Roswell That Ends Well

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Futurama episode
"Roswell That Ends Well"
The Spaceship that landed in Roswell, New Mexico turns out to be Bender.
Episode no.	51
Prod. code	3ACV19
Airdate	December 9, 2001
Writer(s)	J. Stewart Burns
Director	Rich Moore
Opening subtitle	FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY (except Grandma and Grandpa)
Opening cartoon	"Congo Jazz"
Season 3 January 2001 – December 2002
Amazon Women in the Mood Parasites Lost A Tale of Two Santas The Luck of the Fryrish The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz Bendless Love The Day the Earth Stood Stupid That's Lobstertainment! The Cyber House Rules Where the Buggalo Roam Insane in the Mainframe The Route of All Evil Bendin' in the Wind Time Keeps on Slippin' I Dated a Robot A Leela of Her Own A Pharaoh to Remember Anthology of Interest II Roswell That Ends Well Godfellas Future Stock The 30% Iron Chef
List of all Futurama episodes...

"Roswell That Ends Well" is the nineteenth episode of the third production season of the TV show Futurama. This episode, which won an Emmy Award, originally aired on December 9, 2001 as the season premiere of broadcast season four. It was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Rich Moore. The episode centers around an accidental time travel event that results in the main characters visiting Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Continuity 3 Production 4 Broadcast and reception 5 Cultural references 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

As the crew kicks back to enjoy a supernova from point-blank range, Fry puts a non-microwaveable metal popcorn container into the ship's microwave. This causes a reaction between the microwave radiation and the “gravitons and graviolis” from the supernova that blasts the ship into 1947. On their return to Earth, they find a complete lack of a Global Positioning System, causing them to crash-land in Roswell, New Mexico. Refusing to wear a seatbelt unlike the rest of the crew, Bender flies out of the front of the ship upon crash-landing and is smashed to pieces. The crew and Bender's disembodied head go to seek out a way to return, leaving Zoidberg behind to pick up the pieces. Zoidberg is captured by the U.S. military and taken to Roswell Air Base for experimentation. The military also "reconstructs" Bender's body in the form of a small flying saucer.

Meanwhile, the microwave needed to return to the future has been destroyed and replacements have not been invented yet. A microwave antenna from the army base would work, but Farnsworth gives stern warning against using it: they must preserve causality or risk changing history and doing damage to the future. While disguised as a soldier, Fry visits his grandfather, Enos, who is stationed at the base and engaged to Fry's grandmother (and who resembles Fry). Near-accidents cause Fry to become obsessed with protecting Enos from possible harm as Fry will cease to exist if he is killed. Desperate to keep Enos safe from possible harm, Fry inadvertently brings about Enos’s death by leaving him in a “safe” house—which, unknown to Fry, is located in the middle of a nuclear weapons testing range.

Fry encounters and consoles his would-be grandmother Mildred. Mildred latches on to Fry, who deduces that since he is alive, Enos and Mildred must not have been his grandparents; and the two end up having sex. When the rest of the group finds him, Farnsworth insists that Mildred indeed is Fry's grandmother. Fry realizes that he is his own grandfather and Professor Farnsworth gives up on noninterference.

The crew storms Roswell Air Base, overpowers it and steals the microwave dish. Fry and Leela rescue Zoidberg from an alien autopsy while the Professor grabs Bender’s body. Bender's head falls out of the ship and is left behind in 1947. Back in the 31st century, Fry laments the loss of Bender, until an idea sends him to Roswell's ruins with a metal detector. He and Leela find Bender's head, none the worse for wear and reattach it to his still-mangled, hovering, "UFO" body.

[edit] Continuity

This episode provides an important link in the story arc of Philip J. Fry. By becoming his own grandfather, Fry received a unique genetic abnormality which causes him to lack the Delta Brainwave, believed to be present in all other intelligent lifeforms, robots, and certain trees. This genetic condition made Fry immune to the influence of the creatures known as the Brainspawn, who travel through the universe, eliminating all forms of thought and intelligence so that they might be the sole possessors of all knowledge. Fry was thus able to defeat the Brainspawn in the episode “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid”, but it was not until the Season four episode “The Why Of Fry” that Fry’s abnormality was explained as being due to him having done "the nasty in the past-y" (Or, "Past Nastification"). This episode was later referenced in the movie Futurama: Bender's Big Score when Fry talks to the professor about time travel, Fry says "What about the time we went back to Roswell." Unsurprisingly, the Professor does not remember the ordeal in question.

In one scene, Dr. Zoidberg undergoes a live alien autopsy, in which one of his four hearts is removed, among other organs. This is later referred to in A Taste of Freedom, when he states that two of his three hearts (one having been removed) are having heart attacks.

[edit] Production

The writing team came up for the idea for this episode when they were planning the three plot lines for "Anthology of Interest II". As the idea developed they eventually had so much material for it that they broke it out as a separate episode.^[1] The reason the concept was originally under consideration for the "What if..." scenario was that when Groening and Cohen originally created Futurama they decided there would not be any time travel; however they changed their mind and decided to go forward with the idea.^[2] The writers did not want to create a situation that would leave fans wondering why the Planet Express crew could not simply travel through time on a regular basis. For this purpose they chose to have it occur during a supernova as that was deemed to be a suitably rare occurrence.^[1]

In this episode director Rich Moore used screen position and character movement to mimic the time travel aspects of the plot. In the planning stages it was decided that actions that played to screen left would represent events from the past or a setback to the plot. Likewise, screen right indicated progress or moving past their problems.^[3]

[edit] Broadcast and reception

The episode won an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Animated Program (Programming Less Than One Hour) category in 2002.^[4] Rich Moore also won an Annie Award for "Directing in an Animated Television Production" in 2002^[5] and in 2006 IGN ranked the episode as the sixth best Futurama episode.^[6] In 2001 executive producer David X. Cohen noted that this was one of his favorite episodes of the series thus far.^[7] Sci Fi Weekly gave the episode an "A" grade and noted that it was "a half hour of pure entertainment".^[8] This episode is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection, marking it as one of Matt Groening's favorite episodes from the series.^[9] Claudia Katz, producer of Futurama, has also stated that this is one of her three favorite episodes of the series.^[10] Although the episode was well received by critics, it continued to do poorly in its time slot. The original airing was in 83rd place for the week with a 3.1 rating/5 share.^[11]

[edit] Cultural references

TV critic Rob Owen perceived the episode to have touched upon many of the plot devices and themes commonly seen in time travel stories, most notably the Back to the Future movies.^[12] The episode also shares much in common with the episode "Little Green Men" of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.^[13] Much of Enos' character is taken from The Andy Griffith Show’s Gomer Pyle,^[12] such as his accent and use of Pyle’s trademark “Gol-ly!”.^[1]

In the final scene, Bender, having been left behind in the Roswell desert, is recovered by the crew, unchanged and in the same place, over a thousand years later. When Fry and Leela appear, he tells them "I was enjoying it until you guys showed up". This might be inspired by a similar scene in Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, in which Marvin the robot is stranded in the restaurant's parking lot for millions of years. Like Bender, he shows neither surprise nor enthusiasm at finally being rescused by his former crew-mates. Bender's stranded head also evokes the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Time's Arrow", in which Data's head is left in a San Francisco cave for hundreds of years.

[edit] See also

• Predestination paradox
• Grandfather paradox
• Ontological paradox

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Roswell That Ends Well at the Internet Movie Database
• Roswell That Ends Well at TV.com
• Episode capsule at GotFuturama.com

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