Futurama! 26 New Episodes! Not Movies! Resurrected!

[Danny Stephenson]

A friend has just linked me to this:

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/06/its-official-futurama-returns.html

FOX finally got the hint…

Topic

[Flap Jack]

No worries! I should have just assumed that if I didn’t understand it it was about the new episode tbh.

Anyway, I have now seen the episode, and am already looking down on the ignorant Jack of this morning.

[Formica]

If it’s almost silent, why do they keep putting so much emphasis on it?

Now we’ve sorted all that out I have to bring up my original point again. It wasn’t just me, right? I thought it was the most prominent part of the word and disrupted the pace of every line it was in.

[Flap Jack]

I can see what you mean, but I got used to it after the first couple of times.

[Jenuall]

I’m a bit behind but catching up on the new episodes now, just watched the Wild West/Crypto one.

So far I’ve been pretty impressed with it as a return of the show, it’s hooked me better than the previous run did where I have to say I was pretty disappointed at first.

[Rudolph]

It’s odd – I found the crypto rush one a bit dated, as I thought that peaked years ago, but the following Dune parody felt a bit more ‘modern’.

[cwickham]

So, this week’s looks like one of those Reincarnation trilogy episodes, but with the crew as… toys? Seems kind of a weird angle and a bit too much crossover with Saturday Morning Fun Pit, but we’ll see

[Flap Jack]

I’m begging the Futurama writers to remember that the What-If Machine exists.

[Moonlight]

I was more positive early on, but the more of this season I watch the more I feel like it peaks at “that was OK I guess.” I’ve probably said this already but, despite an iffy start, by this point in the Comedy Central run we’d had Lethal Inspection (great) and The Late Phillip J. Fry (fantastic). Now I’m just holding out for the final episode to be the surprise really good one.

[Flap Jack]

I’ve been enjoying the season, and I’d definitely rank a few of the episodes higher than “OK” – particularly the Xmas one – but I agree we haven’t had anything on the level of TLPJF yet.

What the fuck even was this week’s episode though. “What if the Futurama gang were various types of toys, wouldn’t that be funny?” Turns out the answer is “not really”, but thanks for looking into it, guys.

[Ridley]

Yeah but the CC episodes were in batches of 13 and Hulu only 10 so they have to leave all the good ones out.

[Moonlight]

The Xmas episode I had plugged to me as “the really good one” before I saw it and it wasn’t quite as good as I hoped but I liked it.

[cwickham]

Next week’s (mid-season?) finale is by David X. Cohen and looks like it has an interesting high-concept premise so I’m hopeful for it.

[Rudolph]

Someone on Reddit described the latest episode as schizophrenic, and that feels right. It feels like the writers had some ‘lol random’ ideas and felt the need to cram them into an episode in order to get them out of their system.

The cancelling of Zapp Brannigan I actually found very enjoyable, and a funny take on a modern trend. Far more than the Covid episode which honestly felt a bit dated at this point.

[Moonlight]

The covid episode not only felt like a lot of 2020/2021 jokes we’ve already seen done to death, but there wasn’t even much in a way of a future twist on any of it.

[Moonlight]

Rudolph
Someone on Reddit described the latest episode as schizophrenic, and that feels right. It feels like the writers had some ‘lol random’ ideas and felt the need to cram them into an episode in order to get them out of their system.

I feel like a Futurama anthology (at least vaguely) themed around mortality should have been more interesting than this was.

[Nick R]

I liked the COVID episode just because of all the different ways that characters wore their masks incorrectly.

[Formica]

I felt like the only really good joke in the Explovid episode was the one about the vaccine contents, but even that was undercut by being composed of joke elements that weren’t funny

[Ridley]

I appreciated the Omicron Persei variant.

[Rudolph]

The only part I really liked was Doctor Banjo turning up again. He works quite nicely as a rent-a-crank, Piers Corbyn type.

