Thoughts on 2ACV09 - A Bicyclops Built for Two

[on:]

I'm opening this thread for the Random Order Test. I searched my little head* off and could not find a preexisting review thread for this episode. It's entirely possible that I just fail at searching, though, and if that is the case than I give PEEL my sincerest apologies.

*Disclaimer: Gorky's head is actually pretty big.

[Reply #1 on:]

*Disclaimer: Gorky's head is actually pretty big.

Well, only because of that stylish air horn

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This is one of those great episodes that is severely underrated, and I always forget to name it as one of my tops. I really love the episode overall, I don't know what keeps it from being pushed ahead of the pack for me. It is similar to Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love to me because it is on a foreign planet, with vivid colors scenery, many other worldy creatures, and a solid Fry B storyline to support one of the PE crew's A storyline.

I have not seen this episode in a while though, so for my more full depth analysis I will wait until I view it again.

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Watched this again last night and it's still thoroughly enjoyable and just as good as I remembered. I love the fast pace of this ep and how not a moment is wasted. From Nibbler getting trodden on by the Professor at the beginning to going straight into "the internet". The whole internet scene is absolutely amazing. It really is one of the best segments in the whole of Futurama if you ask me. Not only is it hilarious throughout, but the whole design and concept of going into the internet, having the ads attack, followed by the chatroom scenes and finally the epic videogame sequence, simply sublime!...

I do wish they would go into the internet more often, I just love the animation and way it looks, and the various people they meet. Having it as a way to meet Alcazar is a great way to set up the plot and tie it all together nicely. Fry's competitiveness in the videogame was great, and how they kept shooting the Professor whenever his head appeared was hilarious. The videogame homage’s were fun too. What a great first act!...

The classic Leela dumping the popcorn scene, gotta love it. The whole storyline on the planet with Alcazar is great. Lots of great jokes flying about all round. Bender stealing everything in sight, Fry eating his meals through the bars, Alazars constant jibes along with his friends. It's a great other-planet mystery episode with a classic villain driving it. It's a shame Leela was so desperate and easily manipulated, but it is buyable and at least she doesn't take long to realise it. It's a shame she still wanted to marry him, but then again she wouldn't be the first girl to marry the wrong guy. It needed to happen for the plot anyways, and the way things are told is engaging...

I love how Fry and Bender find out his secret, Fry because he cares for Leela and Bender because he wants to steal even more stuff. Then the whole wedding scene that they crash, and Alcazar changing shapes in font of each of his five brides, crazy stuff and I love it! Especially seeing his real form and Leela asking why he couldn't change his shape in the one place the counts...

All round brilliant episode and perhaps underrated as I think it's one of the best Season Two eps and also one of the best eps to focus on Leela, so I'm giving it a solid...

9/10

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I love how Fry and Bender find out his secret, Fry because he cares for Leela and Bender because he wants to steal even more stuff. Then the whole wedding scene that they crash, and Alcazar changing shapes in font of each of his five brides, crazy stuff and I love it! Especially seeing his real form and Leela asking why he couldn't change his shape in the one place the counts...

Even though I haven't been around here for too long, I think we agree on many things, especially concerning the old school episodes. Great review that I don't want to add a lot to, only: The one and only thing about this episode that I didn't like was the much overused Married with Children parody. I really don't get why a show like Futurama should make references to a sitcom like that in the first place and even if it has to, it should never be so dominant in the plot. That also includes the "one place that counts" line that you liked, which I didn't... oh well. The whole parody parts reminded me waaay too much of Spanish Fry (even if Spanish Fry actually was much later than that).

Other than that, a great episode which I would rate 8/10. I really loved Bender himself and also his interaction with Fry in this episode ("Snap out of it!"). I also thought him honoring Alcazar for tricking all those women into being his servants was very in-character and funny as hell. So a really good episode... *cough* *except for the Married with Children parts. *cough*

8/10

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I think its a very good episode.  Classic Futurama at its finest.  Hilarious storyline, great jokes, and yet it had a very powerful and emotional ending.

