2ACV05: Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love? First UK airing: Sky One, 8:00pm, 11-4-00 "Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times, shame on me." Damn Sky, damn them to Hell! Although this episode was screened more than a week ago, this is the first chance I've had to review it (family commitments). In the meantime... well a couple of reviews back I said words to the effect of "At least in the UK shows don't get pre-empted". So what do Sky immediately do? They pre-empt Futurama! No 'Put Your Head On My Shoulder' yesterday -- instead we got part two of a miniseries. They could have pre-empted Voyager or Earth: Final Conflict, but noooo... Infuriating cable programming aside (it'd damn well better be shown in the Saturday repeat slot...), 'Crustacean' was easily the most smutty episode of Futurama to date -- and it got away with it, because, after all, it's all about a cartoon space lobster. Even so, the number of barely disguised masturbation jokes would have put Men Behaving Badly to shame -- and I'm talking about the original filthy British version, not the watered-down US show. "Male jelly" indeed. And as for the moment where Fry offered to lend Zoidberg his right arm... Am I complaining? Hell, no. It was bloody funny. 'Crustacean' was yet another excellent show from the 2ACV production block, which so far hasn't put a foot wrong. This episode also went above and beyond the call of duty in its inclusion of Star Trek references. They even got the lirpa and the ahn-woon in there, which shows real geekdom on somebody's part, and good for them. The stuff at the gym was funny too, particularly Amy's cubic attempted conquest and the 'pregnercise' session. Being a former gym attendee (before noticing that however much I worked out, I never actually seemed to get any bigger) I think I recognised quite a few people in there. Picky continuity time -- in 'Mars University' the Professor described genetic engineering as science fiction, yet here Amy and Leela both agreed that it had considerably improved the male of the species since 1999. Mind you, Farnsworth is a senile old duffer, so that gives the writers a handy get-out clause. What's the betting that the next Star Trek series will have all its crappy technobabble explained by a doddering old man with a poor memory? The ending was even kind of sad, in a sickly amusing sort of way. If not for the fact that, as Bender correctly pointed out, Zoidberg is a complete loser he'd be dead -- but that didn't really make him feel any better. My god, even Zoidberg is getting sympathetic characterisation now. Just Amy and Hermes to go! Rating: