"Futurama" I Dated a Robot (2001)

Director:

James Purdum

Writers:

Matt Groening (creator)
Matt Groening (developer) ...

TV Series:

"Futurama" (1999)

Original Air Date:

13 May 2001 (Season 3, Episode 15)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Fry ignores the warnings of the Planet Express staff and starts dating a robot with the downloaded personality and holographic image of Lucy Liu...

Plot Keywords:

Sex With Robot | Actress Playing Herself | Alien | Delivery Boy | Robot

Cast

Billy West	...	Philip J. Fry / Prof. Hubert J. Farnsworth / Dr. Zoidberg / Sebastian Cabot / Trek Fan #1 / Propaganda Film Presenter / Old Billy Everyteen / Zapp Brannigan (voice)
Katey Sagal	...	Turanga Leela (voice)
John Di Maggio	...	Bender / Sal / Nappster User / Maintenance Guy (voice) (as John DiMaggio)
Tress MacNeille	...	Mother / Mrs. Everyteen / Mavis / Nicole Kidman's Head / Madeline Albright's Head / Madeline Albright-bot / Cameron Diaz (voice)
Maurice LaMarche	...	The Scary Door Narrator / eBay Auctioneer / The Being of Inconceivable Horror / Mr. Everyteen / George Michael's Head / Vampire in Coffin / Vampire Mayor / Luciano Pavoratti's Head (voice)
Lucy Liu	...	Herself / Lucy Liubots (voice)
David Herman	...	Clyde Smith / Trek Fan #2 / Nappster Salesman / Nappster Owner (voice)
Phil LaMarr	...	Hermes Conrad / Young Billy Everyteen / Cheech Marin's Head (voice)
Lauren Tom	...	Amy Wong / Little Girl / Marilyn Monroe-bot (voice)
Frank Welker	...	Tyranosaurus Rex / Pigs (voice)

Runtime:

Argentina:30 min

Certification:

Argentina:Atp

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The movie theater, where Charlie's Angels III is being shown, clearly uses a projector to deliver the video to the screen. When the Lucy Liu bots tear through the screen, it goes blurry. Unless the video is being displayed by the screen itself, it should not go blurry.

Quotes:

[Fry has purchased a robotic Lucy Liu]
Fry: Did you hear that? She likes me.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Well Duh, she's programmed to like you.
Fry: But this is Lucy Liu, perhaps the only good actress of the 20th century. She's more then just a piece of software.
Lucy Liu robot: Would you like to take a moment to register me?
Fry: Hmm, not right now.
Lucy Liu robot: [tussling Fry's hair] I'll remind you later, you hot stud you.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs "All in the Family" (1971)

Soundtrack:

Love Machine

Okay episode...

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have some issues with this episode, so forgive me if I begin to rant incomprehensibly. OK, good stuff first: The beginning of this episode was very funny, the Scary Door was fantastic, the only other parallel universe being one where everyone wears cowboy costumes was great, and Lucy Liu's appearance was pretty satisfying and didn't seem too gratuitous. I liked the 'take a moment to register me' gag. Plenty of funny jokes the whole way through. However, I absolutely loathe the message of this episode, and the idea of a show owned by a big corporation doing anti-music-stealing stuff sickens me. I fear the dreaded network execs had a hand in this. Futurama, and The Simpsons for that matter, have always been anti-big-business, and this episode seemed to go against their politics. Why take cheap shots at the internet on a show with such a loyal internet fanbase? FOX has shown nothing but contempt for Futurama sites, but Matt Groening and crew have always been very supportive. The whole 'Nappster' thing was absolutely terrible, and I personally think this whole 'stealing music' thing has been blown way out of proportion. Haven't people always taped songs off the radio? Most people don't download the latest songs (I certainly don't), and it's not like that many people do it anyway. That scene was very badly written and forced as well. The sad thing is that this was largely a classic ep, with loads of great and funny futuristic stuff and a cool guest star, but the Napster stuff was just too much to ignore.