Parasites Lost

The first episode of Futurama that I deem to be incredible.

It seems to be the moment whereby they perfected the formula for a perfect episode. This episode has it all: laughs, genuine emotion, an interesting adventure into a new world (if inside Fry counts), thrilling action sequences and it's part of an ongoing story arc.

The plot is absolutely fantastic. It takes cues from The Fantastic Voyage which sets us up for an interesting number of locations and a lot of gorgeous animation and interesting visuals. There's also a nice running joke at the expense at the film for those who've seen it (Bender being overly keen to abandon ship). The music is great throughout too.

The humour is good quality Futurama stuff as you've come to expect. It's not the funniest episode by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still a strong example of the laughs Futurama can deliver.

This is the first big Fry/Leela relationship episode too and it handles the situation beautifully. This episode set a new bar for the series and thankfully, it managed to keep up.

"Parasites Lost" really is an example of a perfect episode, featuring all we've come to love from the show: primitive humour, sci-fi geek jokes, adventurous stories, great animation and music, and emotions that makes it all so special.

The main plot may be extremely simple, and is a parody of (or maybe even inspired by) The Fantastic Voyage, but the idea of Leela deciding to leave the worms and Fry destroying them is incredibly brilliant. Both make great points and it shows a new side of Fry when he wants to find out who she loved, the worms or him. And the lines "No-one would willingly make a fool out of himself!" / "Then you've never been in love!" makes me chill every time, as with the moment when Fry expresses his feelings for her.

Meanwhile, the visuals are amazing, and the music during the fight in the third act is simply incredible. Though there are not as many jokes as one would expect, the ones that are are really good and there are many laugh-out-loud moments. The first act is also one of my favorites ever, and reminds me a lot of Firefly with the stopping by a gas station and getting in troubles.