Overclockwise

"Overclockwise" is the one hundred and thirteenth episode of Futurama, the twenty-fifth of the sixth production season and the twelfth of the eighth broadcast season. It aired 1 September, 2011 on Comedy Central. Bender evolves into a godlike being after vastly increasing his processing power.

Act I: "Don't you ever wonder about the future?"
Cubert overclocks Bender to improve his performance while playing an online game. Walt, Larry, and Igner are defeated by Bender and complain to Mom, who sues both Cubert and Professor Farnsworth for overclocking Bender, which is a violation of Bender's contract of ownership. She also sends an army of robots to capture Bender so he can be reset to his original, slower programming. Due to his heightened intelligence caused by his overclocking, Bender begins processing countless books and hooks himself to a water cooler to prevent himself from overheating. He then steals the processing chips of Mom's robots, increasing his capacities even further before leaving Planet Express to find a new, larger coolant.

Act II: "I really shouldn't agree to things I don't understand, but I'm slightly thirsty."
During their trial, Farnsworth and Cubert are ordered to bring in Bender as evidence of their contract violation, and are forced to pay $10,000 every day until Bender is found. With Planet Express running out of business, Leela, weary of her on-again, off-again relationship with Fry, decides to leave Planet Express. Heartbroken, Fry attempts to commit suicide by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. There, he discovers a cave behind the falls where Bender has developed into an omnipotent being capable of foreseeing the future, using the falls as his new cooling system. Fry tries to convince Bender to help Farnsworth and Cubert, but Bender refuses, unconcerned with their troubles and predicting that they will be found guilty. Fry then asks Bender whether what his future with Leela would be like if they came together, after which Bender gives him a sad look and tells him to leave, saying nothing about Leela.

Act III: "We've had some tough times, but at least we won a Tony!"
After Fry returns to Farnsworth and Cubert's trial, Bender has a change of heart and appears in court, accusing Mom of unfairly trying Cubert, a minor. Fearing that Cubert will gain the jury's sympathy, Mom drops charges against Cubert while still attempting to sue Farnsworth. However, Bender declares that by dropping charges against Farnsworth's clone, she is unable to press charges against Farnsworth for the same crime because he and Cubert are technically the same person. Enraged that she is unable to sue Farnsworth, Mom captures Bender and has him reset to his original programming, returning him to normal. Leela also returns to Fry, who still wonders what the future holds for him and Leela. Bender reveals that he had written down his prediction of their future, which Fry and Leela silently read together. The two don't reveal to the viewer exactly what the prediction says, but their facial expressions indicate that they will have their ups and downs, and will ultimately have a happy ending.

Production
"Overclockwise" was originally planned to be the series finale of season 6, but it was later moved to the penultimate episode to make "Reincarnation" the finale. As "Reincarnation" is a non-canon segmented episode, however, "Overclockwise" is seen as the "proper" season finale. The episode was written in 2010, before the series had been renewed for another season, and much like "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" and Into the Wild Green Yonder, "Overclockwise" was written as if it was the last episode ever of Futurama. As such, Ken Keeler was once again in charge of the writing, making this his third "last episode ever" for the series.

During June 2011, Countdown to Futurama released four items of promotional material for the episode: concept art of the interior of transfigured Bender's head on 7 June, concept art of Fry's character in World of World War II 3 on 8 June, part of the storyboard showing Mom's sons release hoverfish on 9 June, and a video clip featuring Fry talking to the transfigured Bender on 20 June.

Two promotional pictures for the episode were released by Comedy Central Press.

Reception
In its original U.S. broadcast on 1 September, 2011, "Overclockwise" scored a 0.8 share among adults aged 18-49, and 1.571 million total viewers. Both numbers were up compared to the previous week's broadcast of "Cold Warriors".

Trivia

 * The episode is among the few one-word titled media.
 * It was written as the last episode because the show hadn't been renewed at the time of the writing.
 * This is one of four episodes of broadcast season 8 to be broadcast in production order. The other three are "Fry Am the Egg Man", "Cold Warriors" and "Reincarnation".
 * This episode marks the first time that Randy Munchnik is referred to by name.
 * This is the first episode written by Ken Keeler in which Ben Beeler, who was named after Keeler, appears.
 * The Region 4 version of Volume 6 lists this episode as "Over Clock Wise".

