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Futurama Reviews: S08E03 -"How the West Was 1010001"


It is frankly among Futurama’s more bewildering assertions that Bitcoin will still be around in some form in a thousand years. Cryptocurrency in general is a thing that will almost certainly very soon be entirely dead, but I can understand the Futurama writers wanting to strike at it while they can -it hits squarely in that realm of modern tech geek subject matter that they’re typically so enamoured with. Hell, back in the day they did an episode that threw shade directly at Napster. Like “The Impossible Stream”, “How the West Was 1010001” has virtually nothing substantive to say about the crypto bubble beyond the standard jokes around how such currencies don’t actually exist. But the topicality here is used more as a jumping-off point than a real centrepiece to the episode -as much as mining for Bitcoin is a significant plot-point.
I really wasn’t expecting Futurama to go in the direction it did -taking the idea of ‘mining for Bitcoin’ and making it literal with a Gold Rush motif, and thus an excuse to put our cast of characters into an Old West story. Basically, Planet Express is broke and in debt to the Robot Mafia, so the Professor takes the crew out west to exploit a Bitcoin Rush, where everyone goes on their own little adventures. Fry becomes a sidekick to the Borax Kid, a local hero of pulp novels, while Leela finds work at the tavern. Zoidberg becomes town doctor, Bender buys a donkey, and Hermes endeavours to bond with Dwight, whom he brought along for some nature exposure.
Overall, not a bad set-up, reminiscent of episodes like “Three Hundred Big Boys” which just played with the characters in new situations. It’s credited to “Noni di Spargement” (or ‘non-disparagement’), a pseudonym for celebrated long-time writer Ken Keeler, who perhaps gives himself away to Futurama fans through one sequence involving a multi-dimensional shoot-out (in a writers room full of math nerds he may be the nerdiest). But the episode isn’t so clean and creative as that one sequence. Where in “Three Hundred Big Boys” each thread was impeccably drawn to come together in a seamless way in the end, some of the plot points here are just given up on when it seems the writers have run out of material -look at how quickly Bender and Zoidberg’s corners of the episode are folded into the Professor’s thallium panning.
Where Fry and Leela are concerned there are some odd choices, such as the half-joking attraction Leela seems to have for the Borax Kid, and Fry just kind of being a dupe. Thus far this season neither character has really felt authentic to their spirit; and while part of that may be due to Fry and Leela not having episodes yet devoted to them, it still irks me a little bit that Fry is so pathetic when confronted by a mountain lion he has to rely on the more conventional hero for help when in earlier seasons he would have recklessly leapt into danger to save Leela -and Leela would have been able to fend for herself no problems. It just seems like the writers are struggling to figure out what to do with them. In any case, Fry uncovers the Borax Kid’s plagiarism scheme and musters some courage to fight him over that.
It also feels like the episode fails to take real advantage of its aesthetics. At the very least it seemed to be a wasted opportunity for some fun Westworld satire -apart from Roberto dressed vaguely like Ed Harris’ character it would appear that nobody thought of that connection. And the climactic reveal, which brings back to the fore all the crypto stuff, isn’t particularly clever or interesting either. Again, it’s a topic that could warrant a fun take-down by Futurama, but for whatever reason, the teeth aren’t really there.
Still, the episode has its bright spots and a few stand-out jokes (I laughed out loud at the Professor’s delivery of “from what I’m hearing, it’s stupid” in regards to limbo). There’s a great background joke involving the player piano robot’s animosity with a random old man, and Fry’s enthusiasm with being a “galoot” is amusing too. And the sight gags, including the town’s name of Doge City, are pretty great. Certainly much funnier than the ‘yelp review’ end gag -a stock joke that needs to die if ever there was one.
“How the West Was 1010001” is not an especially dull or offensive episode -rather it’s just generally mediocre in a way that puts it on par to my mind with several episodes from season seven. I appreciate its inventiveness of genre in relation to its topical subject, but I can’t see it leaving an impression much beyond its aesthetics.
And now, some stray observations:
  • Bender has a song about his ass that is not one of the better musical numbers this show has put forth. Between this and “Assie Come Home”, I really feel the show needs to step away from concentrating in a posterior direction purely off of Bender’s catchphrase. John DiMaggio puts his heart into it though.
  • I feel like twenty years ago Leela absolutely would have been made a prostitute by this episode’s plot. The show I think wisely refrains from wading into the politics of sex work here, but certainly would not have been so careful in the cultural atmosphere it initially came out in.
  • Following on a point from last week, here again we see that the progression of time has no effect in the Futurama universe as Dwight Conrad is the same ten year-old in 3023 as he was in 3002. He and Hermes had one of the better throughlines of the episode, as cliché as it was, if for no other reason than Dwight’s sudden perspective-changing injury. And though I know Phil LaMarr has been voicing him for way longer by now, I still prefer Bumper Robinson’s voice for the character in his initial two appearances -he sounded just a little bit more like a kid.
  • This was the first episode of the new season to list the cast credits in their original sequence, confirming that yes, West, Sagal, and DiMaggio are rotating the top-billed slot.
  • Linda’s habit of moving on to fluff pieces from highly devastating, critical news stories has not aged a day. In fact it’s only gotten more unsettling.
     

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