[Moonlight]

I liked the pneumatic train. That was cool world-building for a show where we rarely actually see other places on Earth.

[Ridley]

Cloche!

[Moonlight]

Episode 10 was really strong conceptually but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was expecting way more of it than it delivered.

[Rudolph]

I really enjoyed All the Way Down, and it was nice that they didn’t over egg the explanation or inference of Bender’s ‘return’ at the end of the episode.

[cwickham]

Hulu have commissioned another 20 episodes on top of the 10 coming next year

[Unrumble]

Welcome to the world of tomorrow! 

[Moonlight]

Hulu have commissioned another 20 episodes on top of the 10 coming next year

I’d be more excited if I still thought the show could be consistently good.

[cwickham]

[Flap Jack]

Nice, just a few weeks away! Until then I will lie awake wondering whether UK reckoning would make this “Season 10” or “Season 9 (Part 2)”.

Also, did this YouTube commenter – whose account name is a Futurama reference – just completely miss the season from last year, or do they think that every time there’s a significant gap between new episodes of a TV show, it’s been cancelled?

[Moonlight]

Really hoping this round of episodes is an improvement from last year’s. Even the stuff I would consider “the good episodes” from the previous season were very underwhelming in one way or another. The finale was so close to being properly good Futurama in most respects but it just wasn’t very funny. A couple episodes were genuinely bad.

The Comedy Central era started out pretty shaky but they’d already put out Lethal Inspection (very good) and The Late Philip J. Fry (one of the best episodes of the entire show) by this point in its run. I was holding out hope for that to happen last time, so I guess it’s time to start hoping again.

[Flap Jack]

I’m a bit more optimistic, as for me Season 11/8a/9/9a was like 2 bad, 2 great, 6 decent. I’m hoping for big improvements but I won’t go home hungry if it’s just a steady continuation.

Reasons for pessimism:

– More unavoidably out of date topicality, like the NFT episode.

– Not a great sign if such weak jokes as “Nobody panic!” / “You heard her! Start panicking!” not only make the trailer but open the trailer.

– One of the episodes is another non-Of Interest anthology episode, so based on their track record is near guaranteed to be underwhelming. (Psst, writers, you only have 20 episodes per production season. You don’t actually have to waste 2 of them. You can just make 20 Futurama episodes. That’s a free tip!)

Reasons for optimism:

– “Otherwise” was written as a potential series finale by Ken Keeler (pseudonym or not), so in theory should at least feel consequential and get the characters right.

– 2 of the episodes are credited to Bill Odenkirk and Kristin Gore, neither of whom have written for the show since the Fox era, and have exclusively written banger episodes.

[Moonlight]

Not a great sign if such weak jokes as “Nobody panic!” / “You heard her! Start panicking!” not only make the trailer but open the trailer.

Instant flashbacks to the Timewave teaser using the most paint-by-numbers Red Dwarf gag ever written. To be absolutely fair, trailers are by nature restricted to gags whose entire setup and payoff can be delivered in about 6 seconds. But that still feels like the kind of gag I’ve seen a dozen times on shows written decades ago.

One of the episodes is another non-Of Interest anthology episode, so based on their track record is near guaranteed to be underwhelming. (Psst, writers, you only have 20 episodes per production season. You don’t actually have to waste 2 of them. You can just make 20 Futurama episodes. That’s a free tip!)

The most interesting of those was Reincarnation and that was the first of them.

“Otherwise” was written as a potential series finale by Ken Keeler (pseudonym or not), so in theory should at least feel consequential and get the characters right.

I expect this to be a good episode but it has some pretty impossible standards to live up to. It was freakish enough that Meanwhile managed to.

Otherwise is a fucking good title though. No notes.

[Flap Jack]

The most interesting of those was Reincarnation and that was the first of them.

It was the second, but maybe that just further emphasises how uninteresting the first one was.

[Moonlight]

Trying to decide if they did Anthology of Interest again whether I would be pleased, or more critical because now it’s more directly invoking the original anthology episodes.