I think the ending is so beautiful, when Leela gazes at the stars, and murmurs in a sad hopeful voice: "I mean... how many planets can there be?"   And the music just sells that scene so well.  Easily one of my favorite Futurama moments, and really gets me rooting for a character that I don't always like.

Sometimes I watch this episode just for the ending.  Leela often pisses me off, and the storyline about her origins has been resolved, but that moment just makes me want to give her a hug.

[Reply #6 on:]

This episode had a really solid premise and was pulled off quite nicely. I love the Internet scene. It is easily one of the best scenes in Futurama ever, the video game especially. I remember rewinding and watching that like five times before I went on the first time I saw this episode. It is so good.

I think everyone's in-character and it provides some really interesting character development for Leela.

Agreed that the ending is particularly touching.

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Yeah, everyone was firing on all cylinders.  It's Futurama gold. 

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I think the ending is so beautiful, when Leela gazes at the stars, and murmurs in a sad hopeful voice: "I mean... how many planets can there be?"   And the music just sells that scene so well.  Easily one of my favorite Futurama moments, and really gets me rooting for a character that I don't always like.

Sometimes I watch this episode just for the ending.  Leela often pisses me off, and the storyline about her origins has been resolved, but that moment just makes me want to give her a hug.

You're right, I completely forgot to mention the ending. Probably my favourite Futurama ending ever except for I, Roommate. Somehow this moment with the rhetorical question: "How many stars can there be" was really touching, especially because it seemed really deep to me. Anything that deals with a restless search for ones true self and combines that with the mind-blowing vastness of space (huge astronomy freak) is surely going to be something that really affects me.

I have to say though that this moment is ruined more than a little for me by knowing where her home really is: Not somewhere, on some unknown far-off planet, no, of course it's on (or under) boring, dull-as-dish water earth. With that in mind the moment loses a lot of its impact. I caught myself expecting the camera to zoom from that wonderful outlook out of the window down to the sewers of earth...   

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Yeah, I have to admit the revelation of Leela's origins does take some of the sparkle out of a squillion carat moment sadly.   Whilst I like Morris and Munda, I think I preferred the idea of Leela being an alien rather then a mutant much more, and this is one of the reasons why.

Still, I think its a genuinely beautiful and touching moment. 
How many planets can there be, indeed.

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I actually think that moment is more poignant in retrospect, because Leela had been questioning where her "true home" could be--thinking that finding her parents would be some impossible task--and they wound up being so close. It's even more sad, this notion of her "wasting" time looking in some galaxy far, far away, when she could have just paid a visit to the sewers and done some snooping.

Or at least that's how I see it. (Then again, I always thought the Leela's-a-mutant thing was pretty clever, and not a cop-out.)

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It was very clever and not a cop out, but I just prefer her being an alien for some reason.   Still its worth it for the Baby Love Child montage among other things.

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I like that episode:
- Leela searching for her "species" was a long overdue plot.
- The showdown had the typical "Let's take something well know and give it a craty twist" note. Fry's arrival was basically the "Knight in shiny armor on his noble steed arrived to save the fair maiden". Only his weapon of choice was not a trusty sword, but a bunch of infuriated women he found on the way...
- Matt Groening doesn't seem to like "Married wih childern". Okay, taking on another show is not uncommon. But insulting that shows audience in such a direct way: That was rather new

A pity, though, that Ed O'Neill didn't voice Alcazar. (As far as I know, Ed as well as Katey are not really reluctant to ridicule their MWC roles...)

I actually think that moment is more poignant in retrospect, because Leela had been questioning where her "true home" could be--thinking that finding her parents would be some impossible task--and they wound up being so close. It's even more sad, this notion of her "wasting" time looking in some galaxy far, far away, when she could have just paid a visit to the sewers and done some snooping.

Or at least that's how I see it. (Then again, I always thought the Leela's-a-mutant thing was pretty clever, and not a cop-out.)

Yep, I'm with you regarding that. It had quite some tragic twist with Leela looking at the stars, with the audience knowing that she could search there all the time in the universe.
(I also have my doubts they REALLY, DEFINITELY planned Leela to be a mutant before the show even aired...some of her early designs looked just to alien to me. Also, in some pre-LHW episode, she was sometimes shown with strength beyond human capacity. Okay, the writers sometimes gave other characters also above-human capacities for throwaway gags, but yet...

