3ACV08: That's Lobstertainment! First UK airing: Sky One, 8:30pm, 4-3-01 "This is one death Dr Zoidberg won't be responsible for!" And with this episode, Sky's broadcasts of Futurama go completely pear-shaped. Obviously things were screwed up in the States by Valentine's Day, the out-of-order airing of 3ACV07 and the outright banning by Fox of 'A Tale Of Two Santas', but in the UK 'The Day The Earth Stood Stupid' applied equally well to Sky's programme planners. Where was it? Just on a sidenote, am I the only person -- in the world -- who has absolutely no interest in 'reality shows' like Big Brother, The Mole and Temptation Island? I ask only because the last of these directly follows Futurama on Sky, and in all honesty I'd rather eat my own toenails in a bun than watch another bunch of tedious meathead egomaniacs cry about their relationships. Oh boo hoo hoo, I really feel for them. "I've got this beautiful girlfriend, but some other stunning woman is throwing herself at my meaty torso."* Let the white-toothed publicity-seeking bastards rot in a big pot of their own buff-yet-cretinous juices, say I! Anyway, I think Futurama was meant to be discussed at some point here. When the episode started, I thought "Great! It's this year's Zoidberg episode!" After all, 'Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love' was one of last season's highlights. Unfortunately, 'Lobstertainment' (maybe that should have an exclamation mark, but I just can't summon up the enthusiasm) suffered from 'gueststaritis', a common Futurama complaint. Harold Zoid, a character we've never seen before and quite probably will never see again, was the one who got this episode's 'emotional arc'. (Hey, I was in Hollywood a few weeks ago, so I get to use the lingo.) Once again, Futurama's writers decided to tell a story about some new guy they've made up on the spot, as opposed to the seven perfectly good regulars already there. Hell, even the stars -- Fry, Leela and Bender -- didn't get much coverage. Bender was Calculon's lackey/water heater for much of the show, and Fry and Leela spent most of the episode stuck in a tar pit! Doesn't this seem a bit like doing a Seinfeld episode starring Mickey or the Soup Nazi, or a Frasier episode with Kenny as the hero? No, sorry -- if you're going to take the piss out of Hollywood, you should go for it whole-heartedly, instead of just deciding that getting Hank Azaria to do a guest voice will carry an episode. I mean, Jesus Christ, silent movie stars? Cutting-edge stuff, guys! You can't just bring in a completely new character, go "He's Zoidberg's relative so the audience will have sympathy for him", and expect that to carry an episode. Only Zoidberg and Bender were in any way involved in the main plot, and that was so casually they hardly needed to be there at all. On the other hand, there are so many things about Hollywood that could have served as an opportunity for satire, and they were all but ignored. (The nearest they got was with the gag about Fox's reality shows.) A quick joke about product placement (even if it did answer how Hermes knew about Star Trek back in (I think) 2ACV02) doesn't really serve to ridicule the sheer banal blandness/awfulness of 99% of current movies. I know I'm not in charge of the show, but really, "Hey, why don't we base an entire episode around a washed-up silent movie star?" should have gone straight in the bin. But then, maybe "Let's bring Fry's 20th century girlfriend out of cryonic suspension!" sounded good in the story meeting. Oh, and the air in LA seems to have cleaned up quite a lot in the last few weeks, since 'The Cryonic Woman'. Just an observation... Rating: *In case you were wondering, I currently have neither a meaty torso nor a beautiful girlfriend. So, no bitterness there.