3ACV21: Future Stock First UK airing: Sky One, 7:00pm, 12-5-02 "Oh my God! I'm a millionaire! Suddenly I have an opinion about the capital gains tax!" Fry. Mom. Money. Last time this combination was used was all the way back in 'A Fishful Of Dollars', not one of my favourite episodes. I remarked at the time that by dropping the futuristic elements and swapping Mom for Mr Burns it could easily have been a Simpsons plot, and the same applies to this episode as well. (Yes, I know Homer sold his shares in the plant for $25 ages ago, but since he was eviscerated by a raccoon or something recently and bounced back from that, such contrivances would be but a trifle to implement...) Still, at least 'Future Stock' (or 'Futurestock', or 'Futurestocks' -- I've seen it spelt all three ways, but 'Future Stock' makes the most sense -- read your Alvin Tofler) was funnier than 'Fishful'. It wasn't an especially amazing episode, but the jokes that worked (I'll get to the ones that didn't) were fairly decent. Especially the '1984' Apple ad parody. Wonder if Ridley Scott was sent a tape? I mentioned contrivances earlier, and this episode had quite a few of them -- yes, it's a comedy, blah blah blah... but like I said about 'The Problem With Popplers', if you have a plot then you should expect nitpicking if it doesn't hold water! Since when has Planet Express been a public company? 'Space Pilot 3000' said that the Professor just ran it as a handy money-earning sideline, and I wonder what the SEC would make of a public company with a measly ten employees (if you include Scruffy, Katrina and Xanthor). It seemed awfully generous of the Professor to give all the stock to his employees, even the intern, as well -- how can you have a publicly traded company if the public, bar Hattie, can't buy any shares? -- and there must have been some serious senility going on when he forgot to give himself majority control and handed it to Zoidberg instead! And after all that, the company was still worth $107 per share? Wow. Sell Apple, buy PlanEx! But, on the other hand, contrivances, schmontrivances. This wasn't Wall Street, despite 'that guy'. (Who was totally wrong with the tune for 'Safety Dance', I might add -- shameful as it may be to admit it, I have an MP3 of that very song, and it sounds nothing like that! It's more "din din din daddle ang dang dang, ba-dang"...) Comedy high points were "No shellfish!", the Professor's heart and demented laugh as he carried out his cunning escape plan, Fry's 'hair gel' and the Florida ballot joke. Yes, I'm sure that there's no bitterness on the Futurama staff about the highly dubious electoral antics* of that sweaty state. No, no bitterness at all. Something that was a welcome surprise was that the writers finally came up with a workable schtick for Amy, beyond her clumsiness (which hadn't even been seen since 'The Cyber House Rules' anyway). It seems a bit of a glaring oversight that it took the writers 52 episodes to think of doing a 'poor little rich girl' routine, more than two-thirds of the way through the show's entire run, but then it wasn't until after 'Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love?' that they came up with a regular hook -- poverty -- for Zoidberg. Amy bemoaning her lot while being waited on hand and foot made for some funny moments (I especially liked her downplayed cry of "I'm even richer!" when she found out how much her shares were worth). Will they revisit this in the remaining 18 episodes? Probably not, but it'd be nice. The jokes that didn't work, however, really did clunk together like bars of lead. Calculon's appearance was an absolute waste of time -- there should have been one of those tumbleweeds from 'Where The Buggalo Roam' blowing past after his 'joke'. Surprisingly little was made of the Eighties stuff, as well -- I've heard it said that this might have been because of That 80s Show on Fox gnawing the decade's bones dry for material, but I've never seen it so I wouldn't know. (Christ, a Fox show that hasn't appeared on Sky? It must be really shit!) Anyway, I liked the Eighties. Far better than the tasteless Seventies or the dreary Nineties. And since I never had any interest in being fashionable (I was always a 'jeans and a t-shirt' kinda guy), there are no embarrassing pictures of me in some dreadful then-trendy outfit floating around! A quick final observation, regarding the actual drawing of the characters. Fry in particular seemed far more angular than usual (look at his hands when he's on the big screen at the Stock Exchange -- his fist is practically square), and if anyone was in any doubt that the animators like making Amy look sexy, compare her curves in the pre-mooning pep talk scene to her first, slightly dumpy appearance in 1ACV02. That girl has lost a lot of weight! Rating: *Check out Michael Moore's latest book, 'Stupid White Men', for a fully documented list. It's scary...