"Fear of a Bot Planet": Nielsens and Mini-Review

As if anyone cared, here's last night's Nielsens. Futurama was, as usual, the strongest show in the Fox lineup. Fox came in fourth place for the night.

• JAG (CBS) 9.0 rating, 14 share
• The Hughleys (ABC) 7.2, 11
• Futurama (Fox) 6.7, 11
• NewsRadio (NBC) 5.9, 9
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB) 3.2, 5
• Clueless (UPN) 2.2, 4

[Mini-Review] The show keeps getting better and better. True, "best episode ever" is a phrase that doesn't carry a lot of weight when only five episodes have aired, but still..."Best Episode Ever." The show is instantly one of the best-written programs on television, with a wonderful combination of obscure references and more obvious, even scatological gags. I thought "Fear of a Bot Planet" was a true classic. A+.

References:

• "R.U.R." (1920 play by Karel Capek)
• Planet Chapek named after this Czech author, who created the word "robot" for his play.

• "A Corny Concerto" (1943 cartoon by Warner Bros.)
• Clip in opening credits from this classic cartoon.

In alt.tv.futurama, on the ""Fear of a Bot Planet": Nielsens and Mini-Review" thread, Dale G. Abersold wrote:

Yeah, I just saw it tonight (4/23) for the first time and thought it was fabulous. "Futurama's" robot subculture is so fascinating.

Incidentally, considering that you're such a baseball fan, I'm surprised you didn't write up the blernsball game a little more. While I was watching it, I thought about what some former baseball commissioner called the "Rip Van Winkle" rule. He (the commish) wanted to keep baseball true to its roots so that someone who woke up today from a hundred-year sleep could attend a baseball game today and get the gist of what was going on. Looks like blernsball flunked the Rip Van Winkle rule big time.

Grr. I read this play and still didn't get the reference. Good catch.