Allusions

 * The X-Cube 360 is a parody of (including Kinect) and.
 * World of World War II 3 is a parody of games that combines online es such as  and s with advanced motion-sensing controls. World War II is often seen as an overused setting for war videogames.
 * The Game Over screen plays a bit of classical music that gets interrupted by an explosion, which echoes the Game Over screen for the classic arcade game .
 * Bender says that he is 12 years out of date, which is a reference to Futurama's run so far, from 1999-2011 (12 years).
 * A processing chip inside Bender's lower body is labelled an AMD Athlon II.
 * The German commander character in World of World War II 3 resembles from .
 * Walt slaps himself and says, "Ach! I could haf fired a V-8!" This is a parody of the famous advertising campaign "I could've had a !". It could also be an upgrade to the V2 rocket.
 * When Professor Farnsworth and Cubert are in jail, there's a  drawing on the wall.
 * Nibbler suggests putting on a show called Nibbler on the Roof, a parody of . He is later seen dressed as the lead character, Tevye.
 * The hoverfish resemble the Sentinels from the.
 * Mom ordering the hoverfish to "Bring me the clock of Bender Rodriguez" is a reference to the film 
 * Judge Whitey says to Cubert, "That'll do, pig," a famous line from the movie .
 * The King of Space is a reference to the.
 * Alternatively, it could be a reference to The King of All Cosmos from video games.
 * Bender using Niagara Falls as cooling for his processor is most likely a reference to a famous quote from a Professor of Electrical Engineering who said,“The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required.”
 * The German commander mentions listening to German electronic music group.
 * On Mom's sons' wall, there is a poster of Mom sitting in a pose. This poster is very similar to that of a classic photo.
 * There is also a poster of the Hypnotoad in the "black light" style popular during the Sixties.
 * The first time Bender, Fry and Cubert play World of World War II 3, Bender's character is very clunky and glitchy, which may be a reference to 's and 's, motion controlled consoles that often feature very unresponsive characters and avatars.
 * Bender "[hacking himself] inside out and now the entire universe [being his] processor" may be a reference to 's , a classic science fiction novel featuring a being of "pure intellect", named Vanamonde, whose consciousness is described as a "quantum lattice wrought into the very fabric of the Universe". In that novel, Vanamonde is the one who reveals the true history of the human race to the protagonists in what is commonly rated among the best science fiction plot twists of all time. Since The City and the Stars (published 1956), the theme of beings similar to Vanamonde has been adopted many times for extremely old and powerful entities throughout science fiction.

Bender's reading list
Some of the books that Bender reads while overclocked include:
 * Calculus
 * Advanced Calculus
 * Decline and Fall of the Romulon Empire
 * References  by Edward Gibbon, and the from Star Trek
 * The 
 * Anti 
 * NNYC Phone Book
 * Wuthering Gattaca
 * Referencing ', and '.
 * The Mathketball Diaries
 * Advanced Calculus (Again)
 * Every Translation of the 
 * Ventriloquism for Dummies
 * References the  book series.
 * Dante's Life in Hell
 * Referencing the ' by Dante Alighieri, and ' by Matt Groening
 * Connecticut Tax Law
 * Google Book
 * Big Book of Tumbleweeds
 * Guinness Book of Parallel World Records
 * VCR Repair
 * The Collected Wisdom of Braino
 * How I Conquered Your Planet
 * The Complete Simpson Episode Guide
 * The guide resembles, and likely refers to, 
 * All the Presidents' Heads
 * References the book 
 * Shakespeare Typed by Monkeys - Volube 78
 * Referencing the
 * The Sithal War
 * Referencing the and the Star Wars ; it could also refer to ' series ''.
 * Calculon on Calculon
 * Ayn Rand McNally Atlas Shrugged
 * Referencing  by Ayn Rand, and map/atlas publisher
 * Some of the Digits of π
 * Genome of the Flatworm - Volume 12
 * Genome of the Flatworm - Volume 12

