2ACV06: Lesser Of Two Evils First UK airing: Sky One, 7:00pm, 14-5-00 "If I ever want to go back to the year 2000, I'll just freeze myself again." Maybe it was because there hadn't been four weeks of anticipation leading up to it. Maybe it was because it wasn't a full-on Amy-o-rama like last week's 'Put Your Head On My Shoulders'. Or maybe it was because the jokes were kind of obvious and well short of the usual level of sharpness. But 'Lesser Of Two Evils' was a bit of a 'neh' episode. Actually, it's probably all down to the last one. Well, 90% that, and the rest the Amy thing. (Told you I had expectations.) The odd thing is that I'm normally a sucker for evil double episodes. If there's a goatee beard and a dodgy split-screen effect involved, I'm there. But not on this occasion. It's probably down to the fact that it's hard to imagine an evil twin of Bender -- he already is pretty evil, so it was fairly obvious that Flexo would turn out to be the title character. This made a lot of the gags rather predictable. And was there anyone in the entire universe (or parallel equivalent) who didn't see Leela's change of heart about the Miss Universe contest coming a parsec off? Even the 'seemingly unrelated opening', normally a staple part of good episodes, was a flop, partly because it was unrelated (there was no lead-in to later events, and the crew could have met Flexo anywhere) but mainly because it was just a recycled and padded-out version of the moon landing skit from 1ACV02 and the Panucci's Pizza con-job in 1ACV06. It wasn't even especially funny. Besides, with all those 20th and 21st century heads knocking around, why doesn't anyone from 3001 ever think of just asking them about the past? Like 'Mars University', this was a 'guest star' episode (even though the guest star was played by one of the regular stars!), and like 'Mars University' the addition of a new character took time away from our heroes, leaving them spouting (limp) one-liners and acting like caricatures of themselves. And if you subtract a dimension from a cartoon character, there's not really a lot left. All the same, even a sub-par episode of Futurama has its moments. The COPS parody at the beginning was amusing, if Men In Black-ish, Miss Methane raised a genuine laugh, and although Zoidberg's chlorine gag was blatantly stolen from The Simpsons ("It's funny 'cause I don't know them", anybody?) it still raised a smile. The return of the Crushinator was probably the best moment, though -- even if her voice seemed to have changed. On a final note, I want one of those Planet Express delivery ship bath toys. And I'm a shower person! C'mon, Groening, get your ass in gear and start signing those merchandising licences! Rating: PS: What's the deal with the cops in DOOP? Whatever planet you're on, it's the same two guys! PPS: I have a beard. Does that mean I'm the evil one? PPPS: I finally found out who Ron Popeil is! I was watching my X Files Season 1 boxset, and there he was. I was amazed to find out that the spray-on toupee is real!