Dethroning Moment / Futurama

"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

Futurama is a show beloved by many and missed by the majority. That doesn't mean it doesn't have its moments that deserve to get sent to Robot Hell.

Keep in mind:

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• Doktor Von Eurotrash: The second episode after the uncancellation, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", generally does a good job of spitting on Leela's normally tough Action Girl character by having her naked, immobilized and in a cliché Rescue Romance with Zapp Brannigan. But then she finds out that he's been causing all their problems and tricking her in the hope of getting laid... this is when she'll kick his ass, right? Well, yes, but it's short-lived because a Kill Sat forces them to have sex, or it will blow up the Earth, so Leela goes ahead with it (despite Zapp no longer wanting to) in front of the rest of her crew and just off-camera. So, let me count the characters humiliated by this. Leela, because she's forced to sleep with a man she detests. Zapp, because he's been raped. And heck, Fry too, since as of the season premiere, he and Leela are after all supposed to be a couple.
• Baronobeefdip: For me, it was the episode "Proposition Infinity" where Bender and Amy try to make Robot/Human relationships legal. Why? Well, for one thing, it had what we like to call the "Ass Pull Of God." Basically, the gist of the episode is that Bender and Amy fall in love, but, since "Robosexual" relationships are illegal, their love is forbidden. The two fight tooth-n-nail (metaphorically, not literally) to make Robosexuality legal. And, how does it end? Bender dumps Amy because he doesn't want to be in a monogamous relationship. Really? Really!? First of all, you CAN'T just have a major event happen to one (or more) character and then just hit the Reset Button so that everything is back to normal... especially in shows that follow some form of continuity like Futurama does. Second, last time I checked, an earlier episode already showed why Robosexual relationships are a bad idea. So... Retcon hypocrisy, anyone?
  • Crimsonlight: What's so jarring about episodes like these in the later seasons is that all the worst parts of Family Guy in what's otherwise an amazing show: Preachiness, over the top parody, and mean-spirited stereotyping of people the show disagrees with politically. Sure, the show's taken light hearted jabs at religion and conservative politics before, but this was just such so mean-spirited for a light hearted show that it's hard to watch
  • Chasem: The episode was just sad. Not infuriating like similar episodes of Family Guy, but sad. It had its heart in the right place and had a very important message to convey, but botched it by overusing the Strawman Political trope throughout the episode and basically saying "anyone who opposes gay-I mean robosexual- marriage only does so if they're old, grumpy, bitter and/or religious!" over and over again, rather than strengthening its argument by provoking more intelligent commentary like South Park would do. The whole issue over robosexual marriage was reduced to Black-and-White Morality and felt very unintelligent by Futurama standards, more worthy of how an uninformed teenager would portray the issue than a team of adult writers. The worst part is that it made what should have been a Moment of Awesome - Proposition Infinity being passed - feel absolutely worthless.
  • Kashima Kitty: The part that really bugged me about that was Kif's role in the episode. After finally deciding he's had enough of Amy's trampy ways, he breaks up with her. You'd think Amy would learn her lesson and appreciate her relationship more, especially after losing Bender, but what happens? Kif goes crawling back to her, with a black leather jacket and a motorcycle, just like the bad boys she was fawning over from the beginning. At least Bender ditching Amy made sense.
  • Stele Resolve: For me, the episode was just blatantly stupid almost from beginning to end, with paper thin jokes and ham fisted allusions to Proposition 8 slapping the viewer in the face every other minute.
  • Bibs Dibs: For me, it wasn't the worst episode. But I can see why people dislike/hate the episode. It was also kind of inconsistent for Amy's character, as I remember her saying that one of the things she liked about Kif was that he was a sweet Nice Guy.
