Lethal Inspection

So we've finally come to a Futurama episode focusing primary on Hermes and Bender together. How does it hold up? Extremely well, and if not for the first act, everything was pretty much perfect. I admit, I guessed the twist pretty quickly, but even the last montage was still pretty touching and then you realise how much Hermes actually cares for Bender.

The episode followed Bender and Hermes having to find this Inspector #5 person to solve his mortal issue of being a robot. In the end, after Bender gives up finding him, Hermes convinces Bender that he should be living life at his fullest, and in the end decides not to reveal to Bender he is actually Inspector #5, and quitely gets rid of the evidence and saves his life from the kill-bots and Mom. The subplot of Leela taking over Hermes' job was funny, cause it was in character for Leela to be lazy at a job she has no experience at.

Like I said before, my only gripe with the whole episode was the first act, with the Star Wars-like Civil War part. It felt very iffy and didn't really give out any laughs on their side of the characters. It could have been alot worse, but dragged the episode down for me a little bit. Overall, the rest was perfect and we finally have a satisfactory final act in the new season! With plenty of Futurama references, such as the old man finally managing to get his death certificate, to revisiting the Central Bureaucracy, it was "classic" Futurama humour, with a decent plot of making Hermes and Bender the highlight of the episode. With almost no sex jokes and geeky humour, Futurama is almost back in top form! My favourite scene was the last one of course! A 9.0 out of 10!

"Lethal Inspection" immediately goes up along other emotional episodes like "Leela's Homeworld" and "Jurassic Bark", all with an end that I just wouldn't think teared me up again.

Throughout the episode it felt quite strange, very plot-driven and with not so many jokes (but those that existed were good) and Bender-Hermes is a very strange pairing. A very well planned episode, the episode had Bender being extremely true to character realising he is mortal after all these years, going through stages of grief, anger and suicidal. What got to me was the ending, from Tijuana and forward - he moment when Bender is having his outburst in the house is wonderful, the music epic, and even though I suspected all along that Hermes was Inspector #5, it still really got to me when they showed the clips and played Elizabeth Mitchell's wonderful song. Though I suspected the twist, I constantly supposed the episode would end with Hermes apologising to Bender and saying he mustn't have been careful enough, but instead it turns out he knew of it all the way through, just didn't have the heart to destroy him.

Unfortunately the episode could have used more jokes, especially when it comes to the Central Beuracracy that's basically a joke goldmine. The jokes that were there were solid, with several laugh out loud moments (the reenactment, the old man wanting a death certificate, "I was in Italy last week"), but with such an exciting story there could have been some more. What I also want is a bigger story for Leela, the current one only taking a couple of scenes, though those were hilarious and really suited for her.

I also reacted to Billy West's voice being a teeny bit off, both for the Professor and Fry. Though they didn't have a big part in the story it didn't intervene, but it sounded like he had a cold the day of recording.

Over all an extremely solid episode, and probably (I keep saying this) the best so far this season, and definitely along with the original 72.

Wahoo! Lethal Inspection continues the upward trend of season 6 after the epic lull of Attack of the Killer App. Unlike Proposition Infinity and The Duh-Vinci Code, I didn't feel that this episode felt much like 'classic' Futurama. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It felt sort of like 'Futurama Redux' or something like that if it makes sense.

The first 5 minutes suck and may well be Futurama's lamest opening, set-up, act-1 gag-fest type section of the episode ever. But soon after that Bender is forced to face mortality and we're given an interesting pairing of lead characters in Bender and Hermes. It's a nice, relatively understated plot concept and one that plays out very nicely -in part thanks to the episode's absolutely outstanding direction. Much of the shots and little, subtle details are just incredible (the sequence when Bender starts punching a wall may well be my favourite 'subtle touch' in Futurama's history. It says so much about the character and what he's going through and doesn't exist to set up a joke or plot-point).

The ending was wonderful. If you're familiar with Futurama, this episode uses the same formula as Jurassic Bark, The Luck of the Fryrish and most similarly, Leela's Homeworld. It isn't sad, but it's very touching and sweet.

The episode's weakest area is definitely its humour. It's probably the least funny episode since In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela and most of the jokes that do work are strange, vaguely surreal or oddly worded little moments -not usual Futurama humour at all. However, I'm a firm believer that comedy built around a strong plot is always better than plot built around strong comedy and the storyline here is definitely good enough to forgive the jokes being somewhat lighter than usual. And the episode is still funny, I should point out -just not as funny as Futurama usually is.

Overall, it's the best constructed episode of the season so far (well, it was when it aired) and comes close to Rebirth for best episode of the season, but I side with Rebirth purely as it was a lot funnier for me. It was nice to see that this upward trend continued on to the next episode.

Taking its inspiration from episodes such as "Luck of the Fryrish" and "Jurassic Bark", "Lethal Inspection" takes the characters (in this case the unlikely pairing of Bender and Hermes) and the viewer on a long, winding journey that doesn't reach the expected conclusion because it hits the viewer with a complete sucker punch at the end. While "Lethal Inspection" doesn't quite reach the emotional depths as the episodes that inspired it, we do get some unexpected and heartwarming bonding between two characters who heretofore had not shared much of a connection at all.

After a reenactment of the "Sith-il War" during which Bender boasts of the wireless backup device that grants him immortality, the Planet Express gang lick their wounds back at the office. Bender suddenly starts leaking oil, and somewhat awkwardly we abruptly learn that, in fact, Bender doesn't have a backup device and is doomed to die when his robot body gives out. An angry Bender vows to hunt down the mysterious "Inspector 5" who approved his construction and brings Hermes with him, leading to a journey through the Central Bureaucracy, a long escape from a group of murderous killbots, twelve hours of continuous limboing inside a railroad tunnel, and finally a landing at the factory in Tijuana where Bender was manufactured. All the while Hermes attempts to convince Bender to accept his fate and embrace the life that he currently has, which Bender finally does after the hunt for Inspector 5 leads to a dead end inside an abandoned house in Tijuana. The proper ending of the episode is the sucker punch of a montage mentioned at the beginning of this review; a reasonably alert viewer will have figured it out halfway through the episode, but only the coldest of hearts will remain unmoved.