"Roswell That Ends Well" is the nineteenth episode in the <!-- Please do not change. Production order, not airing order, is used here. --> third season of the American animated television series Futurama, and the 51st episode of the series overall. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 9, 2001. The plot centers on an accidental time travel event that results in the main characters participating in the Roswell Incident in 1947. 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. 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 unintentionally during a supernova as that was deemed to be a suitably rare occurrence.

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 and Terminator movies. The episode also shares much in common with the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men". Bender's head lying buried in the sand for centuries recalls the same thing happening to the android Data's head in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow". The episode also features a digital clock resembling the ones used for the DeLorean time machine, as well as a clock resembling a cat from Back to the Future.

Much of Enos' character is taken from Gomer Pyle, marking Futuramas first win in this category. Rich Moore also won an Annie Award for "Directing in an Animated Television Production" in 2002 and in 2006, IGN ranked the episode as the sixth best Futurama episode. In 2013, they reassessed the list and upgraded it to third best. In 2001, executive producer David X. Cohen noted that this was one of his favorite episodes of the series. Sci Fi Weekly gave the episode an "A" grade and noted that it was "a half hour of pure entertainment". Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A. 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. Claudia Katz, producer of Futurama, has also stated that this is one of her three favorite episodes of the series. In 2013, it was ranked number 5 "as voted on by fans" for Comedy Central's Futurama Fanarama marathon. 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.

See also

  • "Ouroboros" (Red Dwarf)

References

  • Roswell That Ends Well at The Infosphere.
  • Episode capsule at GotFuturama.com