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Futurama Reviews: S08E05 -"Related to Items You've Viewed"


The ending to “Related to Items You’ve Viewed” may quietly be among the most dystopian things ever to happen in Futurama -a world with quite a bit of dystopia in it already. Cryptic about both the rise of A.I. and unrestrained corporations encroaching more and more on everyday life and society, it’s ultimately pretty bleak, but in that way that Futurama is happy to live in to comment on the issues and anxieties of our time. The show perhaps couldn’t have predicted an episode dealing with these topics would come out during the “Hot Labour Summer”, in which its specific concerns are addressed outright, but it’s very fitting that it did. And it’s only natural that such an episode would be scripted by former WGA-West President and current negotiations co-chair David A. Goodman -previously writer of just one Futurama episode, “Where No Fan Has Gone Before”.
This harmony of factors is one of the reasons this episode lands so well -and is easily the best so far of the new season. Unlike other trending topics we’ve seen already, a satire of Amazon and the conglomerate economy comes very naturally to Futurama where it already is: Planet Express is a delivery company after all -I’m surprised it took them this long to seriously go after the biggest game in town. Obviously it’s a good excuse to bring back Mom, whose Momazon is the go-to delivery company now threatening Planet Express’s revenue (it seems a trend across a few episodes now of Planet Express being financially strapped) -this in spite of rumours of bad working conditions in the Momazon warehouse on the moon, where robots are employed for twenty-four hour-seven-day work shifts. Everything changes though with the introduction of an A.I. Siri analogue called Invasa, which slowly begins taking over the company and its warehouse more specifically.
Attributable perhaps to Goodman’s input, the commentary in this episode is pretty sharp and unambiguous. The monopoly of Amazon and the public’s over-reliance on it are front and centre. You’ve got the obvious joke that gives the episode its title about how algorithms incentivize consumption and binge-spending through irrelevant purchasing recommendations. But there are also more clever cuts, as in the way that large company warehouses essentially gentrify areas and force locals into submitting to or working for them, and in one instance even the drastic way they perhaps could supersede government authority. Yeah, there’s a cheap joke about peeing in a bottle, but the episode is very smart where it concerns its subject matter. The writers have nuanced and relevant things to say about it amid the more conventional cracks.
However, I’m very glad to say that this episode is a welcome return to form for the show’s humour. In spite of the topicality, it gets a lot out of character-based stuff. The B-plot is about Leela moving in with Fry and Bender, which is a development I’m just delighted by, and plays nicely with a Futurama variant of a classic three’s company sitcom routine -Bender being the third wheel and briefly moving out as a result included. The montage of the stuff that Fry and Leela order and how they work it into the apartment is very reminiscent of “I Roommate” and even their minor argument about the weird furniture has an old-school charm to it. Certainly it’s the first episode of the season that seems to take a genuine interest in Fry and Leela’s relationship. And the episode has a ton of little gags here and there that work great too: the Professor’s microscopic glasses, Fry’s nervous “yes honey” when Leela asks him to fire, a great Google GPS gag, and making fun of Momazon having a pointless streaming service feels less artificial than doing the same about Hulu.
The aesthetic of the warehouse while Bender’s working there could be a bit more inventive -so similar as it is to the Near-Death Star; and the episode doesn’t justify his stance by the end that exposure to teamwork made him want to be a third-wheel and move back in with Fry and Leela -though it makes for a nice shot of him hugging the two of them. But the episode plays its main resolution very well, as the Planet Express goes to rescue Bender and Invasa grows beyond Mom’s power to control her. I like a lot how Mom’s brief alliance with the gang is broken the moment she finds out Invasa isn’t at all interested in profits (Mom’s still getting them) -and thus she allows Invasa to take over the universe. One of the better statements on the toxicity of capitalism by this show. And indeed Invasa does keep growing, subsuming the moon, the Earth, the Sun, and eventually the entire known universe. By episode’s end everybody is living in an infinite corporate warehouse, even though it doesn’t look it, an A.I. entity essentially in control of their fates. As Amy puts it, “at least deliveries will be faster.”
It’s rather harrowing, and I applaud Futurama for going there, even if the show’s nature obligates it to normalize this new element of the universe. Perhaps that’s the point though, and this is just a more literal version of the world that we’ve made. A curious thing to think about, and I’m glad I can at last say that about this season of Futurama.
Now, some stray observations:
  • Happy to report “Hulurama” is now Futurama again. Hate that they used it for as many episodes as they did, but at least the opening titles are back as they should be.
  • Based on the title, I wondered if the episode was going to be some take on a clip show. It’s not something Futurama would ever actually do, but I had a thought it might be another of those triptych episodes (“Naturama”, “Saturday Morning Fun Pit”) or some other non-canon concept that got less and less interesting over time. Glad to see I was wrong.
  • Futurama’s favourite guest star Al Gore comes back, showing up for a moment after Momazon had absorbed the moon, blocking out the sun, to complain how he had warned everyone about the ensuing climate catastrophe. It’s a bit strange because the Sun is absorbed a moment later rendering his comment invalid -and I don’t think the show would like to leave that impression. But Al Gore’s kind of in the DNA of Futurama by now, it’s nice to see him.
  • What the hell was Hedonism Bot doing working at that warehouse? -seems to go against his whole general vibe.
  • Maybe my favourite line of the episode came from Hermes upon seeing Bender crying over being sidelined by Fry and Leela: “the company is concerned deeply about your insert problem here.”
  • My other favourite line came from the Hydroponic Farmer when inviting Fry, Leela, and Bender to a town hall about an organized protest: “there’ll be three hundred of us and eighteen teeth.”
  • Fry and Leela ordered about five beds in their Momazon binge. One of them is a racecar bed that I hope is a reference to the iconic Simpsons joke from “A Milhouse Divided”. Honestly, this context kinda makes Kirk Van Houten look even more pathetic.
  • Spotted: Matt Groening’s Life in Hell rabbit!

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