6x01 - Sliding Bobs

Hello and welcome to the inaugural opening of the dedicated Bob's Burgers review section! Can you believe we made it to season six? I'm hoping for more facets of Tina like we saw last season but I'd also like them to stick rather than be seen once but immediately flip back without mention. As she's the favourite of everyone that can never happen because her awkwardness and perving are your awkwardness and perving, fans! I can still dream though. Okay, this week's episode is "Sliding Bobs" where we're doing the trusty three-part kid Belcher story on how Bob and Linda met. In addition, as this is a new season in a more organised placed it marks the return of the line of the night, the store of the week, the exterminator of the week and the burgers of the day that you might remember from my old tiny reviews of episodes back at the Old Country.



The episodes of Futurama I liked the most weren't the ones with heartfelt emotions so earnest they may as well be have the words "feel now" on screen but when they delved into "what if" tales in their Anthology of Interest episodes mostly because the writers had all the deft of a piledriver when it came to emotional stories. Bob's Burgers also keeps something similar going with three stories all with the same themeline but very different interpretations of things through the Belcher kids. This episode has two 80s film reference stories and a chilling view of an alternate yet somewhat credible reality as we get into why Linda fell for Bob (apparently a moustache does a lot for a girl like Linda) and the kids making speculative fiction about what if they hadn't met. Tina stands by the wayside protesting about true love and fate because that's just how Tina is, in love with the concept of love and everything being predetermined because it makes sense for her for everything to happen as pre-destined, no room for random events. We get Gene's version of ill-fated things by way of RoboCop (not sure how he watched that) with Bob becoming a cop with a robotic moustache, Louise's by way of Big with a lot of hair growth and freakshows and Tina's by way of Sliding Doors flipping the roles of Bob and Hugo and a disturbing view of things through Linda and Hugo's blonde and well-adjusted kids Mona, Dean and Charlene at their hot dog store! Tina's story is the better one because while I did enjoy both of the stories Gene and Louise had, they were way too short and while Tina's was just as crazy, it's clear a lot more went into that grounded tale. Mona, parallel universe Tina, is like some kind of weird wish fulfilment for me, like Dina but better because she's all attitude and no horses, I don't know if I'd warm to her much but maybe I could. Bob does have butterlip, I don't like his moustache generally but it's like Marge without her pearl necklace, he looks very incomplete without it somehow so he should keep it if only because he needs that grade of scuzziness it provides.

I think this episode did good, a real nice ease-you-in type of episode to get you back to being used to everyone and still not quite getting Gene, the sort of episode you select as the first one but would be weaker midway through the season. It did ask questions about it but the main thing is that Linda would have eventually gone for Bob or rather she'd have gone for his moustache first then maybe the ugly faced, dumb faced, donkey necked, weird legged guy with dumb breath underneath it.