Leela has no depth perception, but she can launch, fly, and land a starship. Skillfully, I might add.
With all the Hartman/Brannigan furor, it was apparently overlooked that Brannigan showed that Leela's race is sexually compatable with humans.
Brannagan and his men did nothing. They didn't stop the Planet Express crew from landing, didn't tow them to safety, and didn't stop them from leaving. Nor did they chase them down afterward.
Subplots:
Leela not knowing about her parents. The Captaincy is perfect for her, since it will give her a chance to look for them.
The fact that Amy's family is very rich would be of interest to Mom.
Amy is the Chinese (???) girl in the show who occasionally goes on runs with the crew. I can't quite figure out what her real function is yet (engineer???), but from what I can tell, she's just a little rich girl who's disenfranchised by all the money her family has and wants to live like normal folks. You know, amongst us "little people."
Oh, yeah. It's funny how I tend to forget that kind of stuff. If I recall correctly it appears that she has a rather strong affinity for non-coporeal life-forms that pick her up at discos, too. Oh. And she most decidedly does NOT think that rings are cool.
Binocular depth perception in humans is only a factor out to a few tens of yards at most. It might help you figure out how far to reach to press a button, but isn't really a factor in flying an aircraft, let alone piloting a spaceship. Most distance perception cues come from angular sizes of known objects and parallax from motion. If you close one eye and walk around I bet you don't bump into things any more than usual.
I think the real question is whether Leela is really an alien (who happens to be sexually compatible with humans, or at least Zapp Branigan) or a genetically-modified human. In which case what does her one eye do that normal human eyes don't?
Actually, one thing that having a single eye would be good for is expenses. I mean, think about it... exactly how much do glasses for a cyclops really cost? Figuring for raw materials, they SHOULD be cheaper... however, I'm sure some moke would get the bright idea that since not many people have a single eye in the center of their foreheads, cyclops eyeglasses could end up being quite expensive.
For that matter, how does Leela deal with GOING to the optometrist?
Doctor: Okay, Leela. Now we're going to do the eye exam. Put your hand over your eye, look at the chart and tell me what you see.
Leela: Nothing.
Doctor: Excuse me?
Leela: Doctor, are you SURE this is the only way an eye exam has to be done? At this rate I'll be declared legally blind in about two minutes.
Doctor: Oh. I see. Well, uhm, I don't suppose placing your hand over HALF your eye would help?
Leela: I don't think so, Doctor. Then I'd only be able to see half a letter- and my hand.
Doctor: Hmm... okay, let's get back to that later. Now. I'm going to shine this light in your eye and I want you to look directly into mine, do you understand?
Leela: Yes.
Doctor: Okay, Leela. Please keep your eye still. Leela? Stop that, Leela. It's not healthy to make your eye quiver like that.
Leela: Can't help it, Doc. You told me to look into your eyes.
Doctor: Good point.
Leela: Doc? Can I stop looking into your eyes now? It's giving me a headache.
Next scene: Leela walks out of the optometrist's examination room with a very annoyed-looking doctor behind her. Next we see Leela's examination papers get stamped with a big red sign that says, PASSED on it.
She has POOR depth perception, not none. She has simply compensated well
Actually I knew a girl in college with tunnel vision and she did the cutest little head tilt thing. I didn't even know what it was until I asked her boyfriend and he said "Oh, she has tunnel vision. She does that head tilt to get depth perception. "
And that lead to him telling me about another girl he knew named Julia who happened to have a glass eye. They used to tease her with a song......
(To the tune of Gloria) J-U-L-One EYE-A Jooooooooolia
have we (I) seen Mom yet? I've heard about her but don't recall seeing or hearing about here on the show.. (I've taped them all, so maybe I need to rewatch them?)(which I'll do anyway..)
For those of us die-hard hard fans, we've already read the Spin Magazine article that gives a fairly good run-down of some of the Futurama characters. Mom is a RIIIIIIIIIICH woman who is apparently nothing more than a ruthless old hag that hates everyone but due to her marketing strategies, everyone's been fooled. Nearly everyone in the galaxy just about loves everything about her and, well, if Betty Crocker was some mean ol' bitch that had stolen her grandmother's brownie recipe, no one knows about it and probably wouldn't care. Hmmm... yeah... think of her as a cross between Ross Perot, Hillary Clinton and Betty Crocker- even with THOSE archetypes, people love her to death. Oh, and she wears a "fat suit" in public so as to perpetuate her cuddly and loveable image. Next?