The Futurama Holiday Spectacular (Futurama)

The Futurama Holiday Spectacular is a holiday special episode from mh:besttvshows:Futurama. It is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season and it aired on November 21, 2010.

Plot
The episode is an anthology story about the celebration of three winter holidays, namely Christmas/Xmas, Robanukah and Kwanzaa, with a segment of the episode dedicated to each holiday.

Why It's Not Spectacular

 * 1) The special relies way too much on dark humour to the point it ends up being repetitive, with all three segments ending with the deaths of the entire main cast (with the exception of Bender in the Robanukah one). Futurama could make dark Christmas stories work, as seen with the "Robot Santa" episodes from the FOX seasons, but this episode in particular went way too far.
 * 2) * It shares the same problem that mh:besttvshows:The Simpsons episode "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" had - except it's much, much worse here.
 * 3) According to the creators, the Treehouse of Horror episodes from mh:besttvshows:The Simpsons were the inspiration for this episode. Even though an idea for a Christmas anthology episode is not a bad idea, it was poorly executed due to the episode trying to rely on dark humour (as mentioned earlier) and it feels way more like a Halloween episode with the Halloween elements replaced with Christmas elements.
 * 4) * Not to mention, Futurama had already done Treehouse of Horror-style episodes with "Anthology of Interest I" and "Anthology of Interest II", and even then, those episodes actually worked because they tried to make each story different and unique from each other, and didn't rely on being dark or surreal unlike this one.
 * 5) Muddled message in the first segment, which can't decide whether or not it wants to be pro-environmental or a parody of such stories.
 * 6) Bender is shown to be a complete sociopath in the second segment, managing to get the entire Planet Express crew killed and treating it as nothing more than a minor inconvenience - and he only cares about the fact that they turn into petroleum oil!
 * 7) * Even if Bender is shown to be a sociopath in episodes before this one, he's never been this sociopathic before.
 * 8) Continuity error: For some reason, the space bees are now able to speak in English when, in the episode "The Sting", the Planet Express crew needed Bender to act as an interpreter. What's weirder is that the writers apparently did remember this, as Bender complains about having to do this job again before they enter the hive.
 * 9) The third segment has arguably the worst, most disturbing ending of all three segments, with the Planet Express crew getting covered in beeswax and burned alive by the space bees. It also closes out with a mediocre gag featuring Al Gore, which feels like it was added in at the last minute.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) While it resulted in a downer ending to the segment, Bender managing to destroy the Earth by lighting up a cigar is actually pretty funny.
 * 2) There are a handful of funny dialogue from some of the characters in this episode, such as:
 * 3) * Amy eating an unshelled nut, followed by her line "It's nutso good!".
 * 4) * Leela's line "We brought a chocolate cake, but now I'm worried that might be offensive in some way."
 * 5) * Fry's line "Wait! I know where we can get beeswax! From those giant space bees that nearly killed us, and we promised we would never go back there!", followed by Farnsworth saying "Let's go back there!".
 * 6) The concept of a Christmas anthology episode is actually a decent idea, albeit poorly executed.
 * 7) Thankfully, none of the three segments are canon to the series.

Reception
The episode was generally not well-received amongst fans, and many called it both the season and the series' worst episode, currently sitting at a 6.5 rating on IMDB. In fact, it's the lowest rated episode there.