The Prisoner of Benda

Ken Keeler delivers another fantastic episode of Futurama! The storyline of the episode was very interesting and funny, to have characters constantly switch with mixed parings such as Farnsworth and Zoidberg being Fry and Leela (delivering a rather disturbing scene) to Amy switching with Leela and making her fat as a result. The best scene by far is the one with Amy and Scruffy though, since it was in character for Scruffy and not expected, plus its kind of heartbreaking in a way too.

The plot's resolution was quick, but I'm actually impressed on how much content this episode fitted in within the 22 minute mark. Nevertheless, The Prisoner Of Benda had jokes which almost all worked for me (The only one that didn't work too well I thought was the Japanese translator guy one), but other than that, this episode had a strong plot, similar to Three Hundred Big Boys and The Farnsworth Parabox, with plenty of laughs (Zoidberg being Fry, Amy being Leela, and Fry and Leela as a couple... in Farnsworth and Zoidberg's body), many memorable quotes, and is easily one of the best this season. I'm going to give this episode a 9.5 out of 10, rounded up to a 10!

By stretching the age-old science fiction trope of characters switching bodies as far as it can be stretched, "The Prisoner of Benda" proves itself to be one of the most creative episodes in the history of the series, and certainly one of the funniest.

Professor Farnsworth and Amy invent a mind-switching machine and decide to test it out, but discover that once a pair of bodies uses the machine, that particular pair can never use it again. After an unsuccessful attempt to undo the swap by using a third party (Bender), Farnsworth gives up and the episode turns into a "22 Short Films About Springfield"-style cavalcade of craziness. Amy indulges her gluttony and ruins Leela's body; Bender inhabits Amy's body and attempts to rob the visiting emperor of Robo-Hungary, then later convinces the emperor to switch bodies with him; Leela and Fry get into a petty squabble about physical appearances, switch into Farnsworth and Zoidberg's bodies, and settle their argument in the most appalling manner possible; Farnsworth takes over Bender's body and joins a robot circus. The obvious moral to the story is delivered eloquently and passionately by Bertha, an old and worn robotic circus cannon who perishes after shooting Farnsworth (in Bender's body) so that he can save Bender (in the emperor's body) from an assassination attempt. Globetrotters Ethan Tate and Clyde Dixon write the denouement of the episode by proving any sequence of swaps can be undone by using two auxiliary bodies.

"The Prisoner of Benda" crams a ton of gags, jokes and character quirks into its 21-minute running time and does so seamlessly; never do any of the hijinks feel labored or arbitrary, and it's truly amazing how Ken Keeler makes such an endeavor (writing the story and proving the proposition about transpositions on the symmetric group) seem so natural.

The idea of a mind-switching machine seems used, but Ken Keeler and the Futurama team did everything as original as a Thai boxer playing soccer. "The Prisoner of Benda" is highly reminiscent of "Three Hundred Big Boys" (one of my favorite among the funnier ones), mainly because it doesn't focus on one storyline, but on one for each crew member - even Scruffy gets his biggest role yet (hell, even his Wash Bucket) and delivers the biggest laugh out loud moment in the history of the series.

While any show could have taken what I consider the main plot (Bender's, which is also the title reference) and gone with it, making a descent show, Futurama delivers more than is promised and brings on a story about the Professor's dream of immortality, Amy's childhood obescity, and Leela's eye complex as previously visited in episodes such as "The Cyberhouse Rules". We even get a shippy moment between Fry and Leela - finally sleeping together, no matter disgusting in disgusting bodies - a robotic circus (!) AND an action sequence with some Japanese chopping. Oh, and did I forget to mention the science solution? Not to say that the line "I'm afraid we have to use... MATH!" cracks me up every time.

One thing that started amazing me on second watching is the body language of every character. Futurama has grown to the degree that every character has an extremely unique way of moving and using their eyes, the best examples being Zoidberg in Fry's body and Bender in Amy's... this definitely calls for an applause to the animators and the director. Amazing.

This is definitely one of the funniest episodes of the series, if not the funniest, and thus season six has so far brought on the most emotional (The Late Philip J. Fry) and the funniest, and we're only half-way through.

What the hell is going on?