1ACV12: When Aliens Attack First UK airing: Sky One, 8:30pm, 15-2-00 "Stop exploding, you cowards!" Something that really impresses me about Futurama is the sheer speed at which the episodes move. There are three distinct parts to this episode -- at the beach, the big space battle, and the Ally McBeal pisstake -- and the number of jokes crammed into each of these parts would probably be considered a lot for an entire episode of most other sitcoms. (Or a whole season of any current British comedy...) Thanks to Sky showing the episodes out of order, 'When Aliens Attack' was the opening episode of season two in the UK. Like 'Fear Of A Bot Planet', this was another episode that really set about my funny-bone with a mallet because of the massive number of sci-fi gags. Also, even though this is a cartoon, the space battle was actually impressive! Voyager, watch out. (I must get into the habit of not watching Sky's trailers for each week's show -- if I hadn't been expecting the whole Star Wars/Independence Day pastiche, I would have been completely blown away by it.) Zapp's second appearance (on Sky, at least) worked well, although I think there's a danger of him becoming stale if all he does is hit on Leela and come up with supremely idiotic and suicidal battle plans. Mind you, considering the density of the jokes in this episode, there wasn't really much room to give him the kind of development that he got in 1ACV04. Kif, on the other hand, really needs some additional characterisation -- so far, all he's done is groan at Zapp's bottomless stupidity. Why does he put up with this imbicile? Enquiring minds want to know! Back at the Planet Express ranch, even though I never got into Ally McBeal, I'd seen enough of it to know that the parody was dead-on, though it was the non-parody jokes that really got me -- Leela's stick-on eye, Bender's 'camera three' trick. I'm actually in two minds about parodies -- if they're done well and form an element of the main story, like the Star Wars/ID4/Ally stuff here, they can be extremely funny. On the other hand, it can be a sign of lazy writing for a show just to go "Let's do a parody of [X]!" and expect that alone to carry an episode. So far, Futurama has done it right -- but it's barely into its second season. (At the time of writing, 'A Flight To Remember' is still a couple of days away from airing -- let's see if they fall into the trap. I doubt they will, but you never know...) As with Zapp, there wasn't that much time to find out anything new about the crew, though it was interesting to see a little hint of Leela/Amy friction. Actually, even though I'm an Amy fan, she was wrong on this one -- Leela does have the thighs for a miniskirt, especially the DOOP uniform version. Oh yeah. (Wait a minute... I'm remarking on the physical attributes of cartoon characters! That way madness lies. Still, whatever.) However, it would be a bit predictable and 'sitcom-ish' if this expanded into a genuine rivalry -- hopefully the writers will resist the cliche. Incidentally, if I were the gambling type I'd put money on somebody, somewhere, posting some Leela/Amy slash fiction before long... no doubt followed by Zapp/Kif and Fry/Bender slash. Fortunately, I don't have to read any of them. (Well, maybe the Leela/Amy ones.) As a final note, the 31st century should be pretty glad it's got Fry. First he saved New New York, and now the entire planet! Rating: