Review: "Where the Buggalo Roam" (Season 3, Episode 10)

Kif: "I'll get your cattle back, or die trying!

Leo: "Hey, we can't lose!" 

Airdate: March 3rd, 2002. (Yeah, at this point, FOX didn't give a damn when the episodes aired.)
Written By: J. Stewart Burns.
Plot: Amy, Kif, and the PlanEx crew take a trip to the western-esque Wong Ranch on Mars. The owners, Leo and Inez, callously suggest that Amy dump Kif for a macho cowboy, as well as bragging about buying the land from the native Martians. During the barbeque, a dust storm comes over and takes the Wong's main source of income - the buggalo.

Review:

Turning a minor joke into a recurring plot thread has become a characteristic of sci-fi comedy/dramas. For example, Amy's parents chucking Kif with Amy at the end of "A Flight to Remember". Last time we left Kif, he finally got the guts to confess his love to Amy - this being spurred on by a combination of Zapp's embarrassment, as well as learning that he was going to be raped to death by Amazonians. (No other way to put it.)

"Where the Buggalo Roam" follows up on that. From a tribal planet in "Amazon Women in the Mood", we now go to a pastiche of the wild, wild west.

On Mars.

Review: "Amazon Women In The Mood" (Season 3, Episode 1)

Airdate: February 4th, 2001.

Synopsis: Kif is unable to ask Amy out on a date, due to his eternal shyness. Zapp takes advantage of this, and manages to wind up on a "double half-date" with Leela, Kif, and Amy at Le Palm D'Orbit, an orbiting restaurant. There, Zapp tries to get Kif to use his boorish pick-up lines, and when Kif finally tries to show his true colors in a song, Zapp blocks it by "singing" his own tune. The restaurant abandoned by all except the four, the captain's attempts to pilot it back home end with them crashed on Amazonia, a matriarchal planet that has effectively eliminated all men.

Fry and Bender attempt to rescue them, and it ends with the crew arrested. After a tour of the planet, they are brought to the Fem-puter, the leader of the planet. There, Fem-Puter is infuriated by the fact that there are men that trespassed on the planet, and sentences them to die.

Review (SPOILERS): As far as I can recall, Season 3 is going to focus quite a bit more on continuity and the development of plot elements introduced in Seasons 1 and 2. Indeed, the season premiere, "Amazon Women In The Mood", fleshes out Kif and Amy, all while serving as a parody of sci-fi pulp, mocking both genders, and analyzing hypocrisy in radical politics. For the most part, the end result is good - although is the episode overrated?

Review: "Brannigan, Begin Again" (Season 2, Episode 2)

"Whoopsie-daisy!"

Airdate: November 28th, 1999

Synopsis: The Planet Express trio are sent over to the new DOOP HQ in the Neutral Zone - they are to deliver scissors for the ribbon cutting ceremony. While there, however, they come across Zapp Brannigan, who fears Neutrals (yes, there's a planet called the Neutral Planet) because of their lack of stance, and who arrests the crew for carrying scissors, claiming that they're part of "a Neutral plot".

Leela: But they're not even sharp! Who could I possibly hurt with them?

Zapp: The Yarn People of Nylar 4!

While interrogating the crew on the Nimbus, Zapp is informed that he is going to miss the ribbon cutting ceremony. Zapp decides to improvise and use the ship's laser... which he cranks up to hyperdrive and fails to turn off, eventually destroying the new HQ. Forced to stand at a court martial in the Old DOOP HQ in Weehawken, Leela's testimony is just enough evidence to convict Brannigan, and he is dishonorably discharged. Before leaving, Zapp gives a mournful speech on the recent developments.

My friends, you can take away a man's title and his uniform, but you can never take away his integrity or his honour. Plus, it was mostly Kif's fault.

Kif, thrown under the bus, is now forced to roam the streets of New New York with Zapp. The two wind up at Planet Express, and are employed by Professor Farnsworth. Zapp notices the dissatisfaction that Bender and Fry have with Leela's management skills, and after a particularly awkward delivery, Zapp leads a mutiny against Leela, with the intent to hijack the ship and kamikaze it into Neutropolis, the capital of the Neutral Planet.

Review: The Zapper is back! The three previous episodes that featured the comic genius that is Zapp Brannigan were aided by his presence, but he only really had one prior episode really "focused" on him - "Love's Labours Lost In Space". "A Flight to Remember" was focused on Fry and Leela, and "When Aliens Attack" focused on Fry trying to thwart an alien invasion.

This episode actually focuses on his character, and does so in an awesome manner - but also a manner that makes the character much, much darker.