Attack of the Killer App

I'm not sure if I'm liked the direction this episode of Futurama was heading. I mean, I didn't mind the future version of I-Phone and Twitter, but something about this episode didn't click. It's not the pop-culture references that annoy me, because they can work if done correctly on the show. Like one reviewer on a different site said, the guy who wrote this also wrote my favourite episode of the series: The Sting! How could it go wrong you ask?

Well... to be fair, there were quite a few good jokes in there, particularly the first half, which is why the episode still scores fairly high for me. I also liked the delivery scene to the third world planet part, as well as Flexo's appearance, but the main thing I hated about this episode was that Susan Boil character attached on Leela. Seriously, that's the best they could think of trying to make an embarrassing video of Leela? I've got a bad feeling it's going to show up again in another episode, whilst I'm not complaining too much about the Fry and Leela relationship (it's gone on and off all the time back in the original run, so I'm used to it), I also felt the ending made no sense. Why did Mom have to wait for someone to hit a certain amount of tweets before she could activate the virus? Is this episode a two parter? Well it wasn't, but could have been.

So overall I didn't hate the whole episode as I felt the first half was strong, but past the Susan Boil "Leela" part (which looks like a hit or miss judging from other reviews), it went way downhill and felt like a new low for Futurama in my opinion. At this point, besides the movies, I rate this the worst Futurama episode ever, although its first half still makes it hit a dead-on 7/10, and even then I still feel I might be being too nice on the overall grade.

Attack of the Killer App is what it sounds like - a direct attack against modern technology. Though this is classic Futurama-like stabbing, sometimes it feels overdone and too apparant, but most of the time it is alright and they manage to pull off joke after joke as well as a good plot idea, with Bender and Fry racing for 1 000 000 Twitcher followers, unaware (and still unaware after the ending) of Mom's evil plan.

I must be the only one who didn't hate the idea of Susan Boil, but it wasn't that great either. It served its purpose as an embarrasing YouTube thing, but there could have been something more. I also seem to be the only one who loved the ending, which both pulled off a laugh out loud moment and gave Fry and Leela a loving moment of friendship or more.

What pulls down the rating a bit is the continuty - we have never heard of the eyePhone or Twitcher before and we'll never hear of it again, in spite of so many people being addicted to them. Ofcourse the show can get away with calling it a reference to technology fads, but I don't buy it.

I hate to be 'that guy' but WORST. EPISODE. EVER. I'm not one to use hyperbole when talking about the quality of TV episodes and what have you. I loved the first 3 Futurama movies and Rebirth. This episode is just terrible. One of the biggest problems is the lack of humour. There's a lot of gags, but almost all of them fell flat for me. I did find some of it funny, but much less than I usually find funny in Futurama. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if the plot held up, but it doesn't. The plot starts out slowly, dealing simply with characters getting EyePhones and lots of jokes about social networking and so forth. Then what could have been a great plot begins to unfold with Mom having a conspiracy to turn people into mindless zombies using their EyePhone implants, however, there's a few plot holes regarding how she goes about using this and then the episode just ends. It's ridiculously abrupt, offers no conclusion or satisfaction -to the point that it feels like part 1 of a to-be-continued episode (it isn't) and worst of all, I can guarantee that EyePhones never come back or how they just disappear after this episode won't be explained. I get that the end is a joke, it just isn't funny and plot should always come first, humour second. That's always worked for Futurama in the past, and it's also a rule that Family Guy consistently breaks which leads people to criticise it. Thank God the show picked up after this.

"Attack of the Killer App" is a straight satire of the culture of smartphones and Twitter. Unfortunately, this particular episode falls flat because it neither strikes when the iron is hot (Twitter was launched in 2006 and the iPhone in 2007), nor does it exploit any of the peculiarities of the Futurama universe.

After a brief excursion where the Planet Express crew drop off a load of electronic waste, the gang all line up to purchase new eyePhones (a smartphone which is embedded in the user's eye) at the Mom store. Bender and Fry then engage in a bet whereby the first to gain a million followers on "Twitcher" is spared the fate of having to swim in a pool of waste generated by a two-headed goat (cleverly referred to as the "Pukeme Poopyu"). Fry later learns that Leela has a boil on her buttocks which sings show tunes, and against Leela's wishes records a video of the boil and uploads it to his Twitcher account. Unbeknownst to Fry and Bender, Mom plans to use the one-million follower threshold to use Twitcher to launch a virus, which we later learn is a harmless (relatively speaking) marketing attack.

There are a few uniquely funny jokes interspersed throughout the episode, but the core of the episode is just a straight attack on the cult of iPhones and self-indulgence on the Internet and offers no real bite, no twists, and nothing for the viewer to think about. Had the episode aired in 2006 or 2007, it might have anticipated the explosion in uploading embarrassing content to the Internet, but in the year 2010 that phenomenon is far too passe for commentary about it to be funny.