Möbius Dick (Futurama)
Encyclopedia
"Möbius Dick", is the fifteenth episode of the sixth season
of the animated sitcom Futurama
. It aired on Comedy Central
in the United States on August 4, 2011.
sends the Planet Express crew to collect a monumental statue of his first crew for a memorial marking the fiftieth anniversary of their disappearance. To save time on the return to Earth after forcing the statue to be recarved to fix a grammar error, Leela travels through the Bermuda Tetrahedron
where they find a graveyard
of lost spaceships, including the first crew's Planet Express ship. While the crew investigates the ship, a four-dimensional space whale appears and devours the old ship and statue; Zoidberg, the only member of the first crew who returned to Earth, identifies the whale as the one responsible for the first crew's disappearance.
Leela becomes obsessed with killing the whale to take revenge for eating the statue and delaying their return to Earth in time for the memorial, and grows increasingly insane with each failed effort. The whale eventually devours the Planet Express ship
and swallows the crew alive (with the exception of Zoidberg, who again returns to Earth in an escape pod). Inside the whale, Leela encounters the captain of the first crew, Lando Tucker, fused to the inside of the whale's belly. Lando explains that the whale feeds on obsession
, luring obsessive space captains into the Tetrahedron to feed itself. Leela is fused to the whale's belly like Lando, but her overwhelming obsession with completing her delivery grants her control over the whale, allowing her to bring it to the Planet Express building in time for the memorial. She forces the whale to release everyone and everything it has swallowed, including the statue and the first crew. Despite acknowledging that the space whale is not a monster, as it merely follows its instinct, everyone (except Zoidberg and original crew member Candy, who end up making out
with each other) proceeds to kill the whale out of revenge
for swallowing them.
and Herman Melville
's novel, Moby-Dick
. Perhaps citing the latter, repeated comparisons are made between Leela and Captain Ahab
of Moby Dick.
Tom Baker
's Fourth Doctor
from Doctor Who
appears at the end of the episode. The plot is also similar to an unmade Doctor Who serial known as "The Song of the Space Whale" which involved a group of people living in the belly of a whale in space who are rescued by the Doctor. The Space Whale also shows some physical similarities to a Doctor Who creature that appeared in the Eleventh Doctor
episode, "The Beast Below
".
The story has elements from the X-Men
storyline that introduced the Brood
and the Acanti
, a race of space whales, one of which Storm is bonded to in a very similar fashion to that of Lando Tucker.
Fry intermixes the Biblical story of Jonah
and the whale with Pinocchio
.
Leela calls Amy "Sailor Moon
".
The spaceship graveyard contains many spaceships from popular culture:
The references to the ships the Garmin
and the TomTom
are named for popular GPS device brands.
The space whale produces fractals when it breaches. It is also said to have a "Möbius colon" which endlessly recycles time and space, much like the mathematical object.
The multi-coloured tunnel of light in the fourth dimension is another reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The final scene where Leela arrives back at Planet Express inside the whale is a reference to the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind
.
Futurama (season 6)
Futurama sixth production season originally aired on Comedy Central from June 24, 2010 to September 8, 2011 and consisted of 26 episodes. The season marks the change of networks from Fox to Comedy Central.David X...
of the animated sitcom Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
. It aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
in the United States on August 4, 2011.
Plot
Professor FarnsworthHubert J. Farnsworth
Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, or simply The Professor, is a fictional character in the American animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a combination of impressions of Burgess Meredith and Frank Morgan. Farnsworth is the proprietor of the Planet Express delivery...
sends the Planet Express crew to collect a monumental statue of his first crew for a memorial marking the fiftieth anniversary of their disappearance. To save time on the return to Earth after forcing the statue to be recarved to fix a grammar error, Leela travels through the Bermuda Tetrahedron
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....
where they find a graveyard
Ship graveyard
A ship graveyard or ship cemetery is a location where the hulls of scrapped ships are left to decay and disintegrate, or left in reserve...
of lost spaceships, including the first crew's Planet Express ship. While the crew investigates the ship, a four-dimensional space whale appears and devours the old ship and statue; Zoidberg, the only member of the first crew who returned to Earth, identifies the whale as the one responsible for the first crew's disappearance.
Leela becomes obsessed with killing the whale to take revenge for eating the statue and delaying their return to Earth in time for the memorial, and grows increasingly insane with each failed effort. The whale eventually devours the Planet Express ship
Planet Express Ship
The Planet Express Ship is a fictional spaceship in the animated series Futurama, which bears the official designation "U.S.S. Planet Express Ship." The ship was designed and built by Professor Hubert Farnsworth and is the sole delivery ship of Planet Express, a delivery service owned by the...
and swallows the crew alive (with the exception of Zoidberg, who again returns to Earth in an escape pod). Inside the whale, Leela encounters the captain of the first crew, Lando Tucker, fused to the inside of the whale's belly. Lando explains that the whale feeds on obsession
Fixation (psychology)
Fixation: 'concept originated by Sigmund Freud to denote the persistence of anachronistic sexual traits'. Subsequently '"Fixation" acquired a broader connotation...