  • Joseph C Badass: You guys can call me an idiot for thinking this, but I found the first half, and a tiny bit of the second half bearable because there are things that make sense. For one, robosexual marriage being illegal makes sense because an earlier episode showed us how being with robots, albeit for purely sexual purposes reminiscent of masturbation, is fatally inefficient in the long run, and the cure camp scene with the hypocritical robot pastor was somewhat funny to me, but this is where it got stupid: At the very end of the episode— literally the very end— the writers pulled out of their asses the realization that Farnsworth used to be robosexual. It'd be better, at least a little, if they foreshadowed it, but no... Aside from how the robot's name, which, by the way, was revealed during the Ass Pull in question, sounded similar to "Unit" (Eunice), there was no hint at all, and it just made the episode so anticlimactic, that I was tempted to stop watching. But I kept on going, hoping in vain that it would get better, as there was still time for closure, but they turned it down again. They decided to make the entire debacle utterly pointless by having Bender break up with Amy because she wanted a monogamous relationship, which makes sense because Bender's a notorious whoremonger. It gets worse still; instead of giving closure, which may or may not have been impossible by this point in the episode, they just showed that Kif turned down a really good shot at character development by crawling back to Amy, who still had Bender on her mind and wasn't even thinking about him. They could've pulled this off by having her develop character and apologize to Kif, or Kif could've moved on with his life or something that accommodated his totally justified anger at Amy. This episode sucked my ass.
• The Dog Sage: The third skit of the Season 6 finale "Reincarnation" because it was just LAZY. It's basically an "anime parody" that plays like every other "anime parody" written by writers who've never watched anime before. It's simply reusing the same tired jokes every "parody" like it told before, and shows that the writers' only research was watching those same parodies. Honestly, I expected better from Futurama.
• Potatohawk: To me, the episode that most typifies everything that's been wrong with Futurama since its uncancellation is "Attack of the Killer App". This is the moment where the show stopped being being the funny, slightly edgy, yet still touching show that I'd known and loved and started its long downward spiral. The jokes the entire episode was built on were stale to the point of fossilization. There have been worse episodes since, but for me, this is where the decline really began.
  • stormofhale: Gotta agree here. Futurama had always made jokes based off pop-culture, but nothing was ever quite as fleeting as "Susan Boil". It makes the episode feel even older than it really is.
• Amuro NT 1: I love Futurama, but "Decision 3012" was beyond the shadow of a doubt the single worst episode they've made. The plot is a not at all disguised allegory for Barack Obama's election, portraying his stand-in as someone whose only opposition is ignorant bigots who think he's an alien. And they take a swipe at the immigration debate by saying that Nixon's Head caused a Bad Future by blocking illegal (alien) immigration, and Not-Obama has to prevent that to save the day. Just to cap it all off, the episode was practically devoid of laughs partly because they refused to poke even the slightest bit of fun at Not-Obama, and partly because the only jokes they did attempt were about how petty and shallow his opponents are. An utter slap in the face to anyone who isn't a Democrat, and the kind of shoddy, lazy, unfunny writing you'd expect out of Family Guy, not Futurama.
  • Silvermoon424: Agreed 100%. The episode was just mindless pandering to me. I wouldn't have minded as much if it were more subtle, but it was just so in-your-face and paper thin the whole episode was basically impossible to enjoy.
  • Eponymous Kid: Whenever the show abandons its premise to talk about current events, that's stupid in and of itself. When they do that for a whole episode (as in this one and "Proposition Infinity"), holy crap are these writers missing the freaking point of this show.
  • Grumpy Old Man: Hell, I'm a Democrat and still thought it was sorry. First, there's the aforementioned non-paradox-correcting timecode thing. Second, while I agree with the overall message, being a dick about it will only push people away. It's the Michael Moore principal. Just because I agree doesn't mean I want you to keep talking.
• Anarquistador: "Near Death Wish". Not only was it the second episode in a row where the crew re-visits a planet they've already been to (making me wonder if the writers are finally running out of ideas), but it featured an extremely tired old dig at The Matrix that had already been done to death ten years ago. All around, a highly disappointing episode featuring recycled jokes.
• RAZ: "The Duh-Vinci Code" was so bad that I not only quit watching the post-cancellation episodes but I've barely been able to tolerate the classic ones. The plot involving Da Vinci being an ageless alien was ridiculous enough, but things really kicked into overdrive during the third act as the show established its newly founded mean-spiritedness with the rest of Da Vinci's fellow aliens treating him like such complete shit that he turns crazy and tries to kill everyone. It sunk in for me just how much the writers loved amping up the cruelty in this show, and I've never wanted to look at it again since.
