REVIEW: FUTURAMA “DECISION 3012”

Spoilers Below

Its election time! And Nixon knows how to get the votes with free beer! Leela on the other hand gets behind a new candidate named Senator Chris Travers a candidate that seems to care about the important issues like balancing the deficit, the environment, and others but he’s becoming increasingly pissed off at the fact that nobody seems to care about them. Soon, Leela gets signed up as Travers’ new PR manager to help improve his image and ultimately help him win the election.

Bender on the other hand decides to back Nixon so that he can continue voting and more importantly get more free beer. He opts to help Nixon find a bunch of dirt on leading alternate Travers. Unfortunately for Bender, no matter what he does he can’t seem to find any legitimate baggage on Travers so he decides to do something that just about every politician knows about. Make shit up! First thing’s first…BIRTHING! Bender accuses Chris Travers that he isn’t even from Earth and as a result shouldn’t be allowed to run for president. As such, an angry mob forms in front of Travers’ campaign office demanding to see his “Earth certificate” to prove that he’s indeed legal.

To help clear his name, Leela leads Planet Express into Kenya into the hospital records room in order to find the important document. But, guess who beats the crew to the punch?? Mr. Chris Travers himself! He’s there to tell everyone that yes he was born on Earth but he is in fact from the future coincidentally the day before he is about to be born. Turns out Chris is there to stop Nixon from destroying Earth if he were to win the election.  Turns out all of the robots begin to turn against Earth and rule the world while a bunch of human refugees avoid their present danger in hiding. While stowed away, the people bring forth a legit candidate to challenge Nixon so as to stop the travesties, the one and only Chris Travers!

Leela decides to use Travers’ birthday as a publicity stunt to show off the candidate’s Earth certificate and guess what?? It Works! We have a new president!! At least he did, until Travers ceases to exist due to the fact that he broke the rules of time travel. Nixon Wins!!

A very interesting plot in this week’s Futurama. I mean, a Terminator meets Nixon story is pretty bad ass and as a result was funny as hell. I do think Bender finished a bit weak given how important he was to the initial story but that’s just small talk as his trying to track down Travers was funny as hell. I thought it was also pretty strange that no one in the main cast was really the focal point of the show, that it was instead Travers whom at the end of the day wasn’t very funny. So, it more or less felt like the Planet Express crew was a supporting cast for him, which I would think is pretty tough to say the least but overall the episode worked but I think the jokes were sacrificed in favor of a cheap political gag.