, luring obsessive space captains into the Tetrahedron to feed itself. Leela is fused to the whale's belly like Lando, but her overwhelming obsession with completing her delivery grants her control over the whale, allowing her to bring it to the Planet Express building in time for the memorial. She forces the whale to release everyone and everything it has swallowed, including the statue and the first crew. Despite acknowledging that the space whale is not a monster, as it merely follows its instinct, everyone (except Zoidberg and original crew member Candy, who end up making out
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
with each other) proceeds to kill the whale out of revenge
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
for swallowing them.
Cultural references
The episode's title is derived from a combination of the Möbius stripMöbius strip
The Möbius strip or Möbius band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface...
and Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's novel, Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
. Perhaps citing the latter, repeated comparisons are made between Leela and Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab may refer to:* Ahab , the captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick* Captain Ahab , a Los Angeles based pop/electronic band...
of Moby Dick.
Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...
's Fourth Doctor
Fourth Doctor
The Fourth Doctor is the fourth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC British television science-fiction series Doctor Who....
from Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
appears at the end of the episode. The plot is also similar to an unmade Doctor Who serial known as "The Song of the Space Whale" which involved a group of people living in the belly of a whale in space who are rescued by the Doctor. The Space Whale also shows some physical similarities to a Doctor Who creature that appeared in the Eleventh Doctor
Eleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor is the eleventh incarnation of the protagonist of the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Matt Smith plays this incarnation, replacing David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the 2010 episode "The End of Time, Part Two"...
episode, "The Beast Below
The Beast Below
"The Beast Below" is the second episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by showrunner Steven Moffat and broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 10 April 2010....
".
The story has elements from the X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
storyline that introduced the Brood
Brood (comics)
The Brood are a race of insectoid, parasitic, extraterrestrial beings that appear in the comic books published by Marvel Comics, especially Uncanny X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum, they first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #155 .The Brood possess wings, fanged teeth and...
and the Acanti
Acanti
The Acanti are a race of fictional whale-like, extraterrestrial beings that have appeared in Uncanny X-Men within the Marvel Comics universe. They were created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum. Many of them were enslaved by the Brood empire.-Physical characteristics:The Acanti...
, a race of space whales, one of which Storm is bonded to in a very similar fashion to that of Lando Tucker.
Fry intermixes the Biblical story of Jonah
Jonah
Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation...
and the whale with Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
.
Leela calls Amy "Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
".
The spaceship graveyard contains many spaceships from popular culture:
- The BostonBoston (band)Boston is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. Centered on guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is a staple of classic rock radio playlists...
spaceship that appears on the cover of each of the band's albums. - The Electric Light OrchestraElectric Light OrchestraElectric Light Orchestra were a British rock group from Birmingham who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones...
spaceship: The spaceship appears on the album art for the 1977 album Out of the BlueOut of the Blue (Electric Light Orchestra album)The 30th Anniversary Edition was released on February, 20th 2007 with three bonus tracks.-Personnel:ELO*Jeff Lynne – lead vocals, backing vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion*Bev Bevan – drums, percussion, backing vocals, fire extinguisher on "Mr...
. - The Jupiter II from Lost in SpaceLost in SpaceLost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
. - Discovery OneDiscovery OneUnited States Spacecraft Discovery One is a fictional spacecraft appearing in The Space Odyssey series, including the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Discovery One is a large, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceship.-History:...
and Space Station V from 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey (film)2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
and the Monolith (with a part chewed off from it) from 2010: The Year We Make Contact. - The tail section of Oceanic AirlinesOceanic AirlinesOceanic Airlines and less frequently Oceanic Airways are fictional airlines used in several films and television programs.The most famous use of this brand is in the TV show Lost, where Oceanic Airlines is featured branded with a highly-stylized logo depicting an Aboriginal dot painting that...
Flight 815 from the TV series LostLost (TV series)Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. Oceanic Airlines is also commonly across various media. - The spaceship from Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.
- An Apollo lunar moduleApollo Lunar ModuleThe Apollo Lunar Module was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US Apollo program by Grumman to carry a crew of two from lunar orbit to the surface and back...
with the ascent and decent stages still joined. - An Apollo command/service moduleApollo Command/Service ModuleThe Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation...
, labelled "Apollo 100" - SkylabSkylabSkylab was a space station launched and operated by NASA, the space agency of the United States. Skylab orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a mass of...
- Saturn V stage 1
- A green-coloured ship otherwise very similar to Vulture from Salvage 1Salvage 1Salvage 1 is an American science fiction series that aired for 16 episodes on ABC during 1979. The pilot film, Salvage, aired on January 20, 1979 to high ratings....
. - The Event Horizon from the film of the same nameEvent Horizon (film)Event Horizon is a 1997 science fantasy horror film. The screenplay was written by Philip Eisner and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The film stars Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill...
The references to the ships the Garmin
Garmin
Garmin Ltd. , incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is the parent company of a group of companies founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao , that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System...
and the TomTom
TomTom
TomTom NV is a Dutch manufacturer of automotive navigation systems, including both stand-alone units and software for personal digital assistants and mobile telephones. It is the leading manufacturer of navigation systems in Europe. TomTom's customer service is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands...
are named for popular GPS device brands.
The space whale produces fractals when it breaches. It is also said to have a "Möbius colon" which endlessly recycles time and space, much like the mathematical object.
The multi-coloured tunnel of light in the fourth dimension is another reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The final scene where Leela arrives back at Planet Express inside the whale is a reference to the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
.