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| Imagine if Homer learned robots needed alcohol to function. Would he yearn to be a robot for that perk, or would he lament that in order to be "drunk" as a robot, he'd have to NOT drink? Thankfully, Homer's ultimate conundrum will never be. |
In a seemingly unrelated open, the elementary school is setting up a time capsule, and an otherwise unprepared Bart puts a half-eaten sandwich, which he blows his nose into, into it. The capsule is then buried right above nuclear waste.
That night, an odd electrical storm coincides with something falling nearby, which the Simpson family believes to be space satellite junk. That night, however, Homer and Marge hear someone downstairs drinking heavily, and its not Homer. Homer and Bart go into the basement to find out the cause, and the culprit reveals himself: Futurama's Bender! After lethargically and flimsily proving he's from the future, Homer decides to befriend the robot by taking him out for beer and bowling. Lisa, of course, is skeptical about Bender's presence and takes the robot to Professor Frink, who realizes that Bender will remember his reasons for coming to the past after a system reboot, and he does: to kill Homer Simpson.
However, Bender can't kill his new friend, which prompts a holographic message to come from out of his shiny metal ass, its Leela, who is angry that Bender hasn't killed Homer yet, as its revealed that the New New York of the year 3014 is being overrun by man-eating rabbits, who have Homer's DNA plastered on them. Leela decides to go to the past via an internal time machine built in Bender to kill Homer herself, with Fry and Professor Farnsworth tagging along, but Bender stops her. Lisa and Frink convince the future crew to hold off on killing Homer until it can be determined how the rabbits came to be in the first place. As Homer takes Bender, Fry and Leela back to his house, the professors and Lisa find a second DNA strand on the killer rabbits, belonging to Marge.
Farnsworth figures out that the rabbits are actually spawned from one of Homer and Marge's children. Just then, Bender gets a holographic news report that the rabbits have begun to mutate into demonic little creatures with a strong resemblance to Bart. Bart then recalls the sandwich he put into the time capsule probably mixing with the nuclear waste (and a rabbit's foot Milhouse put in) to create those monstrosities. Realizing they came back too late in the past to kill anyone, the Planet Express crew team up with the Simpsons to retrieve and put an end to Bart's mutating sandwich. Before they can, however, they get another report from the future, this time via Amy, that the Barts have found their way to the time machine and have begun destroying it. Just then, a portal within Bender opens up, sucking in the Planet Express crew save Bender, and the Simpson family save Maggie.
Bender decides to spend time with Maggie by using his knowledge of horse race results to win some quick money. Meanwhile, in the year 3014, its agreed that while Fry and Homer, of all people, fix the time machine, everyone else will work on ridding New New York of the Bart demons. Lisa leads the way by corralling the Barts using the things she knows Bart hates into the Madison Cube Garden, which Farnsworth then picks up and throws into space, ending the threat. As New New York rebuilds, Fry and Homer somehow successfully fix the time machine, and the Simpsons are sucked back into their own time. Bender is back at the Simpson house, and Maggie is both safe and a little richer. Lisa wonders how Bender will go back to the future now that everything has concluded, and Bender states he'll do it the ol' fashioned way: by shutting down and laying dormant for 1000 years. Homer drags the robot to the basement for storage, but not before giving the robot one more beer for the road.
Meanwhile, Madison Cube Garden lands on Omicron Persei 8, and while the demon Barts prove a delicious snack for Emperor Lrrr, it ruins a meeting with the Rigelians, upsetting Lrrr's wife Ndnd.
Quick Review
This marks the second straight season with at least one 8+ rated episode, and the last two such episodes were both shameless crossovers.
I think the reason why this episode (as well as the similarly good Brick Like Me) fare so well is because these episode stick the basics: good jokes. These types of episodes could easily derail into simple "look at this" reference borefests, but thankfully it didn't happen in the lego episode, and it didn't happen here.
The use of the Futurama cast was, I guess, okay. Most of the action from the Futurama side came from Bender, with Farnsworth (my personal favorite) and Leela had solid airtime as well. Fry didn't get that much, unfortunately, and everyone else was limited to a single line or so (which Zoidberg was well aware of). Its been awhile since I've even watched Futurama, let alone Comedy Central Futurama, so I can't say how "intact" each character was for this episode but for the most part, I don't have any complaints.
As I've said, the jokes are plentiful and for the most part very funny. The Futurama side of things was the episode's strong point, the Simpsons-only humor had its moments but was otherwise not that impressive, and again features a little too much "know it all" Lisa for my liking. Still, this is by far the best episode of the season, and has the highest score of any episode since Treehouse of Horror XX. I liked it that much.
Final Score: 8.3
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