  • Knight9910: While all of the post-cancellation episodes were awful for me I agree, "The Duh-Vinci Code" stands out as one of the worst and marks the point where I gave up on the new episodes. It's the last part of the episode, where Da Vinci is finally ridiculed to the point where he tries to kill everyone on his home planet. Da Vinci's plan is stopped by Fry, who was only happy there because he was too dumb to realize he was being made fun of, and Da Vinci dies in just about the most humiliating way possible. Assuming the writers weren't just being mean for the sake of being mean and were actually trying to make a point, what could that point possibly be? That the Jerkass aliens were the good guys? That it's okay to be a bully as long as you're objectively smarter/stronger/whatever than the person you're bullying?
• Kalle: Hey, how about one before the cancellation? "A Pharaoh to Remember" is particularly unwatchable for me, because it felt like Bender had been flanderized into taking too many levels in jerkass for my liking — I know it's part of his character, but his actions pushed it way too far for me to handle.
  • Aquila89: I agree. That episode goes too far. And in the end, everything is back to normal of course, and we're supposed to see Bender as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold again. It just doesn't work for me.
• Animeking 1108: The Beast With a Billion Backs. The Robot Devil makes a deal with Bender, but he would have to sacrifice his first born son. It cuts to Bender having a heartwarming reunion with his son, indicating that he'll reconsider, only for it to cut to him throwing him in hell. No, writers, having the Robot Devil lampshade this does not make it better. That was just the first sign of Bender's Character Derailment. I'm talking about a robot that felt guilt for making somebody deaf a few episodes prior.
  • RabidBadger1632: I agree with this one. Apparently, someone must have let Seth MacFarlane get a hold of the script for a few minutes, because that's the type of mean-spirited humor I'd expect from the now crappy Family Guy, not Futurama which usually knows how to handle Black Comedy well.
  • SenorCornholio: The entire movie was a huge mess, especially after "Bender's Big Score" which, admittedly, was a Tough Act to Follow, but that's really not an excuse. But since I doubt I can just chalk up "the whole movie", I'll have to single out a moment. Let's see...is it the weird plot involving the Eldritch Abomination and its tentacles? Is it how Bender gives his firstborn son to the Robot Devil (which admittedly I laughed at)? Actually, no. My dethroning moment has to be Zapp Branigan using Kif's Disney Death to sleep with Amy. Because yeah. As if it weren't enough that we get Bender crossing the Moral Event Horizon, we also get to see a previously lovable perverted asshole devolve into just a perverted asshole. About the only saving grace is that when Kif comes Back from the Dead, he decks the son of a bitch; aside from that however, it still has a negative effect on Kif and Amy's relationship for a few episodes after the fact, so that doesn't make it immediately better. After witnessing Gohan and Videl's relationship, this is especially bad to me. And then it has the gall to end on a "happy" note after their temporary break-up. With that said, is it any wonder PhantomStrider considers this the worst thing this show has produced? In short, fuck this movie.
• RA2: A lot of the post-cancellation episodes suffer from having too much commentary, not enough comedy. Nowhere is this more evident than "A Clockwork Origin". All subtlety is lost within the first 5 minutes as they crush creationist arguments to a pulp. While I firmly believe in evolution, this was like watching them fight a child while giving the world's most patronizing lecture. Plus it gave us the line "I don't want to live on this planet anymore", an extremely overused and annoying meme.
  • Westing1992: Plus, despite the episode being pro-evolution, it doesn't depict evolution accurately, instead using Evolutionary Levels and Goal-Oriented Evolution, making the writers seem hypocritical. It wasn't that funny, either, especially in the B-plot with Zoidberg and Cubert.
  • Crimsonlight: This episode, for me, really kind of proved the Creationist argument for Intelligent Design. Despite trying to be pro-evolution, in this episode's attempt to mock creationism really bites it in the ass.
