FoxHere's another of the few 'classical' pre-cancellation episodes that can be deemed far from faultless. From the pilot until this point Leela had been fleshed out as a strong female lead who had to deal with all kinds of stigmas associated with her looks and gender. And she wasn't a formulaic feminist concept either since she constituted a surprisingly balanced character with natural feelings and drawbacks. And, well, it's exactly Leela's characterization that was sacrificed on the altar of cheap comedy. Watching her being an incompetent idiot struggling to make a silly 'girl power' point by becoming the worst female blernsball player in history isn't exactly amusing. The amount of foolishness and self-righteous pathos the cyclops heroine embraces is plainly perplexing; it totally undermines her character and serves more as an undercooked parody than else. It's arguable the episode contains too few good jokes because of its thematic linkedness to baseball. Sure, it's not a premise for the most viewer-friendly humour but it seems like there couldn't have been done more outside the given framework. A dumb Leela is a pretty faulted idea.
