This week’s Futurama episode, ‘Murder on the Planet Express’, is like a golden age crime story crossed with a classic horror story. Those familiar with either genre will laugh as they recognise the tropes of each, and those that are just fans of the show will laugh at the regular sci-fi gags and character quirks littered throughout the episode.
Fed up that the crew of Planet Express do not trust one another, the Professor sends them on a “corporate team-building retreat” in space with the trust guru, Dan McMasters. In order to show them the importance of trust, McMasters picks up a hitch-hiker. Of course this hitch-hiker is someone not to be trusted, as he turns into an alien, eats McMasters, and shuts off all the ships power. The Planet Express crew starts doing exactly what the Professor wanted: they are trusting one another in order work together to try and defeat the alien. That is until they find out the creature is a shape-shifter. So, now the Planet Express crew are trapped on a ship with a murderous shape-shifting creature that is going to pick them off one by one, and they do not know who it could be at any given time. Who can they trust? Who can’t they trust? And will trusting one another actually solve anything?
My favourite thing about this episode is that it undermines the message of the importance of trust right at the end of the episode, which is so Futurama. They don’t care about sending a positive message, they’re not a kids show, they just want to make an amusing episode of an animated sitcom, which they did so well this week. I would definitely rate this as one of the better episodes of the season, and am cautiously optimistic about the quality of the next two episodes.
Review by Heather Bale.
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