Kind of like how Sonic 4 is a merely mediocre video game that by its title becomes a crime against nature.

[Ben Saunders]

ANOTHER season of Futurama?! Hasn’t this show ended like 4 times by now? I haven’t watched since Season 6, but the rest has always been on my “to watch (eventually)” list. The list keeps growing without me adding anything to it.

[Moonlight]

ANOTHER season of Futurama?! Hasn’t this show ended like 4 times by now?

Actually, yes.

Debate if you must which actually count as endings, but there are four distinct “we’re gonna write this to work as a series finale” episodes.

[Ben Saunders]

That’s crazy. I can’t think of any other sci-fi comedies with multiple potential “final” episodes that keep getting revived every couple of years. Futurama is such a unique show.

[Moonlight]

I still think the greatest crime in television history was FOX deliberately fucking Futurama off the air at the height of its quality because they were mad it wasn’t the unprecedented monster hit The Simpsons was.

[Flap Jack]

I definitely don’t count the potential endings as actual endings, so by my reckoning it’s 3 endings and 2 cancellations. That’s still quite a lot!

I guess Ben and phillipjfry105 are kindred spirits when it comes to this new season.

[Jenuall]

I’ve found it really hard to get into any Futurama post the original 4 season run.

I watched the first “movie” Bender’s Big Score and found it fairly ‘meh’ so never really bothered with the others (which I think are essentially what is called season 5 now?)

After that I tried to watch the non-movie season on Comedy Central and whilst there were flashes of the old Futurama it very much felt like a show that was spinning its wheels at that point.

Then I think I managed to get about halfway into the most recent season from last year and it was very much the same as the Comedy Central era. I’m glad the people involved all get to continue making a thing they clearly enjoy working on, but I generally feel like I’m not really bothered about watching the output of it any more.

[pi r squared]

I’m looking forward to the new season. The last season I enjoyed, apart from maybe one or two duff episodes I probably won’t revisit, and it was not as on-the-nose as the episode titles and synopses may have suggested. “Zapp Gets Cancelled” could have been disastrously handled, but was actually clever, funny and one of the better episodes of the show. And the “COVID” episode quickly became not that at all, albeit a few of the COVID-esque jokes were a couple of years too late. They are definitely worth a watch, and I think the slightly tighter order of 10 episodes probably benefits the quality over the 13-episode Comedy Central runs – which were mostly good or great but definitely had episodes that felt like they were completely out of ideas and just making up shit around a pun-ny episode title (looking at you, “Assie Come Home”).

I think Futurama suffers much like Dwarf, with potentially some rose-tinted nostalgia of the ‘bubble’ – despite those episodes also containing some duffers – and the freshness and novelty and personal zeitgeist from twenty years ago are impossible to recreate no matter how good the quality of current episodes. At least Futurama has some ‘Dave-era’-equivalent episodes that are universally considered classics even though outside of the bubble (“The Late Philip J Fry”, etc.) whereas I don’t think we have that with Dwarf yet.

[Jenuall]

I really need to rewatch The Late Phillip J Fry because I know I’ve seen it but it did not stick in my mind at all the way it seems to have for others

[Technopeasant]

 But that still feels like the kind of gag I’ve seen a dozen times on shows written decades ago.

So… on Futurama?

[Technopeasant]

One of the episodes is another non-Of Interest anthology episode, so based on their track record is near guaranteed to be underwhelming.

I feel the same way about all the “wacky stories with our characters in them” episodes in especially the later seasons of Bob’s Burgers.

[Flap Jack]

Oh hey, the new season, it’s here!

Pretty good opener. It being about NFTs was surprisingly non-annoying. Maybe because of how unambiguous it was regarding them being total bullshit? The topicality of NFTs has passed now, of course, but hindsight hasn’t made the commentary obsolete, and it’s not like it’s ancient history. The time the episode took to animate and release turned it into a victory lap, but it was still fun, and NFT discussion didn’t overwhelm things.

