|
|
Okay hear me out. Yeah I know. S01-04 is the real poo poo. The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings (Dan Castellanetta!) is the real last episode. Fry holophoning stick figures to Leela while everyone else fucks off 'cause they're jerks. I completely agree. Top notch last episode. Great show. The movies suck, yes I know. Ken Keeler holidays songs were not a flavor I wanted to survive the jump to movie-length stories, and that is just complaint #3298 out of 9999 well documented accounts that the writing staff didn't understand what format they were in. Lord of the Rings jokes far too late in season, Phil Hendrie's fourth appearance wasted. Why is Billy West still the voice of Amy's dad? What happened to this show that I used to like but now admittedly still like parts of? Sporadic parts. Definitely not all of them. And then that's it. All the characters die at the end of Wild Green Yonder doing whatever the hell they were doing. Flying into a math joke colliding with a TV business joke. There's no more Futurama than that. This is how The AV Club's retro-reviews of Futurama. Would paint things. Four seasons four movies*, and some scoffs and chuckles in the corner about a different TV channel and how dreadful TV is these days. So awful. But I think, maybe, just maybe, they're wrong. Because I watched the first Comedy central season and hated it except parts (the best they were gonna get from me given the circumstances of the movies, you must understand). Then I saw the first half of S07 and the half-finale, Naturama, made me so mad I got off the ride for good... until just this last Christmas when I was bored and realized "oh, that wasn't just your poo poo-on-the-desk finale? Fine. One last chance". Again, the best the show was going to get at this point. And I was actually won over. Finale #4 (5?) in "Meanwhile" is actually sweet again, much sweeter than Reincarnation or Overclockwise (oh gently caress it's 6 isn't it?) Zoidberg gets a happy New New York ending in "Stench and Stenchability", "Fry and Leela's Big Fling" demonstrates the kind of "okay finally they're dating" story the show was begging for even in the old days, and "Leela and the Genestalk" actually snuck another "Obsoletely Fabulous" moment of mad science ethics into the series while further embracing Leela's identity as a sewer mutant. I actually really liked the clean-up work they did on the smoldering pit that was Futurama, was the impression I was left with. The best they could possibly have got. And so I'm revisiting the entire Comedy Central era, the good ("The Late Phillip J. Fry, the honest spiritual successor to "Roswell that Ends Well"), the bad (What-if Christmas special) and the atrocious (Craig Ferguson is the guest in this one and he plays... oh.), all the way up to the I-gotta-admit-not-too-terrible ending. An okay ending to a troubled show whose dynamics I still admire and fondly recall being disappointed by... an acceptable margin of the time. Your milage may vary. gently caress the AV Club though there's more Futurama and it's pretty OK. Passing grade. Barely. |
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 02:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 16:17 |
|
|
|
I only watched the Comedy Central run once and now it's not on Canadian Netflix, so I have very few relevant opinions. I remember the part of the episode where they go to Mexico to the place of Bender's birth and the dumb shooty robots turn to talk to one another and shoot each other. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 02:42
|
|
|
|
I watched most of the new ones and they were okay, a few were really good, the finale (?) with the thing where fry and leela are like stuck in time was really lovely, but also the old ones really were a lot more hit than miss compared to the new ones 
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 02:51
|
|
|
|
TVsVeryOwn posted:I only watched the Comedy Central run once and now it's not on Canadian Netflix, so I have very few relevant opinions. From the Hermes/Bender episode, right. Yeah, I like that they brought back the Killbot designs and elaborated that they HAVE to fire if anybody says anything gun-related. That episode had another remarkable musical moment too, with Elizabeth Mitchell's "Little Bird Little Bird" in Hermes'/Benders' youth montage. It was a nice stylistic nod back to "Leela's Homeworld" and the Pizzicato 5.
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 02:54
|
|
|
|
There's FIVE episodes left up on Comedy Central's website Edit- aww, behind a paywall. BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jan 30, 2018
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 02:55
|
|
|
|
Digitally the complete series is $60 CDN, which is mighty tempting. But I am a budgetman now. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 05:44
|
|
|
TVsVeryOwn posted:Digitally the complete series is $60 CDN, which is mighty tempting. But I am a budgetman now. i have had it for a couple years cuz i bought it to watch with my x but welp if you could cover the shipping i could send it to you |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 06:44
|
|
|
|
One of my absolute favourite jokes in the whole show is from an otherwise pretty unremarkable episode, That Darn Katz, the one where Ami's university professor turns out to be an intelligent cat in disguise. They discover the cat's realistic human suit slumped over in the professor's chair, and the line is this: "He isn't dead. He's one of those dog-operated puppets...that's been adapted for use by a cat!" It's brilliant. It's sublime. It is a joke of a very rare and funny type. It's not just that this implies dog-operated human puppets exist in the Futurama universe and are widely known, it's the metatextual level of the joke where its own text acknowledges that it could have just introduced the concept of cat-operated human puppets, but instead chose to take the long way around. Love it! |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 16:05
|
|
|
|
"That Darn Katz" is notable to me because it is the source of my avatar. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 16:19
|
|
|
|
Android Blues posted:One of my absolute favourite jokes in the whole show is from an otherwise pretty unremarkable episode, That Darn Katz, the one where Ami's university professor turns out to be an intelligent cat in disguise. They discover the cat's realistic human suit slumped over in the professor's chair, and the line is this: I love that kind of joke, I feel like Futurama has done similar in other eps but I can't quite recall. Maybe it'll come to me later. That's all thanks for reading |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 16:41
|
|
|
|
