Futurama: S01E03: I, Roommate

FOX was concerned about how dark the Futurama universe, and wanted a more down-to-earth episode. What they got as this episode: I, Roommate. They hated it and asked the creators to go back to doing it right. Fox’s reaction for once, matched that of the fans…Hermes has noticed that company resource usage has gone up in the last few weeks since Fry showed up, but can’t seem to figure out why. It’s bloody obvious to everyone on the other side of the television screen that slacker Fry is the drain on resources, but Hermes gives him the benefit of the doubt. But eventually the team gets too annoyed with Fry’s living habits and decide to boot him out. They carry him out on a sofa, and bill him for the sofa!

So now, Fry is out on his own in the 31st century, with no place to live. He turns to his only friend Bender for help. Bender is stoked at having Fry as a roommate. It satisfies both his friendship requirement and it increases the space usage by 100%. Now the two of them occupy almost 80% of his living quarters. Literally! Bender lives in a closet. So does that mean he’s still in the closet? Closets are nice places for robots who need nothing in terms of living space, but they don’t work well for humans (those humans outside of Tokyo) who need space to lie down and stretch. So after a few nights with Bender, Fry is in horrible shape and needs to find a new place.

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Fry and Bender want to remain roommates, so they go out looking for a place together. They look at multiple apartments. But in true sit-com fashion all of them are horrible in one form or another. The last place they look at seems really nice and quaint, but it’s technically in New Jersey, so they run screaming outta there faster then the other places. What’s wrong with Jersey anyway? It’s not a bad place. And it’s not like its a real state anyway, more like suburbs of NYC and Philly,

With no luck finding an apartment it appears that Fry is doomed. He’ll never get a good nites sleep, they must not have sleep meds in the future. But “luckily” one of the Professor’s old friends dies. Fry and Bender use that opportunity to move into his place. And its rent controlled too!

The two twenty-something bachelors waste little time fixing the place up. In a little over a day, they’ve turned the entire room into a sty. Even I don’t work that fast. Now that they’ve got he apartment the way they want it, they decide to throw a home warming party.The rest of the crew drops by with gifts and trinkets for the party. Everything is going great until they decide to watch TV, on their 280″ screen. The reception is terrible. That is until Bender walks out of the room. But as soon as he walks in, it takes a dump again. It’s discovered that his antenna is disrupting the signal not only in this apartment but all the other residences too. The superintendent tells Bender that he’ll have to leave or cut off his antenna.

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Fry asks Bender to leave, so that he can keep the sweet apartment. Reluctantly Bender goes. This puts Bender in such emotional turmoil that he goes sober. Which for a human is like going on a 24/7/365.24 drinking spree. He gets so sober that he returns back to Fry and cuts off his antenna to stay with him. By then Leela intervenes and gives Bender the help he needs. She convinces Fry to move back in with Bender for his mental health. Fry decides to take one for the team, and moves back in with Bender.

Back at Bender’s place, they talk a little more and its discovered that Bender has a closet too. A closet in a closet, right…. But a robotic closet is more like a large storage room, which is a normal apartment for a human. Now Fry has his own place to sleep, in Bender’s closet.

So that’s it folks. It was quick episode with very little sci fi or plot. But FOX got just what they wanted and in the Future they were careful what they wished for with Futurama. Another random FYI, is that Bender’s room number 0101000 is 40 in base two. And coincidentally I give this a 40 outta 10.Well okay, more like a 15,440 out of 10. What did you think?

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This Futurama review is © 2005 Ryan Bechtel.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

Futurama names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

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