Futurama

Good news everybody!
Caught the season premiere on Thursday. Needless to say its still as hilarious as ever. I'm grateful they stil have their original writers unlike some other re-animated corpse of a show(family guy)

Discuss your opnions

 

A few things. First, I thought Comedy Central did a poor job advertising the premiere. Maybe they advertised it on Comedy Central, but there was nothing on any other channel or medium. I generally avoid Comedy Central because it is 99.999% awful. I even stopped watching Futurama when it switched over. I only found out about the premiere because I was watching some mid-day movie or something on CC.

As for the actual episodes, they were ok. I admit there were some hysterical moments (Coma Chameleon) and overall the episodes were entertaining. However, I felt they just didn't quite match up to the originals and I felt myself uninterested at parts.

I want to watch them again and see how I feel a after a second viewing, but of course Comedy Central doesn't have the full episodes on their page or on Hulu.

 

I love this show, and I thought the two new episodes were excellent, and a good reintroduction to the series. I'm hoping that they can further develop their mythology, while at the same time make more episodes that are funny but can also tell a great emotional story (i.e. Jurassic Bark, The Luck of the Fryrish, Leela's Homeworld, etc). The best episodes of Futurama are much more character driven than anything The Simpsons, Family Guy, or most other shows do. I feel like a trap that a lot of shows fall into is "Throw characters into wacky situation and go..."

Futurama does that sometimes, but it feels like more often than not, its more character driven.

I do think they need to acknowledge some changes the movies made, though... I'll throw them in spoilers in case anyone hasn't seen the movie.

Spoiler

...like Mom's youngest (and dumbest) kid being Professor Farnsworth's kid, and Dark Matter becoming obsolete as a rocket fuel. Those plot devices seem to have vanished. That is, unless I missed something that it was revealed that that didn't actually happen. That entire movie was a fantasy of sorts anyway.

David X Cohen said there is an episode coming up that was Matt Groening's idea, that he is looking forward too:

Spoiler

Apparently, Farnsworth creates a time machine, but it can only go forward in time. Some characters end up going forward, but to get back, they have to keep going forward until they reach a time when time machines were created that could go backwards. I think they could do a LOT with this episode, if done correctly.

Overall, I'm thrilled the show is back, I just hope it can get back to the level it was at before it was canceled.

 

I agree with the bad advertising for this. I'm a huge fan but because I rarely watch CC I didn't learn about the return of the show until just a couple days before it aired. I think some random twitter post is how I found out about it.

Whatever, I'm pumped up for this. I enjoyed the episodes and cracked up a lot. The best part is how insanely stupid Fry is. It looks like they're going to be able to be raunchier now that they're on cable instead of network, so that's good news. I just hope they're around long enough to get the whole mythology storyline developed. I think I heard on the DVD audio commentary that they had plans and ideas that they never got the chance to use.

 

I had to go ahead and download both episodes because I live in Canada and my country apparently doesn't deserve to watch the new season as it airs.

Maybe it's just because it's been a while, but I laughed my ass off. I always thought that Futurama was better than The Simpsons and it's definitely miles above Family Guy. I'm very glad that the show's back.

The biggest laugh for me was Zapp's line when he met with Nixon.

"Mr. President. What the Hell?"

It wasn't even a funny line, but it almost had me in tears. I loved the delivery.

 

When I saw the past few Futurama films, I was mixed about it, more of a time killer than anything for me but I'm glad to see the show back, and the new episodes are just as good (if not better) as the oldschool Futurama episodes, Great to see the show back!

 

There are some subtleties that are a clear throwback to the original episodes as a nod to us fans.

When they were showing the solar system as the Deathsphere was approaching, Uranus was listed as: Urectum.

Stuff like that shows the dedication they have.

 

This show puts the series back on a good footing. The debut episode was enjoyable while the second one was meh. The whole entire E-waste thing, though, kinda felt tacked on. The first third of the show was spent on something that had no relation to the main plot. I do hope that every episode doesn't end up with having to be a some sort of theme

2nd episode: censorship
3rd episode: e-waste

Spoiler

4th episode: Marriage between robots and humans (same sex equivalent)

As long as their funny its alright, but when they turn preachy that is when the comedy dies. I still have high hopes though.

 

I was shocked this show was brought back, I heard zippo about it.

I demand many, many Zap Brannigan and Kif episodes.

 

Well the last episode about "robo"-sexuality seems to reinforce this. I'd like them to be more situational and deal with universal themes than debates in current affairs.

 

Unfortunately they seem to be doing this to build an audience that has had to deal with the shit fuck storm that is Family Guy for the past 8 years. Get new people hooked, and then have stories that aren't built around current events. Then they can go to snide references about pop culture.

Granted, my favorite episode was the episode where they got the 300 Nixon dollars, which was a reflection of the Bush tax rebate.

 

I'm watching the episode where Bender learns he's mortal, and I just love it more each time. There's the usual pop culture references, but I feel the episode really transcends that and addresses a host of universal topics. Most obvious is how we deal with our own mortality. But I also feel like Bender's constant assertion that he's perfect only to learn he has a flaw is something everyone can relate to. I also love the scene at the end in Mexico where he's angry and confused and has to come to grips with it. It seemed to touch on the relationship between parent and child as well.

In short, this episode gives me high hopes that the show is back in full swing and still able to deal with issues that are timeless and not just the flavor of the week.

"Thanks to denial, I'm immortal."

 

This new episode was really good. I loved seeing what they'd do going further into the future to see what the world would become, plus it had a nice touching moment between Leela and Fry. The last two episodes have shown that the show hasn't lost it's heart. Something Futurama has done better than any other prime time cartoon (see: Simpsons, Family Guy, etc) is have some nice, touching, character driven moments. Jurassic Bark, Luck of the Fryrish, and Leela's Homeworld were a few, and they did the same thing in the last two episodes with Hermes/Bender in the last one, and again with Leela/Fry in this one.

This is honestly the only cartoon my wife likes, and she LOVES this show. Not for it's incredibly dumb humor, at times, but in spite of it. Her favorite episode is when Fry spelled out "I love you, Leela" in the stars for her, she just loved that, and again, it's something this show does better than any of it's other cartoon counterparts.

 

"Just slow it down. I'll shoot Hitler out the window."

I almost spit beer everywhere.

 

Well, I have to concur with most everyone in saying that Futurama has not lost a step. I was worried after the lackluster movies, but the new episodes have shown they can do heartwarming (the episode about Bender's mortality) and hilarious (the time travel episode) in equal measure. Looking forward to the new episodes.

Now if only they marketed better so I actually remembered when the episodes were airing, and didn't have to scrounge off the Internet like an asshole...