to subvert Trek's post-feminist atmosphere, but the execution is just a bit too obvious for my tastes - at least here. Fnog, at least in my opinion, is too simple a character, and a bit too easily defeated at the end.

To keep it short, "Raging Bender" isn't going to be at the top of my "recommended" list when it comes to Futurama episodes. It's bland, rushed... it's pretty forgettable.

Honestly, if you want a good wrestling episode, watch the aforementioned "Tiger Millionaire". It's a great episode.

Tidbits:

• This episode does mark a return of the "Brain Slugs" - borg-esque aliens who simply make everybody with Slugs on their heads subservient to the expansion of the Brain Slug empire. Yet, Fry's starves to death. Why? Is it because he's stupid? Well...
• In the theatre, we get a "cameo" from Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo. I put "cameo" in quotations because Servo doesn't speak, and Crow is voiced by Dave Herman. Still... MST3K cameos are always cool.
• This episode was written by Lewis Morton. He actually had a pretty decent streak up to this episode, writing "A Big Piece of Garbage", "Fry and the Slurm Factory", and "Raging Bender". Eh, everybody has one weak link. Hope he doesn't get too many more.
• Oh, there's also the question of why the Commissioner was at the movie theatre in the first place. That's not coincidence - that's a lapse in writing.

Favorite Scene: Three, mainly because I could remember them. Bender getting challenged to "fistycuffs" was memorable. Second place goes before that, to Fry getting his super-small Slurm drink. Third place? All the scenes with the Brain Slugs.

Least Favorite Scene: The last three minutes. The resolution just seemed too tidy. Granted, what happened to Bender is pretty funny, but not enough.

Memorable Quote: "I taught the toaster to feel love." - Farnsworth. Nice use of any grant money you get, Professor.

Score: 6. A quirky take on wrestling saves this episode from a lower score.