Futurama/I, Roommate

I, Roommate
Season 1, Episode 3
Airdate	April 6, 1999
Production Number	1ACV03
Written by	Eric Horsted
Directed by	Bret Haaland
← 1x02 The Series Has Landed	1x04 → Love's Labors Lost in Space
Futurama — Season One

I, Roommate is the third episode of the first season of Futurama, and the third episode overall. Fry finally has to move out of Planet Express and becomes roomates with Bender. They settle on a great apartment in the city but experience trouble when Bender's antenna interferes with the TV reception.

Plot Overview

Fry has been sleeping at the Planet Express office since he became unfrozen, and is starting to get on everyone's nerves. Eventually they kick him out and he has to try to find some other place to live; Bender volunteer's his apartment. However Bender's place only has standing room for two people so Leela helps them find a new place. They have difficulty at first, until one of Professor Farnsworth's colleagues passes away and his apartment becomes available.

Initially they both love the new apartment, that is until Bender's antenna starts screwing with the satellite reception in the entire building. He's forced to move out, but Fry stays. Lonely, Bender becomes disoriented when he stops drinking. Leela meddles in the affair and tries to get Fry to find a new place with Bender. However Bender shows up at Fry's place sober and cuts off his antenna. Although happy at first, Fry changes his mind when he sees how depressed not having an antenna has made him. Fry moves back into Bender's old place and finds that there is plenty of room, an entire apartment in fact, in Bender's "closet".

Notes

Title Sequence Quote

• "As Seen On TV"

Arc Advancement

Characters

• This episode has the first appearance of Calculon from the robot soap opera All My Circuits.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• The title of this episode, I, Roommate is a reference to the short story collection entitled I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.
• In the Planet Express office, Bender is awaken by an alarm clock which he bends and lays on the side of the table. This is a reference to the famous surrealist painting The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí.

Memorable Moments

• Leela is trying to convince Bender and Fry to find a new place because Bender's old apartment is too small. Bender is hestitant because of all of the good memories he had of the old apartment; that is until he presses a button and erases the memories.

Reviews

• Overall Grade: B+, 1 review
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 1 B: 0 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0
• B+: By this point, the series is starting to slow down with arc-type plotlines, and instead making this more of a typical episodic sitcom. The last remaining plot to go over is finding Fry an apartment, which allows them to pry into the relationship between Fry and Bender some. Overall I think it's quite successful as the plot moves the episode along but doesn't weigh too heavy sentimentally. This is the first time we get to see All My Circuits which is a hilarious parody on the ridiculousness of day time soaps. My only complaint is that there aren't a lot of memorable gags in the episode. Having seen the series many times, watching Bender act drunk when he's sober just isn't that funny any more. Overall it's still quite entertaining. --MateoP 20:28, 19 August 2006 (EDT)