I just realised there's something very Samuel Beckett about the probe's predicament: a lone consciousness talking to itself, like Krapp in Krapp's Last Tape. I guess that's why the humour fits so well. It's an existential absurdist comedy of existence.

The sports team motif is comic and touching simultaneously, which I think is a delightful tone to achieve.

And then there's the additional tragi-comic effect of the probe babbling to itself. Babbling is the state Beckett always attributes to human beings who are dying, and of course, all human beings are dying. So babbling is a last ditch attempt at living.

I realise the probe is actually choking me up. :-o