Brannigan Begin Again
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Futurama episode | |
| "Brannigan Begin Again" | |
 |
|
|---|---|
| Episode no. | 15 |
| Prod. code | 2ACV02 |
| Airdate | November 28, 1999 |
| Writer(s) | Lewis Morton |
| Director | Jeffrey Lynch |
| Opening subtitle | Not Y3K Compliant |
| Opening cartoon | "Pigs in a Polka" |
| Season 2 November 1999 – December 2000 |
|
|
|
| List of all Futurama episodes... | |
"Brannigan Begin Again" is episode 2 in season 2 of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on November 14, 1999.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The Planet Express crew arrives at the new Democratic Order of Planets (D.O.O.P.) headquarters in orbit around the Neutral Planet, in order to deliver the oversized scissors for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Zapp Brannigan arrests them as assassins, and shortly thereafter (by using a giant laser cannon set on Hyperdeath™ to cut the ribbon) destroys the entire station.
At the former D.O.O.P. headquarters in Weehawken, New Jersey, Zapp Brannigan is court-martialed by D.O.O.P. leader Glab and both he and Kif Kroker are dismissed from D.O.O.P. service. Unable to find employment, the pair wander the streets until they finally arrive at the Planet Express building. Leela tries to turn them away, but Professor Farnsworth decides hiring Brannigan would be good for the company's public image.
The augmented crew is sent to deliver pillows to a hotel on Stumbos 4, a high-gravity planet. Despite Leela's insistence, Fry, Bender, and Zapp decide to deliver all the pillows at once, which in the intense gravity causes the dolly to collapse. As punishment, Leela orders them to deliver the pillows by hand, which causes resentment among the crew.
Fry, Bender, and Zapp stage a mutiny against Leela, and lock her in the laundry room. Brannigan decides to attack the Neutral homeworld, thinking this will make him a hero and get him reinstated as a D.O.O.P. captain. However, when Fry and Bender discover the plan is a suicide mission, they free Leela, and she retakes command.
After returning to Earth, Leela testifies that Brannigan was an amazing hero, so the D.O.O.P. will reinstate Brannigan, and thus keep him out of her life.
[edit] Characters
Characters which make their first appearances in this episode are:
[edit] Continuity
- A majority of the jury at Zapp Brannigan's trial are characters from various Futurama episodes. Among the familiar ones are Glurmo from "Fry and the Slurm Factory", a Neptunian, an Insectoid, a Robot Elder from "Fear of a Bot Planet", and Fry's Trisolian advisor Gorgak from "My Three Suns."
- Included in the 3-D chess game Bender and Fry play are a Decapodian, a Horrible Gelatinous Blob, Lrrr, the ruler of Omicron Persei VIII, a Trisolian from "My Three Suns", a being of the same race as Kif, the head of D.O.O.P. and other noticeable species from this episode and the show in general.
- To help Fry understand D.O.O.P.'s functions, Hermes compares it to the Federation from Star Trek, although the later episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" establishes that all mention of Star Trek is taboo.
- The tape or bandage around Glurmo's facial area is from when Leela chopped his head in the episode Fry and the Slurm Factory.
- When the planet express crew takes the pillows to Stumbos 4, they state that each pillow weighs 150lbs and they load three rows, two columns worth of pillows, each with a stack of 6. This means that there are 32 pillows on the dolly. 150 x 32 = 4800lbs. This combined mass breaks the dolly. However, later in the episode, the back-up dolly is shown as able to support several pieces of dark matter, each piece of which weighs as much as ten thousand suns.
[edit] Cultural references
- The title quotes a common phrase from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and refers to a 1985 HBO original film called Finnegan Begin Again. It is also a repeated line in the children's song "Michael Finnigan".
- The game Fry and Bender play at the beginning of the episode is a parody of Dejarik, the game played by R2-D2 and Chewbacca in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
- D.O.O.P. is explicitly compared to the United Federation of Planets from the Star Trek Universe. Also, the "neutral zone" in which its headquarters are located may be a reference to the neutral zone between the Romulans and the Federation, or more likely to politically neutral countries such as Switzerland.
- When the Planet Express Ship comes into the new station, a riff on the theme of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can be heard.
- The laser Zapp uses to cut the ribbon has settings of "Stun", "Kill" and "Hyperdeath™", a reference to phasers from the Star Trek universe.
- The slogan on the neutral planet "Live Free or Don't" is a paraphrase of New Hampshire's state motto "Live Free or Die".
- The sequence where Zapp attempts to make a living as a gigolo is taken from Midnight Cowboy, including the song's theme, "Everybody's Talkin" by Harry Nilsson. The woman in the car who wants Kif Kroker is Hattie McDoogal, Fry and Bender's landlady from "I, Roommate" in season 1.
- The crew's mission to the high gravity planet is a parody of the book Mission of Gravity.
