A Farewell to Arms

"A Farewell to Arms" is the one hundred and sixteenth episode of Futurama, the second of the seventh production season and the ninth broadcast season. It aired on 20 June 2012 on Comedy Central. An ancient prophecy from a Martian calendar predicts the world will end in 3012.

Plot
The crew discovers a Martian calendar predicting that the world is going to end in 3012. Indeed, typical end-of-the-world things begin happening. Because electrical power has ceased to exist on Earth, Zapp and Kif have to use a pyramid spaceship left on the planet by the ancient Martians that runs on snakes. Earth is evacuated, but only a limited number of Earthicans can be evacuated to Mars due to the limited capacity of the Martian stone spaceship. President Nixon and Vice President Agnew are faced with the task of deciding which Earthicans can board the ship to flee the planet. In the evacuation process, Fry and Leela are separated.

Production
In 2012, two revelations concerning the episode were made. On 29 February, CGEF revealed the episode's title, its writer to be Josh Weinstein and its director to be Raymie Muzquiz. On 25 April, revealed the episode's plot and air date.

In May, Countdown to Futurama began releasing promotional material for the episode. It has so far released five items: a promotional picture showing Leela - on crutches - and Fry on the Planet Express balcony on 7 May, a video clip featuring the crew discussing the end of the world as well as scenes of New New York in chaos on 8 May, concept art of Fry and Leela's Planet Express prom photo on 9 May a second promotional picture showing Leela being entangled by a puddle monster while Fry, whose pants are on the road, watches on 10 May, concept art of an excavated spaceship inside a cave on 11 May and part of the storyboard showing Zapp pressing a button on a spaceship, causing snakes to be released onto Kif, on 12 May.

Comedy Central's website released another promotional picture - showing Leela and Fry near the balcony. By 1 June, Comedy Central had aired an advertisment for the seventh season of Futurama which featured a new clip from the episode.

South Coast Today published an article about the Futurama season premiere on 16 June, revealing certain details about the episode.  released another preview clip of the episode on 18 June.

Reception
On 30 January 2012, Eric Rogers revealed that his favourite episode from the ninth broadcast season was either "The Bots and the Bees", this one or "31st Century Fox".

Trivia

 * The title "Farewell to Arms", which was registered on the US on 14 July 2011, was a working title for this episode.
 * "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", which is also the second episode of its season, features an end of the world plot as well.
 * If the movies are considered non-episodic, then this episode could be considered the 100th episode.
 * Alternatively, if each movie is considered one episode, this could be considered the 104th episode.
 * This is moot, however, since according to the canon, the movies are considered four episodes each.
 * The name of the episode is a reference to Fry and Leela both having lost one arm at the end of the episode. The word 'Arms' is an anagram of Mars which gets destroyed at the end of the episode.
 * The second act is interesting because it does not end on a funny punch line, but instead a dramatic fade out.
 * Both Leela and Fry should have known they would have survived the Apocalypse since they read Bender's script on their love life in "Overclockwise".
 * If one looks closely at the tickets, it can be known that the ticket Fry gives Leela is actually his own ticket before it is directly revealed when Leela peels off her picture. When Fry receives his ticket from the Contabulous Choosematron, it bears the number combination "023870096 58". When Fry gives Leela the ticket, it bears the same combination.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is taken from the novel . It is used to refer to Fry and Leela's arms getting torn off in the episode.
 * The episode is a parody of the.
 * In the Planet Express ship, Bender is reading a copy of Space Mall, a parody of .
 * Nixon says the best destination for the evacuated Earthicans to be transported to is Mars, which has "no Woodward or Bernstein. That's a plus." He is referring to journalists and, whose news reporting on the  eventually led to Nixon's resignation.
 * Additionally, "that's a plus" could also refer to the advertisement slogan of the social network "Google+".
 * Fry mentions .
 * Nixon says that the spaceplane "just won't turn over, just like Pat on a Sunday morning." "Pat" was the name of in real life.
 * Leela mentions .
 * Fry says that Bender dumped pig's blood on him at the Planet Express Prom, a reference to .

Continuity

 * Singing Wind appears for the second time.
 * The Professor uses the birthing machine to clone new arms for Fry and Leela.
 * Fry gets his arm severed for a second time. The first time was in "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?".
 * The original prophecy said that the Earth would not at all be affected, yet the two planets nearly collided. This may be a reference to the fact that the Earth's orbit was artificially modified in "Crimes of the Hot".
 * Richard Nixon's head is seen with the Headless clone of Agnew. The original Agnew was killed in Into the Wild Green Yonder.

Goofs

 * The storm disables all electronics, yet Nixon's head's robotic arm still functions normally. Additionally, Zapp and the NNYPD's guns should not work either, but it is possible that the laser technology is not affected by the storm. The Contrabulous Choosematron is also another item that still works.
 * All these items could have been powered without electricity, like Bender.
 * In this episode, Amy says she belonged to the sorority Sigma Beta, but in "The Series Has Landed", she says she belonged to Kappa Kappa Wong.
 * She could have changed sororities over the course of twelve years.
 * The crank could give him an extremly long charge.
 * Farnsworth, Fry and Bender should have known the world would not end in 3012, since they witnessed it ending over one billion years later in the Emmy-winning "The Late Philip J. Fry".
 * They initially skipped almost 7000 years, during which time society had collapsed several times on unknown dates. It is likely they were trying to avoid whatever had caused this.
 * If Mars and Earth really passed that close, then the gravity of the two planets would rip them appart.
 * When giving Mars oxygen, it could have altered the gravity.
 * There's no way that burning subteranian gasses could move Mars that close to Earth so quickly, as there are millions of miles between them.
 * It's the future, plus this is the sun we're talking about.
 * The Contrabulous Choosematron gives Fry two passes, so he should have been able to go with everyone to Mars, regardless of giving one to Leela.
 * Fry could've gotten rid of his second pass, as he didn't want two.
 * Although Singing Wind explains why they left the Prophecy on Earth (to warn them not to go to Mars), it doesn't explain why they left the stone ship there.
 * Who knows why they left the ship there, maybe for some other reason.

Characters

 * The 21st-century girl
 * Amy
 * Ben Beeler
 * Ben Beeler's wife
 * Bender
 * Billionaire Bot
 * Calculon
 * The censored couple
 * Debut: Contrabulous Choosematron
 * Cowardman
 * The Crack Addict
 * Dandy Jim
 * Dwight Conrad
 * Elzar
 * Falafel cart man
 * Fat-bot
 * Fry
 * Debut: The Great Reveal-o
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Gus
 * Hattie McDoogal
 * Debut: Headless clone of Agnew
 * Hermes
 * Igner
 * Inez Wong
 * Kif
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Larry
 * Leela
 * Linda van Schoonhoven
 * Leo Wong
 * The male nurse
 * Mom
 * Monique
 * Mrs. Astor
 * Nine
 * Petunia
 * Mayor Poopenmeyer
 * Queen of Yonkers
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Sal
 * Scruffy
 * Singing Wind
 * Smitty
 * Stephanie
 * The underwater house salesman
 * URL
 * Victor
 * Walt
 * Wash Bucket
 * Judge Whitey
 * Zapp
 * Zoidberg