• CJ Croen 1393: "Time Keeps on Slipping", and no, not for the obvious reason. I'm talking about the way Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate treated Bender throughout the episode. All Bender wanted was to be a Globetrotter, and Ethan not only shot him down just because he didn't think he was good enough, but even kicked him a bit for no apparent reason (like pretending to like the Globetrotter uniform Bender made and then revealing with a Smug Snake look on his face that he's going to file a lawsuit over it). The clincher? This time, Bender did absolutely nothing to deserve this! Usually, Bender getting abused is depicted as karma (and true, he almost always deserves it) but this episode is probably the nicest he's ever been for an extended period and Ethan still treats him like dirt!
• quackytrope: "Yo Leela Leela" for its shallow and uninspired spoofing of Nickelodeon as well as the fact that it was boring and just didn't feel like a Futurama episode at all.
• ablackraptor: "All the Presidents' Heads". As a Brit, I tend to find American Revolution special episodes rather annoying, both because of the insulting way they always present the British, and because of the glaring lack of research put into the episodes for the sake of making digs at the British. But this, this episode tops them, because of one horrible joke. At first, the episode was rather funny, since it depicted the Americans as rather insane with their hatred of the crown and the British guards seemed to come off as normal people, then they do the 'what happened if the Brits won?' thing, showing how the future New York is now an insulting parody of every British stereotype, resulting in the cops stopping them with the cry 'Stop! Since we can't shoot you since we don't carry guns!'... OK. Firstly, British cops don't carry guns because British towns are usually very small and gun crime is statistically lower in England than it is in America and other developed countries; they don't carry guns because they don't usually need them. IE, the joke was mean spirited and pointless. Secondly, British officers did carry guns in the past, and did so when they were occupying New York prior to the Revolution, and the officers in the US and New York continued to carry them after, since they've always had trouble with gun crime, and needed the guns to deal with it; in a New York that was still under British rule, police would use guns because guns would be needed. IE, the joke doesn't work. And thirdly, there was no reason in the scene for them to need guns in this scene since they were unarmed and not endangering anyone. IE the joke was forced and unfunny.
• ading: Since "Decision 3012" is already listed I'll put "Leela And The Genestalk", specifically Leela's argument at the end that even if it feeds the hungry and cures the sick, genetic engineering is still a bad idea because "we have no idea what the long term effects might be". Did the writers just forget that the show was set in the future? The technology is over a thousand years old at this point! Any long-term effects would either be known about by the time of the series or nonexistent. This goes beyond Rule of Funny into just plain forgetting the basic premise of the show.
• Izzy1: The episode "Roswell That Ends Well", while a funny episode, has a moment where after Fry wakes up the next morning, Mildred starts acting like a stereotypical grandmother out of nowhere (wearing glasses she didn't wear before, knitting, having a dry, slow voice, using an ear trumpet to hear Fry). It came across as so forced to me, and it reminded me of the Family Guy episode "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag", which probably took lessons from this episode.
• mewmdude77: My least favorite episode of Futurama is "Free Will Hunting". Basically, the episode says every robot that's ever been shown has no free will. That implies every robot is specifically designed to do whatever they do in the show. Robots like Roberto are designed to be criminals. Bender was designed to quit being a bender, attempt suicide, and be the way he is. Ignoring that this takes away any chances of Bender growing as a character, since that would be every choice he makes is his programming and make all his character development mean jack, and in turn make every robot's development mean jack, it completely ignores robots who get put into mental hospitals to be cured and robots sent to robot hell for their misdeeds, and it's a huge asspull for this one episode. Plus, the episode never really runs with it, kind of implying that Bender has free will, since he makes his own choices, but then at the end, Bender is threatening the Professor to give him the free will unit. Professor obliges, and Bender tries to shoot him, but can't. It could've amounted to some character development from either of them, but it turns out the safety was off, Professor gets shot multiple times, and it ends there.
• Dr Zulu 2010: I love Futurama, yet I admit that not all episodes are winners; like "Bend Her". Now what I don't like was not to make Bender into a woman, but rather how Fry and Fransworth keeps saying like about how inhuman his sex change was. For something left wing like Futurama was, they don't seem to have a good view of transpeople (which is sadly a thing who keeps happening even to this day).
