A mysterious satellite is destroying planets, with Earth next on its course. Leela and Zapp Brannigan are sent on a mission to destroy it, but end up as the sole inhabitants of a garden paradise.
Tropes
- Adam and Eve Plot: Zapp's ultimate goal in the episode. Leela almost gives in to it. It's not the first time Zapp has brought it up.
- Bait the Dog: Leela and Zapp crash on an unknown planet, alone and without supplies. Leela is trapped under a fallen tree, and delirious from lack of water, and the Earth has apparently been destroyed. Through the episode, Zapp appears to be helping Leela get better. Then we find out that the planet they crashed on is Earth, and Zapp has not only been using their current predicament for an Adam and Eve Plot-style seduction, but placed the hazards there so that he'd have a better shot at sleeping with Leela.
- Big "NO!": The final line of the episode, from Fry.
- Black Comedy Pet Death: Bender at one point expresses sadness that his guinea pig has died.
- Black Comedy Rape: V'Giny forces Zapp and Leela to "consummate their union," so it's technically non-consensual. Downplayed, since Leela's pretty much okay with taking one for the planet...and it is Zapp after all.
- Bowdlerization:
- Sky in the UK pretty much cut a lot of the stronger sexual references in this episode (though the nudity and the part where Leela forces Zapp Brannigan into having sex with her in order to save the world wasn't altered).note Parts cut include:
- Amy suggesting an orgy after she concludes that it's time for some "end of the world debauchery" and appears at the end of the scene in revealing S&M gear while wielding a whip.
- Sal the slovenly blue-collar worker trying to pick up a hooker (Petunia) declines when she lowers her price for sexual favors from $5.00 to $3.00 and decides to go to the nearby adult bookstore, which Fry thinks is the public library (only for Bender to point out that it's a pubic library).
- Bender naming off the dirty TV shows ("The Pimpsons" and "Assarama") by cutting the reference to The Pimpsons.
- Fry whispering the name of the planet whose name can't be mentioned in polite conversation, and the subsequent disgusted reaction by everyone who heard it.
- In American syndicated airings, the scene with Bender mating with a satellite dish was altered so that he isn't sticking his cord in and out repeatedly. Also, near the end, the part where Zapp says "I just wanted you to think we had to save humanity so you'd be willing to have sex," was changed to something like "I was trying to trick you into making love."
- Sky in the UK pretty much cut a lot of the stronger sexual references in this episode (though the nudity and the part where Leela forces Zapp Brannigan into having sex with her in order to save the world wasn't altered).note Parts cut include:
- Call-Back: In the fourth film, Leela admitted her feelings to Fry. In this episode, she shows him affection by kissing him, hinting to their relationship. Also in the end of the episode seeing Leela and Zapp, Fry screams a Big "NO!".
- Continuity Nod: The planet which in real life is called Uranus is marked on the diagram as "Urectum", as "A Big Piece of Garbage" revealed the planet was renamed to that in 2620.
- Covert Pervert: What V'Giny turns out to be. For all his crusade against all he deems filthy and immoral, he ends up forcing Zapp and Leela to do it and shows hypocrisy by ignoring Fry's pleas to censor their sexual congress.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The entire Nude Beach Planet is destroyed by V'Giny.
- Earth All Along: Turns out the "garden paradise" that Leela believes they've crashed on is actually just Earth.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: V'Giny's method of dealing with planets it doesn't like.
- Enhance Button: Subverted, with a Lampshade Hanging, when Zapp has Kif zoom in on the footage of V'Giny, and it's still blurry.Zapp: Why's it still blurry?
Kif: That's all the resolution we have. Making it bigger doesn't make it clearer. - Fanservice: Lots of near nudity from Leela in this episode.
- Fat Flex: When first answering Nixon's summon, Zapp salutes and sucks in his gut, until Nixon gives him the "at ease" command and he exhales, letting his gut loose over his belt.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": When V'Giny arrives on Earth, Fry chuckles on hearing his name.
- Hypocrite: V'Giny goes around censoring planets. Then it orders Zapp and Leela to have sex with some very dubious consent - Leela is no more happy about it than Zapp. It's basically okaying rape for all audiences just because it happens off-screen.
- It May Help You on Your Quest: Fry gives Leela some trail-mix for her mission, and tries to give her a framed photo of him. Since it's far too large for the ship to carry, she tells him to hold onto it.
- Karmic Rape / Laser-Guided Karma: Zapp spends most of the episode trying to deceive Leela into having sex with him. So when forced to have sex with her to appease V'Giny despite now being too embarrassed to is hard not to see it as anything but karmic.
- A Party, Also Known as an Orgy: Amy suggests some "end-of-the-world debauchery". No-one else is very interested, though, but it doesn't stop her from dressing in S&M gear and carrying a whip.
- Shout-Out:
- In addition to being a Star Trek reference, V'Giny is also a Death Sphere, a lawyer-friendly version of the Death Star.
- On seeing the blurry image of V'Giny, Zapp complains about how zooming in makes the resolution better on CSI: Miami.
- To go with the Trek and Wars references, Hermes looks up Death Spheres in the "Janeway's Guide"note , while Leela uses The Force as a sat-nav, with Maurice LaMarche providing his best Alec Guiness impression.
- Stylistic Suck: The Transcredible Exploits of Zapp Brannigan which accompany every act break. They're awful, as a result of being entirely in Zapp's head.
- Squick: In-universe, everyone's horrified watching Leela and Zapp have sex, save V'Giny itself.
- Whip of Dominance: When Amy gets Dressed Like a Dominatrix for her supposed end-of-the-world orgy, she's also wielding a whip.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The basic premise of the first act (a mysterious and destructive satellite comes from deep space and is on course for Earth), as well as the ultimate twist (the satellite is actually an ancient Earth probe that suffered a collision and malfunctioned), are transparent references to Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Changeling" respectively. Even the probe's name, V'Giny, is a direct reference to / parody of V'ger from the movie.