The dialogue was also on form – it felt a lot snappier and more natural than the Season 11 opener. And regardless of what anyone thinks of this episode, at the very least it’s not the worst Eric Horsted episode – Yo Leela Leela remains unchallenged. Yo Leela Leela didn’t even have Danny Trejo in it, as far as I remember.

The major controversy from “The One Amigo” isn’t the NFT subject matter, it’s the production code – 9ACV01??? Futurama season numbering weirdness will never end.

[Technopeasant]

Quipu are Andean, not Mexican. That is all…

[Formica]

I can’t believe we’re in a world where an NFT subplot was better than a Mesoamerican Ball Game plot, but it’s simply a matter of where they chose to put the jokes.

I think Farnsworth buying tiny NFTs to fill the museum model may have gotten me the best of them all.

[Formica]

That was interesting. I don’t think it sticks the landing, not that it couldn’t have but because it thinks it’s going for a slightly different point than it really makes, maybe? Not sure how to say it. Still had some fun though.

[Technopeasant]

It was better than the opener, but yeah a little confusing in terms of tone. Are we supposed to be charmed that Fry’s parents rigged the party games, even though it still scarred him anyway?

Got some Terrorform vibes from the featureless planet taking on parts of Fry’s mindscape.

[Flap Jack]

Can I shock you? I preferred last week’s episode to this one. I feel like people’s major aversion to The One Amigo was that they found the dated topicality of NFTs cringeworthy, and Quids Game doesn’t have that drawback (the Squid Game parody aspect being much more broad), but as the NFT thing didn’t bother me personally, I just found that episode funnier and more engaging.

This one was still decent, and it had a great core concept, but it had some major limitations:

– As soon as half of the characters got killed off, it was obvious that this whole episode would be undone or revealed as a dream (even if they weren’t the regulars who were killed first, clearly the writers are still not going to commit to that), so there were essentially no stakes from that point. It would have worked better if it had been redshirts getting picked off one by one rather than Futurama’s full supporting cast getting killed en masse. I know you can say “don’t you always know that the main characters will survive?”, but it’s different. It just is.

– The emotional impact of the Fry flashbacks just didn’t really land for me. Fry being upset to be reminded of a traumatic childhood birthday worked (less so him suddenly having a Marty McFly-esque revelation about how his lifelong fear is being seen as a cheater), and I liked some of the details (like the backstory of how his elementary school best friend became his high school rival), but it’s hard to be gut-punched by the revelation that his parents were cheating for him, when it was completely obvious that was what was happening for the entire episode. My reaction to the end of the episode was “… is that it?”.

– I’ve seen this put on the Jurassic Bark side of the Fry flashback episodes, because the final “revelation” is just given to the audience and not to Fry, making it more sad. But honestly I think this episode would have really benefited from the other approach, where Fry finds out via the alien recreation of his birthday party that his mom had been cheating for him. As it is, there’s no real resolution to the character arc, it just… ends. Sure, it’s nice and all that everyone assured Fry they don’t think he’s a cheater and gave him a big hug, but none of them thought that before either, so what’s the journey?

– Leela in this episode felt off, in a way I’m still not sure I can fully explain. Her begging Fry to cheat for her and save her life (and therefore sacrifice himself) was understandable, but it just didn’t seem like Leela. Fry agreeing to it was genuinely affecting though. (Even if it was a bit weird how he seemed more hung up on the cheating aspect than the murder/suicide aspect. Leela dies, and even after that he’s still worried about being accused of cheating, in a death tournament they were forced to play against their will. Come on, dude.)

Still, it was undeniably fun to have so many characters thrown in the mix, and especially that Hattie McDoogal inexplicably won the whole thing.

[Technopeasant]

Neither were tremendous, so ranking which is better isn’t much of an exercise.

And Leela has seemed off the entire Hulu run so far.

[Author]

Replies