At this point, I think the watchword for this season of Futurama is “unexpected pairings.” Or watchphrase. Something
like that. Anyway, point is, we’ve been treated to some unexpected team-ups
with the gang, rather than the usual Bender-Fry, Fry-Leela match-ups. Take the
Bender-Hermes episode two weeks ago, for example. Or, more to the point, take
this week, which brings together the surprisingly fun pairing of Amy and
Nibbler.

Nibbler of the Nibblonian’s has long been a one-joke
character. It’s a good joke, though: Leela’s adorable little pet is actually
part of an ancient race dedicated to protecting the universe, and talks with a
deep, powerful, booming voice. We’ve gotten episodes exploring the Nibblonian
society before (it’s very, very cute – but they insist they’re super serious,
even while demanding to have their tummies scratched), but never one that
actually treated Nibbler as anything other than a plot point.

Same, often with Amy. Amy has gotten to grow quite a bit,
but usually her arcs consist of her hooking up with a member of the Planet
Express crew, and how it effect’s them.

So it was a pleasant surprise that, when Amy and Nibbler are
forced to team up to stop a race of hyper-intelligent kitty cats from stealing
the Earth’s rotational energy, it paid in such great character dividends. Amy
manages to prove she’s not just a bunch of eye candy, and Nibbler finds out
it’s not so bad to be cared for by Leela after all. And over the course of the
episode, we got some great cat jokes, some excellent turns of phrase, and
overall, a fun, enjoyable episode.

It may not have pulled on the heart strings like the last
two episodes, but this one was firing on all cylinders – and we need episodes
like this, just silly larks about cats taking over the world, to give us
breathing time between the crying jags.

Random Notes:

• My notes were all erased by my faboo phone, so I only had
  one line written down: “Cash for bones.”


• Off-hand, I’ll say that my favorite joke was the life-size
  puppet of a professor that had been designed to work for dogs, but modified to
  work for a cat.


• Also, not sure how to spell it, ironically, but Dr.
  Shpeakenshpell is a great visual joke – we need more of him.