Dune is too big a recent staple of science-fiction culture for Futurama to pass up the opportunity to satirize. I just wondered how soon in the new season it would come. “Parasites Regained”, based off the title, I assumed was going to be a direct follow-up to “Parasites Lost” from season three -one of the show’s best outings. And in a way it does feature links: the parasites are basically the same and to confront them the gang have to shrink down (although this time it involves actually shrinking and not uploading their consciousness to micro-bots), but the focus of the episode is entirely different.
Written by Maiya Williams, this is a Nibbler story that involves the highly intelligent Nibblonian pet at risk of losing that intelligence to the worms that have been eating away at his brain. When they’re found to be coming from his litter box and Leela being unwilling to change it due to the sand originating from Nibbler’s ancestral homeworld, she, Fry, Bender, and Zoidberg are left to shrink down into the litter box to kill the worms. It’s a few convoluted explanations to get to the main point of the Dune parody, involving microscopic beetles that derive extra-cognitive abilities from the intoxicating sand, worship one of Nibbler’s giant dark matter turds and fearing the worms that live under the sand. Other elements, such as a great natural chain and references to a Messiah and God Emperor seem to be pulled from the books, and very enthusiastically.
But there is an element to the references that is a little too direct. Bear in mind, Futurama has rarely done a parody so singularly, often the show will couple a few things. Yes, “War is the H-Word” is primarily Starship Troopers, but there are elements of M*A*S*H and Apocalypse Now in there as well. “Where No Fan Has Gone Before” may be the only time the show has committed to sending up just one thing like “Parasites Regained”. And also, the material here can be a bit weak. Calling their world Dung, though with a mostly silent “g” feels like a rather dull way to make sure the audience doesn’t miss what they’re doing -if they haven’t caught the obvious running musical motif seemingly ripped directly from the film score. Several concepts from Dune are translated exactly with minimal effort at a humourous observation. At times, it does just feel like these characters playing Dune, an excuse for the animators to recreate the movie, and it feels notably shallow -especially when the giant sandworm has to dissolve into a thousand of the little worms from “Parasites Lost” so the actual episode plot can continue.
That plot is meant to be a semi-serious one about the relationship between Leela and Nibbler, the episode re-establishing their relationship as a very warm domestic one. Nibbler will go see an alien-language movie with Leela (Fry is happily uncultured), they play a multi-dimensional Wordle-type game together -in spite of being master and pet they have a very healthy friendship. And Nibbler in danger of losing the cognizance that allows for that is an effective dramatic story point. But it feels a bit saddled by the Dune stuff, as well as just the obligation that these parasites be the same ones as in “Parasites Lost” -despite the opposite nature of their effect. The excuse here for why this time they are making their host dumber instead of smarter is not particularly convincing and only results in a disjointed climax that openly disregards the consistency of an earlier expressed value by Nibbler. Yes, it’s a comedy show and thus is obliged to return to the status quo (as in this case it should -nobody wants Nibbler to lose his genius), but it just feels structurally inelegant.
This episode I found was very low on good jokes as well. Several either didn’t make much sense or were just bland (the “I’m a flatty” line from the season trailer shows up here -Fry’s holistic ineptness continues to be disappointing). Again though, the Professor manages to be a source of some laughs -from his shrinking ray being an inversion of a far more useless ray that keeps things the same size, to the sight gag of the giant Hot Wheels-style ramp that came with his tank, to the dialogue bit about the mission being dead simple.
Futurama doing Dune should be a great idea, and there are aspects of it here that are kinda fun -but I guess the problem with “Parasites Regained” is that it’s too literal with the pastiche and not inventive enough as pertaining to the sensibility of the world of Futurama. Previous such parodies, especially from the show’s original run, fit in more organically to the story or character priorities or world-building -and also were far more funny, which helps a lot. As for Nibbler, all I can say is it’s good to have him back.
And now, some stray observations:
- One thing that undercuts the emotionality of Nibbler losing his intelligence, at least as far as Leela is concerned, is the gag about how she constantly can’t remember he can talk. It’s a really lame joke that in a small way hurts the episode, and I’d rather the show move away from these callbacks. It was funny that one time nobody remembered Nibbler could speak, there’s no need to bring it back.
- On a similar note, Hermes is far more than a “man-wich” joke -which has shown up as many times in four episodes as it did in the first four seasons of this show. Come up with something new please!
- The specific de-wormer the gang uses is of course Ivermectin. I was astonished the episode didn’t go for any easy Trump or conspiracy references.
- This episode features major guest appearances from Saturday Night Live’s Ego Nwodim as the Dung Beetle Shaman, and as the guide of course none other than Kyle MacLachlan. Stunt casting, but I can appreciate it. After all it’s not like this show will ever do a Twin Peaks homage.
- I didn’t know how I was supposed to react to Bender’s tap-dancing Fred Astaire routine, which comes up a couple times in the episode, already full of direct references to twentieth century movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and a really dated dig at M. Night Shyamalan. The bit is kind of amusing, but only for how out-of-nowhere it is.
- On the other hand I like that the foreign art film Leela and Nibbler go to see appears to be referencing Metropolis, at least in some of it’s imagery. The audience being full of largely robots too is the kind of deep detail to a joke I really appreciate in this series, and I wish the Hulu run would feature more of them.
- The title for this episode is actually not an unimaginative reference to the earlier one; it’s a reference to a book that’s title is an unimaginative reference to an earlier one. Specifically John Milton’s lesser known work, Paradise Regained.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Comments
Post a Comment