Jurassic Bark

One of the saddest, if not the saddest episode of Futurama. Jurassic Bark always gets me at the end, no matter what and it doesn't help that I had a dog in the past as well! A wonderful episode which flashes back to Fry's past in meeting with a dog named Seymour and how they coped and were good pals back in the 20th century.

Fry discovers a fossiled Seymour and discovers that he can bring him back to life. As Bender gets jealous because of thinking Seymour will be Fry's new best friend, he throws the dog into a pool of lava, but recovers and apologizes afterwards. Then, the clone machine starts and it is discovered that Seymour died at 15 years old, and because of this, Fry feels that Seymour probably moved on and forgotten about him over the years. The sad truth is though, he didn't, and waits and waits for Fry outside the Pizza shop for years and years as he gets older and dies of old age. It's too sad, but also quite funny too. Bender's jealously lead to some good gags, and the plot flowed perfectly in this episode, showing us the 20th century again. Warning, you may cry!

An episode that has everything. It's hilarious, the plot is character-driven and heartfelt, makes good use of the sci-fi setting and it's genuinely very sad at the end. I know a few people who hate this episode because it upsets them, but I've never understood that logic. If a piece of art can reach me emotionally, then all the more credit to it. The characters are all spot-on throughout the episode, whilst being developed very nicely. The technical aspects are all also on top-form: animation, music, acting. The choice of music at the end is also absolutely inspired. It's perfect. I've seen this episode AT LEAST 20 times now (most likely a lot more) and it still never fails to make me well up at the end.

One thing that's really worthy of praising is this episode's sense of scope. It's quite remarkable considering how little actually happens (for an episode of Futurama). There's no interplanetary travel and most of the episode takes place in the Planet Express building but yet, it still feels like one of the show's biggest episodes -something I put down to its excellent use of characters and fleshing out Fry's backstory.