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| Futurama |
| Love and Rocket |
Series 4, Episode 3
"Bender has a romance with the Planet Express ship"
Episode Guide -
Quotes -
Analysis - Notes |
| Episode Guide |
Opens with a shot of space as Planet Express flies threw it. Inside Bender argues about tax money being spent on art with the Planet Express ship computer. Later, back at the offices, Hermes and the Professor enter with new Valentines uniforms for everybody. The Professor explains they want to impress their new potential customer, Romanticorp.
They all suit up and head to Milwaukee, the most romantic city on earth. The ship lands and they go for a tour around the Romanticorp production facilities. They are shown Lovie Bears which are genetically engineering and then stuffed once they reach their first birthday.
They also test robot chat up lines. Then in the heart of their operation they are filling barrels of little hearts with messages, etc. Fry decides to find the perfect message for Lela using the trillions of magic hearts. They end up getting the contract and Professor shows them the government mandated upgrades he carried out.
The Professor goes on to talk about the new personality that he has installed. She and Bender begin to get alone quite well. As they make a delivery Fry continues to try and find a message. The ship begins to shake and the problem is traced down to film fooling around with Planet Express ship.
The romance continues and Bender takes a picnic as they fly through space and do several other things including dancing. Next Bender walks in and announces to Fry and Lela he is now bored of the ship. Later he is dating two fembots at Elzar’s restaurant while Planet Express ship watches through the window.
Even later that night, Planet Express ship turns up to see Bender. Fry answers and she bugs him for a while. Next day Bender takes Planet Express ship to the zoo. The ship catches Bender checking out a fembot and confronts him about the restaurant. Bender makes up an excuse and the ship decides to believe it.
The ship arrives on a planet where Lrrr is watching Friends. The crew arrive with several barrels of the little heart messages thing. However they don’t like the text language and next thing we know the Planet Express ship is trying to escape. In the middle of it all Bender says that he is ending it with her.
The Planet Express ship shops and is hit by many torpedoes, leaving the ship to hurtle through space. Lela takes a look at the punch card reports. Later Lela lights a candle and begins eating ice cream. The ship decides to throw itself into a Quasar so that her and Bender will be crushed together forever.
Bender says he loves her but the ship says if he really loved her he would merge his programming with her. The ship continues towards the Quasar while they talk in the shower compartment. They develop a plan and Bender agrees to merge the programming with the ship. A Matrix effect comess on and Bender finds himself in a computer generated space with the ship.
Back in the real world, Lela floats into the ships main computers and begins to deactivate the ships brain. Fry tries to eat all the candy to get them out of Lela’s face. Lela is running out of air but Fry switches their tanks leaving himself out of oxygen. Lela manages to shut it down but Fry is lying on the ground. She manages to revive him and finds a candy heart saying “you leave me breathless.”
After everything is almost back to normal Fry suggest the clean up the hearts but Lela decides to dump them into the Quasar. Zoidberg’s voice over explains how they vaporised, destroying many, many planets but Earth saw all the romantic rays without being destroyed them. |
| Quotes |
Planet Express ship: “Why not create a national endowment for strip clubs while we’re at it”
Bender: “Why not indeed”
Lela: “Bender, ship stop arguing or I am going to come back there and change your opinions manually”
Zoidberg: “Clothing, delicious clothing”
Professor: “Remember we’ve got to show them we’re not bitter husks of human beings who long ago abandoned hope of finding hope in this lifetime. Lela, you’ll have to do some acting”
Bender: “With my mighty robot powers I can get sick of things much quicker than you humans”
Planet Express ship: “I saw you with those two ladies of the evening, explain that”
Bender: “Ok, I like a challenge”
Lrrr: “Why does Ross, clearly the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?”
Bender: “Call me old fashioned but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating”
Bender: “Tubes? You’re older than you said you were” |
| Analysis |
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| Notes |
The caption under the main Futurama text at the start is “when you see the robot, drink!”
The series 4 DVD contains deleted scenes from this episode.
The flying board in Milwaukee says “welcome to romantic Milwaukee, birthplace of the beer goggles”
Cultural reference: The ship says “I can’t do that Lela” which is a reference to a line said on 2001: a space odyssey. Also the ship tries to read lips which also happens in 2001. Finally, removing the ships red computer brain a rod at a time is also a reference to 2001.
Scientific reference: I think the idea of the Earth being just the right distance to see the rays but not be destroyed by them related to the solar eclipse – the reason it works out so perfectly is because the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun but also 400 times closer. |
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