It has been many years since Futurama’s cancelation and the world has changed a great deal.  Social networking has become more then a pastime for teenage web-heads, cell phones are no longer simply a handy tool but instead a way of life, Youtube videos have become the purest form of publishing lost behind thousands of hours of nut shots, and in those seven years the internet has evolved into something far greater than it ever was and in these seven years Futura hasn’t been around to make fun of them.

“Sch-Wow!! It’s that obscure underground song that is constantly playing everywhere!!” – Amy Wong

In Attack of the Killer App, the third episode since its revival, Futurama tackles these big changes in the social world.  The episode focuses on the release of MOM Company’s new phone the eyePhone, an ocular implant that functions like a modern day cell phone, and its most popular application Twitcher, which lets you send images, videos and updates called Twits that Mom uses to send targeted advertisements.  Now in an effort to prove whose Twit are more entertaining Fry and Bender race to be the first to get a million Twitcher followers, a number that will inadvertently set Mom’s sinister plan into action to unleash a mental virus that will turn them all into mindless zombie who obey her every command.

The show, which doesn’t forget its own canon, has an appearance of Flexo, keeps Amy’s same cell phone from Amazon Women in the Mood and the identical chairs at the Cygnoids pizza restaurant from A Leela of Her Own.

The multiple in-show jabs at Apple, Steve Jobs, iPhone junkies, and social networking junkies were only topped by the environmental jokes made at the beginning when they show what happens to discarded e-garbage and the harmful effects on the Third World….of the Antares system.

“Scoop Chang: New New York Times online blog comments editor. Isn’t this e-waste dangerous?” – Scoop Chang

Once again we are witnessed to the new level of writing since the shows return.  With the subtle jokes on arousal, the current twitter material based reporting of newspaper and media, the feeding habits of two-headed dogs, and a unique parody concerning a singing mutant boil on Leela’s right butt cheek named Susan.

This episode was hilarious a shows a clear progress since the series returned.  Where the first episode was plagued with returning things to status quo and the second episode lost momentum during its Garden of Eden scene, the third episode returns Futurama to its strength reminding us of past favourites like “Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV” and “That’s Lobstertainment!”

eyePhone Retailer – “Ok!  It’s $500, you have no choice of carrier, the battery can’t hold a charge and the reception isn’t very g..” 

Fry – “Shut Up and take my money!”