• Boba_Fett88: As someone who has Abusive Parents, "Cold Warriors" takes this title from me. Yancy Sr.: "I treat you like toilet paper because it'll make you grow up to be strong! I really do love you, honest!" There is absolutely no excuse for Yancy Sr.'s bullshit. It's especially jarring after the pre-cancellation episodes, which always (realistically) implied that Fry's issues are a result of Yancy Sr.'s mistreatment of him. It is also never explained why Yancy Jr. didn't get the same treatment.
• Danny Lightning Lightner: Removed my original entry when I found one that was significantly worse. The episode "The Butterjunk Effect" played the Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male trope disgustingly straight, despite the show usually doing a nice job subverting gender roles. When Amy starts abusing a substance that's a stand-in for steroids, she starts physically and verbally abusing Kif; and it makes Zapp's typical mistreatment of Kif look tame by comparison. Kif is shown to be utterly terrified of Amy, and claims that Amy's been hitting him with a chair. And he flinches and shakes when Amy threatens him! It's horrifying to watch, because he's too scared to even stand up for himself. This episode was especially jarring because Amy and Kif's relationship has always been portrayed as the most loving and gentle relationship in the show.
• Mighty Mewtron: Surprised to not see "Neutopia" on here yet. There are ways to make a compelling battle of the sexes plots ("Amazon Women in the Mood" used gender stereotypes without it irritating me much), but this episode is so ridiculously on the nose and stereotypical about it that you'd think it came out in The '90s. All the characters get reduced to their gender-stereotyped behavior, both the men being ridiculously misogynistic, stupid, and masculine (which, yeah, has been seen in previous episodes, but not to this extent) and the women being naggy and obsessed with shopping (which is particularly jarring with Leela). And then when everyone gets gender bent, their entire personalities change to be stereotypical for their new gender. The real DMOS is probably midway through the episode, though, when they lose their defining sex characteristics. This turns everyone into incredibly milquetoast, asexual individuals who beg for their genitals back because they can't live without sex. So basically, your personality is defined by your gender, and without a binary gender- hell, without binary sex characteristics- you will become a bland person incapable of intimacy. Besides the blatant sexism, try applying that moral to transgender and nonbinary people, or even people who have lost their sexual characteristics for other reasons like cancer. At least the above-mentioned "Bend Her" has the explanation of coming out in the early 2000s. This episode came out in 2011! Oh, and the fanservice felt gratuitous as hell and just made the misogynistic overtones of the episode worse.
• Troperr2016: The way Lrrr’s midlife crisis was handled in “Lrrreconcilable Ndndiffernces” was very sloppy and mean spirited. Lrrr’s wife Ndnd behaves like a Spoiled Brat in this episode by making Lrrr conquer planets for her and when he does so, he gets humiliated as he invaded Earth at the wrong time with the invasion overshadowed by a comic con. Ndnd is very ungrateful at her husband’s effort to the point where she kicks him out of the house and makes Lrrr crash at Planet Express. Lrrr’s midlife crisis was handled in a very sloppy way in regards to the fact that it was rushed and forced in a lot of possible Lrrr plot points within 5 minutes. After that it just throws the midlife crisis out the window to have Lrrr get back with Ndnd and have her win just because she is Lrrr’s wife with the episode basically saying that wives in a marriage are entitled to everything they want. Fry fakes an invasion for Lrrr but Leela forces Lrrr to tell Ndnd the truth only to start brandishing frying pans at him. Keep in mind that Ndnd hit Lrrr on the head with such a pan earlier, which basically teacher viewers that it is okay for wives to physically assault their husbands. Even worse is that Ndnd falsely accuses Lrrr of having an affair with Leela just because Leela is nagging him. which is just plain ridiculous. Ndnd gets no karma for her actions towards Lrrr in that episode.
• D Cutter 2: It's "Bender's Big Score" for me. Because it displays both a great command of Futurama's continuity yet simultaneous a massive disregard for it. All the previous trips back to Fry's 20th century life are revisited and thoroughly undermined and ruined by having Fry/Lars there for them. Any scrap of pathos we might have got from his brother missing him or Seymour waiting, none of that mattered or happened any more. One of the most powerful episodes of Western Animation ruined because it made people too sad. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, show.