A Flight to Remember

Fry, Leela, and Bender hand their resignations to Professor Farnsworth after narrowly escaping another delivery with their lives, but reconsider when he announces that the Planet Express team will take a cruise on the maiden voyage of the largest space cruise ship ever built: the Titanic. As they board they are stopped by Zapp Brannigan, the ship's honorary captain. Attempting to avoid Brannigan's advances, Leela claims she is engaged to Fry. Bender meets the robot Countess de la Roca. Brannigan deviates from the ship's course, opting to fly through a swarm of comets. Amy unexpectedly runs into her parents who attempt to set Amy up with a date. To redirect her parents' attention, Amy claims Fry is her boyfriend, making Leela jealous.

Bender meets the Countess again and pretends to be rich. At first he is only after her money, but he soon realizes he loves her. She learns Bender is a broke felon when he attempts to steal drinks from the bar. She tells him that she is not interested in his wealth; she loves him for his personality. Hermes is urged to participate in a limbo competition, but declines, as he was still recovering from guilt over an incident that occurred at the 2980 Olympics where a child trying to emulate him fatally broke his spine. Brannigan declares Leela the winner of the competition, despite her not being a contestant. She and Fry are invited to dinner at the captain's table. At dinner, both Brannigan and Amy's parents are present; they demand that Fry kiss his date. Before the fake relationships are exposed, Kif calls Brannigan to the bridge; the new course has endangered the ship.

Brannigan attempts to correct the problem by piloting the ship too close to a black hole. Realizing the danger he has put them in, Brannigan promotes Kif to Captain before fleeing the ship. Outside, Fry and Leela nearly kiss before they are interrupted by the ship breaking in half. Bender heads off to save the Countess while the rest of the crew head for the escape pods. An airlock door closes, blocking the crew's escape. Zoidberg holds it open a few inches, but the door release is on the other side. Hermes resurrects his old limbo skills to squeeze under the door. Arriving at the escape pods, they meet Amy's parents, who have found Amy a new boyfriend: "Captain" Kif. After waiting as long as they can for Bender, the crew launches the escape pod. Bender leaps from the Titanic, Countess in tow. He grabs the escape pod, but they are overweight. The Countess sacrifices herself so the others may escape, upsetting Bender. Entering the pod, a heartbroken Bender says he will have her diamond bracelet to remind him of her. Bender then immediately asks Hermes what it's worth, who then examines it and tells Bender that it is not real, causing Bender to break down and cry.

This episodes features the beginning of the relationship between Kif Kroker and Amy Wong. The relationship was originally meant to be a one–off joke; however, the writers found it to be convenient and used it in later episodes.[1] Recurring characters Leo and Inez Wong, and LaBarbara Conrad were first introduced in the episode.

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+, stating, "...Enough of these jokes land to keep the storyline moving (the Love Boat riff was a nice touch), and the advantage of an episode like this one, which has so much going on at once, is that nothing really overstays its welcome. That also means that there’s no time to dig deep into any single story, but given the general, genial shallowness of all this, that’s probably for the best."[3]

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