2ACV09: A Bicyclops Built For Two First UK airing: Sky One, 7:00pm, 28-5-00 "Well, thanks to the Internet I'm now bored with sex." Does anyone remember when The Simpsons had at least a vague connection with reality? I only bring this up because 'Missionary: Impossible' aired just before this Futurama episode in the UK, and Bender had a cameo in it, which provides a sort of connection. I'm just sure that there was a time when you could watch America's favourite cartoon family and not get the feeling that you'd accidentally wandered into somebody else's toad-licking trip. But I digress. 'A Bicyclops Built For Two' was, for me, an episode of two halves. The first half (well, 'half'), as a mockery of the Internet, was superb -- hey, y'know, that geeky title at the top of the page should give away that I've been on the Internet for a while. And the fact that I was playing Unreal Tourney -- against bots including Fry (incompetent), Bender Unit 22 (sneaky), Leela (deadly) and Amy Wong (runs around firing wildly) -- just before switching on the TV may have helped. But once the crew actually got to the alleged 'Cyclopia', it was all a bit 'it's not what it seems'. C'mon, I've watched way too many episodes of Star Trek to know that any potentially format-changing episodes are going to have a final-act twist, and that Mr Right is going to have a guilty secret. That's not to say that it wasn't funny. But it wasn't unexpected either, which always a bit of a muffler on the laughs. Something else that was a bit of a stifler (from a non-American point of view) was the number of Married: With Children refs -- MWC was at best a late-night obscuro show over here. I've seen it, so I got the jokes, but because it's not exactly a major part of Brit pop culture it didn't really raise any laughs. (Though Leela as Peg Bundy did manage to produce a bit of a smirk. I've seen enough to get that joke.) Still, the first part of the show had already put the score up to high levels, so the rest of it would have had to have been a real... I dunno, what's a really crap American sitcom? We tend not to get the absolute worst over here. But it would have to have been one of them to knock the mark down too much. Anyway, 'Bicyclops' must have set a new world record for freeze-frame gags, and the whole of the Internet sequence was sheer genius. BTW, I have actually had requests (via ANSTATMAW) to draw 'Amy Wong Naked' pictures myself, but A: it's all tasteless and stuff, and B: not enough money has been offered. (What can I say? I've been learning from Bender!) Mind you, even outside the Internet, there were some great gags, like Bender's jar-smashing spree to make room in his chest cavity, the 'trillion miles' depth-perception joke (which echoed back all the way to the pilot!) and "Do you, Leela, copy and paste his response?" The real surprise was that Fry, despite the twin handicaps of being locked in a dungeon for half the episode and idiocy, uncovered Alkazar's plot and saved the day. Something's going to happen between him and Leela some day, and I'm not talking about the alternate-reality stuff in the season finale. (Hey, sometimes I just can't avoid spoilers.) Of course, the best thing about the entire episode was the revelation that Macs win the format war. All those GUI images were from OS 9. Yes! Steve Jobs 1, Bill Gates 0! I guess the US Justice Department ruling really worked out in Apple's favour over the next thousand years... Rating: