Futurama (TV Series) Crimes of the Hot (2002) User Reviews

Funny even if it is overly lecturing at times

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 6 July 2012]

Things are getting hot on Earth due to global warming and the usually solution of dropping huge lumps of ice that have been mined on Halley's Comet into the sea no longer works as all the ice there is gone. So solve the problem all scientists are invited to attend a meeting in Kyoto to come up with a solution. Wernstrom proposes using a giant mirror to reflect the sun's heat back into space but an accident leads to it reflecting a concentrated beam on to the Earth! It is at this point that Professor Farnsworth admits that his actions when he designed robots for Mom have caused the problem... global warming is caused by robots! Soon afterwards Bender receives an invitation from Nixon; he is throwing a party for all robots in the Galapagos Islands... of course it is just a ploy to get them all together so he can destroy them. Luckily the professor has another plan; he just has to put it into action before it is too late.

This episode had plenty of good moments; I liked how Bender finally found a creature he cared about and it was fun trying to spot all the robots from previous episodes at Nixon's party. On the downside the global warming message felt very heavy handed; it even featured Al Gore as his own head giving a speech on the matter! I don't mind stories that deal with issues but they need to be done subtly to avoid giving the audience the feeling they are being lectured to... at least there are enough really funny moments to keep the episode entertaining.

The One With The Giant Heatwave...

[taylorkingston · 10/10 · 20 October 2014]

I really loved this episode. It was so good. It's one of my favorite Futurama episodes of all time.

In this episode, Earth is suffering from a gigantic heat wave, due to Global Warming. Nice to know that it didn't kill the planet by the year 3000. Anyway, the Planet Express crew are hired to go to Halley's Comet and retrieve a giant ice block. This is how the planet has been combating Global Warming. They would get a giant cup, attached to a giant drill, the would be used like an ice dispenser. Then they would drop the ice cube into the ocean. But every time, the ice block had to be bigger. When the crew went to do this task, there was no ice on Halley's Comet. It had been completely sucked dry. Eventually, Al Gore holds a Global Warming convention. When there, Professor Farnsworth reluctantly tells the crowd that he sped up the process from the pollution from his robot emissions. Later, President Nixon's Head invites all of the worlds robots to the Galapagoes Islands for a big party. There, he planned to kill all of the robots. Instead, Bender and his robot pals used their emission gases to push them away from the Sun. I'm pretty sure that's one happened. They farted to do something like that.

Overall, I give this episode a 10 out of 10.

The lightness seems gone

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 December 2021]

"Crimes of the Hot" is the very first episode from season five of the animated television show Futurama and as you may have guessed from the title already, these under 21 minutes deal with the subject of climate change for the most part. Global warming, that is. The animated sequence with the sun creature coming to Earth was fine. Bender is once again more at the center than anybody, especially Fry who is really not a factor at all this time. The latter's only somewhat fine moment was when he screams at the professor who is about to use a pretty special gun. Anyway, the good moments here maybe include turtles, for subjective reasons, and also the idea of Bender not being able to get up once he falls on his back. Admittedly a surprise he tells that to the gang because he makes himself vulnerable this way, but anyway. However, that is unfortunately pretty much it already in terms of decent quality. There were no real fun moments or scenes and the key plot at the end with the big island where all the robots are supposed to get killed (or "killed") did almost nothing for me. How exactly Bender eventually manages to keep this from happening was also rather unfunny. We have an evil scientist here and President Nixon or I shall say his head, even if we see his body also on one occasion. Another high-profile politician (almost PotUS) who had to be included with this subject is of course Al Gore, even if it is just very briefly. I think season five was the last season from Futurama before a pretty lengthy break of several years and this episode makes it a bit obvious that they were struggling back then to keep up the good work. A fairly bumpy start to the new season back then that feels like nothing but an unsuccessful attempt to elaborate on one of the (potentially) defining issues of our time. The episode is not a failure, but definitely among the weaker, if not weakest, Futurama has to offer. The Star Wars references were okay though, especially the one in the flashback scene. So maybe those who really, really love Star Wars can give this one here a go too. Or just watch the one scene I mentioned. The moment you see Darth Vader is over too quickly anyway. The inclusions of robots being mistaken for machines (you know what I mean) got old pretty quickly too. All in all, I'd say it's best to skip the watch.