A Flight to Remember

One of my personal favourites from the first season. The plot is a parody of Titanic, and whilst it should bother me that the spacecruiseship that they board is called 'The Titanc', for some reason, it doesn't, so there you go.

There's a lot of nice character-based stuff in this one. There's some early Fry/Leela stuff, there's some hilarious Zapp/Leela stuff and Bender has his first romance in the show's run in a fairly enjoyable subplot.

There's some gorgeous looking design work in this episode, and the music, whilst mostly parodying the score to Titanic, is amonst the best of Futurama's entire run. I'd take it over the actual score to Titanic any day.

The PX crew's vacation aboard the doomed space liner Titanic is one of the best episodes of Futurama, and has a lot of continuity, nerdy background jokes, shout-outs, and just plain funny moments.

Whilst the A-plot is a parody of the movie Titanic (a cruise liner is doomed), there is a B-plot revolving around Bender's pursuit of the lovely Countess De La Roca (another parody of Titanic), and also a C-plot wherein Fry and Leela must pose as a couple to stop Zapp forcing his unwelcome attentions on the frustrated cyclops. To further complicate matters, he is also posing as Amy's boyfriend in order to appease her parents... and surprisingly, this mishmash of plot threads turns out very well. Musically, there are more Titanic parodies, and visually, the episode is stunning.

There are a couple of things that bugged me slightly, such as Kif being able to seduce Amy with the word "hello" in this episode, yet being too nervous to talk to her several episodes later in KGKUAN, but otherwise this is a solid and well grounded episode. Hah! Well grounded? See what I did there? Because they're in space! Hah!

Anyways, the Fry/Leela relationship is explored a little, the dynamic beteen Zapp and Kif is beautifully brought to life, and there's a truly amazing bit of CG animation when the Countess and Bender are trapped in a room full of rising water. In addition to all of this, the hapless Zoidberg even plays a part in saving the day! This is truly an episode where every cast member gets a chance to shine, and they do not disappoint.

One of my favourite episodes of Futurama. It's quite possibly the best episode of Season 1. The plot follows an entire parody of Titanic in a futuristic fashion, and does it pretty much flawlessly. Both the main plot and subplot were excellent. Bender's love pursuit of the Countess was funny and touching, whilst the Fry having multiple fake relationships with Amy and Leela lead to some extremely funny and emotional moments.

This episode probably marks the first time Fry and Leela have interest in each other, which also delivers their first kiss, and for shippers this is quite a plus. Fry makes out with both Leela and Amy, and delivers a funny reference on trying to deal with having two girlfriends similar to a show named Three's Company. There is also the first appearance of Amy's parents and the small love interest of Amy and Kif in there too. The viewer also learns about Hermes' Limbo powers in which also delivers a funny flashback, and the quote of "Uh, could somebody help me up?" Overall, the episode had a decent structure of following the Titanic plot and having many laughs, and beautiful animation too. A 10/10 for this episode.

One of the most memorable episodes, A Flight to Remember also lays the foundation to the Kif/Amy-episodes to come in the rest of the show's run. While the plot is a more or less scene by scene parody of Titanic (giving it a slight down) it is really nicely done, better than one would expect. The idea of Bender meeting his first love is brilliantly performed, and I still don't know if the final line between the two ("you'll share your love again... after all - it's shareware!") is supposed to be funny or if it's funny because it's not, but I laugh every time.

Except for the wonderful two plots, the episode also delivers some wonderful jokes and one-liners ("Tell 'em I died robbing some old man") and even a hilarious flashback of the event that led Hermes to forever give up professional limbo.

What makes this episode so awesome is that it really is top notch in everything. It's funny, it's shippy both with Kif-Amy and Fry-Leela, it's parodising perfectly, it's stunning in animatics, and it's music is wonderful. Though the musical theme obviously is another Titanic reference, it's greatly done and if not in the context of other parodies I probably wouldn't notice the similarities.

"A Flight to Remember" is a pretty straight rip-off of Titanic (which, in fairness, does deserve to be lampooned in every way possible). Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it delivers the jokes, and we do get some genuinely emotional scenes.

Prof. Farnsworth takes his company out on the maiden cruise of the Titanic, which just so happens to be piloted by Zapp Brannigan. In order to avoid any unpleasantness with Brannigan, Leela passes Fry off as her fiance. However, Leela's plan leads to a comedy of errors when Amy discovers that her parents are on board and also attempts to pretend that Fry is her lover in order to placate them. Meanwhile, Bender falls in love with the wealthy Countess de la Roca and tries to play the part of the classy suitor but is ashamed when the Countess discovers that he's a regular, working-class robot. When Brannigan pilots the ship into the vicinity of a black hole, our heroes scramble to escape the ship and Hermes displays some world-class limbo skills.

Critics of the Fry-Leela relationship (especially those who dislike Leela) have ample grist for the mill in this episode. Fry attempts to play his part with gusto, but Leela very coldly blows him off whenever Brannigan is out of sight, only to turn jealous when Amy enters the picture. But the truly emotional scenes don't take place when Fry and Leela gaze upon a beautiful nebula; they take place when the ship tears apart and Bender quietly admits to Fry that he's going to stay back to try to save the Countess, and later when the Countess sacrifices herself to allow the rest of our heroes to escape. This is a character-based episode, no doubt, and it develops the Planet Express gang in some unexpected ways.