TV Review: FUTURAMA - "Cold Warriors"
If you’re sober, it’s not ice fishing! - The latest episode of Futurama is a cracker!
rating: 4
If youre sober, its not ice fishing! The most recent episode of Futurama calls to mind some of the older stories, like Luck of the Fryrish (the one with the seven leaf clover), and Jurassic Bark (the one with Frys dog). This is undoubtedly intentional, but does this story work as well as those two? We begin in 1988 with teenage Fry and his father going out ice fishing. His dad is constantly pushing him in a way thats borderline abusive, and seems completely disinterested when Fry breaks through the ice and falls into the freezing water. Back in the future, Fry is leading the Planet Express crew on his own ice fishing endeavor. The Professor is understandably unhappy. I shouldnt even be out in this cold! he cries. I have no protective fat, hair or warm blood! Im not even legally a mammal! During the ice fishing trip, a cold virus that had been lying dormant in Frys system resurges and makes him sick. Hes rather blasé about it, but the Professor goes into a panic. It seems the cold virus had died out five centuries earlier and humanity no longer had any resistance. Soon everyone, including Zoidberg but not Bender, are sick. Back in the past, we see teen Fry dealing with being ill. We get some neat reminders of his mothers obsession with sports and his rivalry with his brother, Yancy. In fact, its during a fight with the latter that Fry finds out about a contest that NASA is running. Apparently theyre looking to take a nerdy science experiment and launch it into space. Fry comes up with the genius plan to infect his guinea pig with the cold, then launch it up in the hopes that cosmic rays will somehow cure it. He makes the mistake of telling this to another student who promptly steals the basic concept of working with the cold virus and makes his own entry. Up in the future, the crew is sick and Bender has to play nursemaid. You can guess how well that goes for him. As hes working, the CDC comes along and shrink-wraps the building hoping to quarantine everyone and prevent the virus from spreading. Then Bender, fed up with being everyones nurse, breaks out. In response the CDC shrink-wraps the entire island of Manhattan and implements the dreaded plan 63. Zapp Brannigan had suggested plan 62, but as Nixon pointed out, they didnt have enough piranhas, so there you are. There was an awful lot to enjoy in this episode. I liked seeing the flashbacks to Frys childhood, and the voice-acting by a former astronaut was amusing and appreciated. I also really loved the crews reaction to being ill, especially some of the truly disgusting things that Zoidberg did. Benders escape plan was also pretty great. I also want to make special note of the animation in this episode. Futurama has always had great animation, but they really outdid themselves this week, especially with the shadows cast by the shrink wrap as it was put over Manhattan. While this story wasnt perhaps as good or emotionally solid as Luck of the Fryrish and Jurassic Bark (indeed, the emotional resolution felt very rushed and tacked-on), it still stands on its own as a very good story, and failing to be as good as two of the greatest shows of the series is, perhaps, a failing we can forgive.