I like that in That Darn Katz we finally address Amy finishing her graduate studies several years late, after getting way too comfy at a softball internship. That is a 100% legit riff on college princesses, even more than Amy bartering up her own car price or not knowing what rent is. I feel like they struggle with her character all the way up to the end, but when they finally just admit she's a failure-to-launch rich party-girl it finally clicks. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 17:14
|
|
|
Futurama suffered because it almost had the hutzpah to progress its storylines, but then weaseled out at the last second. Every time they were facing cancellation they'd go ahead and have actual plot, then feel the need to regress. Fry and Leela's relationship is the most obvious, because at some point he goes from dogged to creepy rear end stalker. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 17:17
|
|
|
|
Yeah, eventually Leela has said no enough times it's no longer funny that Fry persists. Even though between Time Keeps on Slipping, The Farnsworth Parabox and Bender's Big Score we see how remarkably close she is to marrying him at any given moment, so I can sympathize with the guy. But yeah no means no. Somehow this doesn't detract from the six different endings they get being lovely. Fry learns the holophoner honesty; Leela admits she loves Fry as the Nimbus disappears into a wormhole; Fry reads Leela's last message to him at the end of time; Bender calculates how Fry and Leela's relationship will go while omniscient; 30's-style cartoon Fry proposes under a super-rainbow ("I love this time of day. Everything's so still..."); and finally stopping time in front of the Vampire State building. For being a creepy, broken relationship the two of them skirt the shores of happiness more than once, and there's something realistic about that. |
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2018 17:42
|
|
|
I liked the one where the vchip satellite is censoring indecent planets, and only doesn't censor earth because it wants to see Adam and Eve gently caress. |
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2018 22:03
|
|
|
the best part of futurama was fry goint to the moon and seeing that it loving sucked. just like armstrong b4 him |
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2018 23:45
|
|
|
|
"I'm going to make my own amusement park! With booze and hookers and gambling! Actually, screw the the amusement park." |
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2018 00:13
|
|
|
|
They go back in a Comedy Central era one, when Bender joins the witness protection program. I'll admit, even though it's a corny joke, fry insisting that "Billy West" is a ridiculous made-up name made me laugh.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2018 00:24
|
|
|
I actually prefer the Comedy Central-era ones because they double down on weird sci-fi gags and bizarre one-liners |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2018 08:09
|
|
|
didn't they do two separate stories to retcon how the dog died |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2018 08:21
|
|
|
|
Drink-Mix Man posted:I actually prefer the Comedy Central-era ones because they double down on weird sci-fi gags and bizarre one-liners You may be on to something there. Episodes like A Clockwork Origin, The Late Phillip J Fry and The Prisoner of Benda all have really strong central scifi ideas that get explored from multiple angles. The Professor really hits his stride in those situations, being a classic cartoon inventor who can explain that he made the thing, how it works, and what's gone wrong. I think that might be why I like Meanwhile, the final finale, so much. Professor Farnsworth rescuing Fry and Leela from stopped time but warning them they won't remember the time they spent there is the show's central premise in a nutshell and it even addresses the multiple endings problem. |
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2018 18:38
|
|
|
|
I perhaps give Futurama too much leeway because in my mind partly because it will always be "the good 'The Simpsons'" and partly because I have watched it so frequently and so often that all the seasons kind of run together in my mind and it's hard to separate out the bad ones. The one episode that stands out as being completely unforgivable to me is the eye-phone one. There were a couple episodes around that time that really got into the topical humor Family Guy/South Park rhythm and they were just terrible. One of the great aspects of Futurama is how well jokes from the first season hold up even now. I'm not sure 'timeless' is the right word but it's the one I'm going to use anyway. Whatever season it was where they were doing iPhone jokes and Susan Boyle jokes (like three years after they stopped being relevant it seems) was terrible by Futurama standards, but even then they're probably only "kinda bad" when compared to the rest of tv. But again, I probably give them too much leeway. |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 03:56
|
|
|
|
Beet Wagon posted:I perhaps give Futurama too much leeway because in my mind partly because it will always be "the good 'The Simpsons'" and partly because I have watched it so frequently and so often that all the seasons kind of run together in my mind and it's hard to separate out the bad ones. Yeah, "Attack of the Killer App" really shits the bed by trying to be hyper-topical. I think the writers realized that because of exactly where the show fell the lack of smart-phones in the future was a glaring omission, but there are better ways to deal with it. Especially since nobody ever uses their eye-phone again and the culture around it disappears immediately. And yeah, Craig Ferguson, oof. Though I will admit, I like the thought-drinking mosquito going "This guy sure loves porno!"
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 04:03
|
|
|
|
BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Though I will admit, I like the thought-drinking mosquito going "This guy sure loves porno!" That's the thing about even the worst Futurama episodes though, isn't it? Even the absolute dumpster fire episodes contain little nuggets of genius that make it hard to say "this show sucks" you know? |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 04:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 16:17 |
|
|
|
Beet Wagon posted:That's the thing about even the worst Futurama episodes though, isn't it? Even the absolute dumpster fire episodes contain little nuggets of genius that make it hard to say "this show sucks" you know? Totally. The Holiday Val-U-Pak is an abomination but Bender's line "I thought they were selfish, but in the end, it turns out it was I that thought they were selfish!" is great. And Coolio as Kwanzaabot is fun, though not nearly as much as his first appearance when he's been handing out a book called "What the Hell is Kwanzaa" for 600 years to no avail.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2018 04:22
|
|