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A pity, though, that Ed O'Neill didn't voice Alcazar.

I concur. What I'd like to know is if they approached him to do it.

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I think the MWC parody is what first got my attention, when I first watched this episode quite a bit ago. Peggy Bundy is such a different character than Leela, and it was pure delight to hear that nasally whine again. I guess that provided a measure of nostalgia for me.

This episode just sparkled for me, for all the reasons everyone pointed out already (the Internet chief among them). But one thing I want to add is, Fry's depth of caring for Leela is on full display here. And you know what? I think I like it so much because their friendship at this point is platonic. It's refreshing to see opposite sex friendships. And I love that Fry is such a good guy (though his stupidity and insensitivity in act 1 was pretty annoying).

Edit: That subtle and suspenseful music while Leela was stalking Fry in the videogame just sent it over the edge into brilliance. The one thing I didn't care for was Alcazar's abrupt change in personality when he and Leela wake up.  I think they could have dropped more
clues earlier that he wasnt what he seemed.

9/10

[Reply #15 on:]

(I also have my doubts they REALLY, DEFINITELY planned Leela to be a mutant before the show even aired...some of her early designs looked just to alien to me. Also, in some pre-LHW episode, she was sometimes shown with strength beyond human capacity. Okay, the writers sometimes gave other characters also above-human capacities for throwaway gags, but yet...

I think they always knew Leela was going to be a mutant; I feel like they have addressed this specifically in the commentaries, but I might be lying. At any rate, the cameo by Munda and Morris in "I Second That Emotion" was surely intentional, and that episode came before Bicyclops.

Part of what I love about the original run--and what I fear is missing from the new run--is the sense that there were all these sneaky set-ups at the series' start (Nibbler's shadow, for example); it felt like the writers had all these back stories worked out, and they would eventually pay-off those little wink-wink/nudge-nudge moments. It made the show seem like more than just this episodic sci fi sitcom, the notion that there would be overarching storylines that would not be fully addressed for years, and that's what I love about the whole Leela-trying-to-find-her-true-home stuff.

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I think they always knew Leela was going to be a mutant; I feel like they have addressed this specifically in the commentaries, but I might be lying.

Yep, they SAID so. My point is I do not believe them completely
I certainly did not wish to say they planned Leela to be an alien, and suddenly changed their mind.
I rather meant I believe the "Leela=Mutant" aspect was a planned option since the show's beginning. But I somehow think they wanted to keep the "Leela=Alien" option still possible/available for a certain amount of running time, just in case...

(About the same as "Tie Fighters" OFFICIALLY always meant "Twin Ion Engine" Fighter. Well...until a model maker -who was seemingly not informed about that- stated in an interview "Well...when we built those things, one of us said 'Hey, they look like bow ties', and from that time, these starfighters had their name" )

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I liked how the writers put the crew into 'Cyberspace'. 
It was a new and unique concept for the time.
 
I wonder if or how they could do that again, with the internet now being a universal and accepted technology these days.
 
Maybe to identify or prevent 'Cybercrime'?

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Okay, I liked the first and last acts of this ep.

Seeing the Internet for the future was hilarious, and pretty damn awesome if you ask me. Alkazar wasn't the best character. But seeing the planet in the Second Act sure was interesting. I didn't really like the whole Leela staying there parts. They felt a bit...I don't know, dry? But after Fry escapes from the cell, the episode goes uphill from there. Seeing Alkazar being a shapeshifter sure was interesting.

Now the ending felt really heartwarming to me. I mean it's not the kind that would make me cry or anything, but the orchestra music just says it all.

So all in all, I'd say this episode deserves a 8/10

[Reply #20 on:]

4/10
A tale of two episodes...the internet part is up there with the greatest Futurama gags...Fry's elation at video games, ITS FULL OF ADS, and filthy filthy chatrooms.
The rest of it really really falls flat with me other than a few parts (sword swallowing)...im not a MWC fan.