From The TV IV

The Series Has Landed is the second episode of the first season of Futurama, and the second episode overall. The Planet Express delivers a package to the moon. To Fry's disappointment it has turned into a tourist attraction and isn't true to the moon's history.

Contents 1 Plot Overview 2 Notes 3 Arc Advancement 3.1 Happenings 3.2 Characters 3.3 Referbacks 4 Trivia 4.1 The Show 4.2 Behind the Scenes 4.3 Allusions and References 4.4 Memorable Moments 5 Quotes 6 Reviews

[edit] Plot Overview

Leela is named the new captain of Planet Express delivery. For the first mission of the new crew, they are to visit the moon, which excites Fry. However when they get to the moon they arrive in a moon theme park. Fry quickly sours to the experience and wants to go outside to where the real moon can be experienced. Leela takes him on an educational ride which gives an inaccurate account of the first moon mission and so Fry takes their vehicle off the tracks and goes exploring.

Meanwhile Amy has lost the keys to the spaceship in a machine. Bender tries to steal the keys using his long arms and gets thrown out of the park. Leela and Fry crash their vehicle and make their way to a farm where they have to stay until sunrise (which, on the moon, lasts two weeks). Bender is there too, and messes around with the farmer's robot daughters. All three of them escape in the farmer's own vehicle but crash it. Leela and Fry hide out in the original luner landing spot but Bender goes back for the Crushinator robot. The farmer comes after him again but Amy, who has mastered using the stick by now, saves them all in Planet Express.

[edit] Notes

Title Sequence Quote

• "In Hypno-Vision"

[edit] Arc Advancement

[edit] Happenings

[edit] Characters

• Hermes Conrad, Amy Wong, and Dr. Zoidberg all make their first appearance.
  • Zoidberg is the resident doctor of Planet Express and a type of crab creature.
  • Hermes handles various tasks for Prof. Farnsworth such as contacting the parents of their dead crew members.
  • Amy is the intern and daughter of a rich family.

[edit] Referbacks

[edit] Trivia

[edit] The Show

• First Appearance: Bender skats for the first time, a common occurrence in later shows.
• First Appearance: Bender's head being detached from his body, which was later the focus of an entire episode.
• First Appearance: Amy's weird remarks. (i.e. 'Guh' or similar).
• First Appearance: Sal appears as the disgruntled amusement park employee. Sal appears often in episodes as 'the generic blue collar guy'.
• Alien Language 1: A sign that appears directly before the 'gopher tour' reads "Tasty Human Burgers".
• First Appearance: Bender's weakness to magnets and his desire to become a folk singer are both ideas originated in this episode.

[edit] Behind the Scenes

[edit] Allusions and References

• Character: Doctor Zoidberg was meant to be a sort 'reverse of Bones McCoy', doctor in the original Star Trek Series, in that he is an alien doctor primarily treating humans.
• Zoid: Zoidberg's name is derived from Zoid, a game that Executive Producer David X. Cohen developed as a high school student.
• The moon faced theme park mascot who demands Bender's alcohol is a reference to the movie A Trip to the Moon, which you may remember for its iconic image of the rocket firing into the moon's 'eye', much like Bender's beer bottle.

[edit] Memorable Moments

• Sign Gag: If you pay attention to the signs in the arcade, you'll notice 'Gender Neutral Pac-Person' and 'Mortal Kooperation'.
• Quick Fix: To address the logical flaw of the Lunar Lander being at it's original landing place, a plaque can be seen within the lander which reads ' Lander returned to this site by the Historical Sticklers Society'.
• 3D Extravaganza: The thresher which chases Bender, Fry and Leela acrosss the lunar landscape.
• Virtual Virtual Skeeball: In the arcade in the moon theme park there are skeeball games, a virtual skeeball, and Amy who is playing virtual virtual skeeball.

[edit] Quotes

• Bender: That's her officers. That's the woman who programmed me for evil!
• Bender: Yeah, well, I'm going to go build my own theme park. With black and hookers. In fact, forget the park.

[edit] Reviews

• Overall Grade: B, 1 review
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 1 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0
• B: The second episode starts out where the first left off. This will continue for a few more episodes into the series, which is part of the reason I think it gets off to a somewhat slow start. Instead of making the first episode pure plot meat they instead elected to spread the set up out over a few episodes to allow each episode to be entertaining and stand on its own. This is a good thing, but it makes for the first few episodes to be a little slow as plot is interjected every so often. There were some terrific gags in this episode but like the previous I felt it leaned a little heavy on 20th century cultural references (did anything happen between 2000 and 2999?) such as Seinfeld (Bender being chased off by redneck for violating his daughters). Nevertheless, the character traits that make the show unique to Simpsons certainly shine through here. --MateoP 15:21, 19 August 2006 (EDT)