Goofs

 * When the scene where Fry and Leela talk about their relationship in the Planet Express balcony starts, the railing of the Planet Express headquarters spells out PLANET EXPRESS. But, on close shots of Fry and Leela talking, it does not.
 * Smitty says that the Planet Express building does not have a doorbell, however a doorbell has been heard in previous episodes.
 * With so many things falling apart in the building (ceiling fans, for example) the doorbell might have been broken.
 * Bender addresses Cubert as a twelve-year-old, but Cubert turned thirteen in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television", which is set years earlier.
 * It can be argued that the characters don't age. It can also be argued, however, that they do, because Farnsworth's age changes from season to season.
 * When Bender interrupts Fishy Joe as he is about to read the jury's verdict, there is a sound effect of Bender quickly sliding his chair back to stand up. However, in the next shot there are no chairs near Bender, and he has been standing up the entire time anyway.
 * When Leela returns to the Planet Express headquarters, Bender has his back to the door, but, in the next camera angle, he has his back to the screen.
 * Leela returns to the Planet Express headquarters through the left door, but, after a few camera-angle changes, is suddenly at the right door.
 * The exterior shot of the Planet Express headquarters at approximately 7 minutes and 36 seconds into the episode shows the hangar roof open, yet when we see inside the building moments later it is shut.
 * During the in-game scenes, Bender is seen wielding an, which was designed in 1957, but the game is set during World War II.
 * This may just be the 31st century's poor knowledge of the 20th century.
 * In "Lethal Inspection", Hermes hacked into Bender's record and marked him as "TERMINATED". Therefore, Mom should know that Bender is terminated, and his record, shown in this episode, should state that he is "TERMINATED".
 * When Mom sees the Professor and Cubert getting arrested she is surprised that she has the opportunity to ruin the Professor; however, because she called the police she should have at least known the name of Cubert Farnsworth and that the location was at Planet Express, a company that Professor Farnsworth owns. Thus, seeing him should not have come as a surprise.

Continuity

 * This is the third time that Bender gives someone or something the finger (although it is implied that he did so offscreen). The first time was visibly seen in "Law and Oracle", then again in "Benderama", but this was not visible.
 * The device that Fry holds when Cubert is overclocking Bender is the same one that Morgan Proctor used to download Bender's brain in "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back".
 * When Mom looks at Bender's data, we see his serial number is 2716057, his unit is 22  and he was inspected by Inspector #5.
 * Bender speed-reads a book called "The Sithal War", an event the Planet Express crew re-enacted in "Lethal Inspection".
 * The bridge where Fry falls over is the same one where he and Leela celebrated Leela's birthday in "The Late Philip J. Fry".
 * This is the first cameo appearance of Nine since Into the Wild Green Yonder, he can be seen wearing his tinfoil hat.
 * Vyolet can be seen in the jury since mutants were granted citizenship in "The Mutants Are Revolting".
 * This is the fourth time that Planet Express almost goes out of business (This fact is referenced in the banner that says "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS...AGAIN!"). The first three times were in Bender's Big Score, Into the Wild Green Yonder and "Neutopia".
 * The Mathketball Diaries, first seen in the non-canonical "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular", reappears.

Characters

 * Amy
 * April
 * Jackie Anderson
 * Angleyne
 * Bailiff
 * Dr. Ben Beeler
 * Bender
 * Chief O'Mannahan (deleted scene)
 * Cubert
 * The falafel cart man
 * Fishy Joe
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Hoschel
 * Debut: Hoverfish
 * The Hyper-Chicken
 * Hypnotoad
 * Igner
 * Ipji
 * Debut: The King of Space
 * Debut: The Korean girls
 * Larry
 * Leela
 * Mom
 * Nibbler
 * Nine
 * The paper-hatted salesman
 * Petunia
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Randy
 * Ron Whitey
 * Scruffy
 * Smitty
 * Sweet Clyde
 * URL
 * Vyolet
 * Walt
 * The yellow and red lawyer
 * Zoidberg