An excess of high-drama running and panting accompany the thrilling visual cue of total darkness as two silhouetted figures run frantically into the cheesy glow of the Granolith room. A screen caption, written in Microsoft Word font MT Plot Sans Point, informs us that we have found ourselves in "2014 A.D." and that this is "minutes before the fall." The Granolith's planetarium glow shines on Max and Liz in The Future According to the WB's Costuming Department, a most terrifying place indeed for those of us with provincial fashion values who believe that skintight leather sports jackets (Liz) are, like, so Fashion Week 2008 and that sleeveless leather vests worn open (Max, natch) are only appropriate if the wearer is a paid entertainer accessorizing with dollar bills sticking out of a matching leather g-string at a private all-male get-together during a particularly randy weekend on Fire Island. So. Much. Leather. And oh, God, the hair. On both of them. "Frank TJ" Max"y" can't pull off what even Tom Cruise couldn't pull off in Magnolia, and Liz's reedy bob and pancake makeup cement conclusively Andy Warhol's previously unproven theory that "in the future, everyone will be Asian for fifteen minutes." Or something like that.
They stop on the far side of the room and embrace, Future Max hugging Future Liz with only the smallest percent of his strength, lest he cause her to shatter into the millions of electrical components that constitute the Lizbot's central frame. Good thing this whole "saving his species" crusade hasn't in any way inhibited Max's regimented workout routine he's established over the last decade plus, it seems. He tells her, "I don't want to leave you," but Future Liz insists, "No, Max, you have to!" Future Max plot develops, "If I'm successful, if I can do this, we won't exist. Not as we do now." Future Liz counters that if he doesn't engage in the ambiguous "this" I've been hearing so much about, "We're gonna die. Everyone will." Future Max frets that if "this" works, he'll never see her again, and they embrace again as Future Max pours on the drama, "Thank you." For what? "For every kiss, every smile." Awww. Quite the relief to know that the future won't be without the usual amount of shoddily imagined, ineptly delivered dialogue. At least there's no shortage of that. Even when the world is on the brink of caving in on itself. This episode is brought to you by Hallmark, the official greeting card of the apocalypse.
The Dick Wolf Rip-Off Camera Effect of the Fuuuuuture (or maybe it's Dick Wolf himself behind the camera, if his career took a D.C.-esque qualitative turn in the past fourteen years and he ended up working full-time for the WB) shakes the Granolith soundstage, sending the two plunging to the floor. Max extracts a crystal from his pocket as Superman's legal advisors shrug their shoulders and resume work on the intellectual property theft case which had lain mercifully dormant since the scourge of last season's "Destiny." He places said crystal into the base of the Granolith, and the black cone begins to spin around with the intergalactic special effects acumen of the paper spaceship lowering haltingly behind Eugene Levy just before he breaks into a rousing chorus of "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" in Waiting for Guffman. Haven't seen it? Rent it. Much funnier than this, even. And on purpose, too! Liz is thrown harshly back down to the floor (gratuitous Liz abuse! I knew the future wasn't all leather-clad badness), and she looks up to find Max suspended in the spinning Granolith cone. They put out their hands and their fingers almost touch. E.T. phoneyour lawyers. As the cone spins at eighty-eight miles-per-hour or whatever, Max disappears. Lizbot falls to her knees woodenly, displaying that even The Tightest Leather Pants in Show Business somehow manage to have more flexibility than she does. If they wanted to capture the most clich aspects of the future possible, why not just put them both in silver tin foil suits with the collars turned up and have them speak in really monotone voices and say things like, "We. Are. Robots. From. The. Future." At least they're not doing that. Well, except for the monotone voices part.