Time Keeps on Slippin'

This episode of Futurama is a fine example of being able to use a plot of making funny and serious things happen at a same time, whilst using the development of the characters in the show as a key point in this episode. Time Keeps On Slippin' is able to use this mechanic perfectly, and ends on a rather sad-happy ending as a result.

The story begins with the Planet Express crew taking a day off in Central Park, when a spaceship lands on the park. It turns out to be the Harlem Globetrotters, who want to challenge Earth to a basketball match for no reason. Farnsworth accepts the challenge, and goes back to Planet Express to make the team, whilst Fry tries to get Leela to go out with him continously throughout the episode, with no success. Farnsworth shows the crew his Mutant Basketball team he made, but everyone sees they are still infants. Farnsworth sends them on a mission to collect time chronitons in space to speed up the process of growth. The crew come back with the chronitons, and Farnsworth feeds them to the Mutants, speeding them up adult form in seconds. At the game, the Mutants are actually beating the Globetrotters for a while, until time skips start happening randomly forwards through time. One of the Mutant members gets accidently killed, and Fry, trying to impress Leela, fills in as the substitute, but with less than 2 minutes to go, a time skip shows his team getting thrashed by the Globetrotters by the end. Farnsworth starts to worry about the time skips, and the Globetrotters are willing to try and help solve the problem with them as well. Farnsworth and the Globetrotters think that if they can move the stars correctly back from where the chronitons were moved, time would stop skipping. Unfortuantly, they need to build a "huge ass" gravity pump, which would cost alot of money and time to make. The time skip helps them speed this process up, and as a result they have it built. The crew use the pump to move the stars back to what positions they were by default, and are assumed to have successfully stopped the time skips. Shortly afterwards, Fry again tries to win Leela with trying to impress her on knowing how to fly the ship and giving here the Champagne she likes, but Leela tells him outright that "there's just no way that they're both ever going to..." but then the time skip occurs again, and its at Fry and Leela's wedding. Leela assumes that Fry drugged or hypnotised her due to the side-effect of the time skip of not knowing what happens in between. Fry tells her this is not the case, and then another time skip occurs and they are divorced. Fry, annoyed at not knowing what he did to win Leela's heart, is confused and baffled to how it happened. Meanwhile, Farnsworth and the Globetrotters noticed a flaw in their space-time equation and conclude that if they create a black hole to remove the remaining time chronitons, then it should permanantly stop the time skips. Fry, Leela, and Bender head to do the mission, and Leela originally decided to pilot the ship, but seeing Fry depressed she changes her mind and offers him to do it whilst setting the black hole device off. With the last remaining seconds of the time chronitons, Fry sees a message in the stars. It says "I LOVE YOU LEELA" and he realises what made him win Leela's heart. The bomb is detonated seconds later and the message disappears into the black hole. Fry asks Leela and Bender if they saw the message, but they didn't, and Fry keeps it to himself. He looks at the window, and realises he's missed his opportunity.

A fantastic and slightly sad episode. Time Keeps On Slippin' has alot of good jokes used on the premise of time skipping randomly forwards, and the subplot with Fry and Leela was actually better than the main one! I also liked how Bender wanted to become a Globetrotter, but realised there's no way he can be on. This episode is quite underrated on some sites, but I feel its one of the best by far! It reaches my top 10 at least!

One of Futurama's best episodes.

The plot is a very unique take on time-travel and marks Futurama's first entry into that particular subgenre. But not only is it original and interesting, but there's a real emotional core to it all. This is another big Fry/Leela episode and it handles things beautifully. It develops Fry and Leela's characters wonderfully and the final moments are hauntingly touching.

The humour is quick-fire, with the episode's plot lending itself to rapid gags and the majority of them being great. There's also brilliant music and even better animation throughout. My only flaw is that if you're really nerdy, you'll spot a lot of minor inconsistencies with the rules of the time-skips, but you'd have to be looking for excuses to not enjoy the episode to let that bother you.

Overall, this episode, like many other episodes of the show, is a masterpiece.