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Futurama Review: "Futurama Holiday Spectacular" (6.13)
In maybe the earliest holiday special ever televised, Futurama was back on the air last night celebrating the three major holidays of the season commonly recognized in our country. As such, rather than a normal episode they decided to split the show into three independent stories in the same manner as a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode or, perhaps more relevantly, the Anthology of Interest episodes we saw back before the show’s first cancellation. Of course, anthology episodes, like anthology movies, are notoriously inconsistent and this was certainly the case with “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular,” which had some nice highs... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences" (6.11)
As much as it would be wonderful to write reviews in a vacuum, it’s got to be said that expectations play a large part in how anything gets received by its audience. ’ve always tried to stay away from trailers or press packets or leaks in the hopes of not changing my immediate reaction to a film, but with a TV show you have an already built-in set of expectations derived from previous episodes. Television’s typically episodic nature has a lot of positive aspects, but one thing it eventually leads to is an episode like the unfortunately-titled “Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences,” which... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "The Prisoner of Benda" (6.10)
Many of Futurama’s best episodes are a result of good old fashioned science-fiction thinking, plus a slight satirical twist. Switching minds isn’t really a tough concept to grasp, nor was the time travel from a few episodes back. It just so happens that, for whatever reason, the Professor’s inventions seem to only work in one direction these days. So while before we could only move forward in time, in “The Prisoner of Benda” what we have is mind-swapping that can only happen in one direction. Simple enough, eh? It’s a credit to the show that this isn’t at all the... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "A Clockwork Origin" (6.9)
Aside from the whole new pairings project of the last few episodes, the other thing that Futurama has done right lately is ratcheting up the randomness quotient. Let’s face it: while there’s a ton of science-fiction out there, most of it is pretty bad, and that’s just as true with comedy science-fiction as it is with any other subgenre. If you’re a fan of the show, one of the reasons why is because you’re into aliens or robots or time travel in parallel dimensions or what have you. So when thing stay relatively normal for a while, it can be... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "That Darn Katz!" (6.8)
I’ve written a lot these past couple weeks about how different the character pairings we’ve seen in Season 6 of Futurama have been, but I don’t think anyone really saw an Amy/Nibbler one coming. Or, for that matter, one with anyone and Nibbler. But as the show’s reached a certain level of depth and maturity, it feels fine to leave Fry, Bender and Leela for a while to explore some of the less-developed characters, just so long as things don’t develop the way they did in the later seasons of the Simpsons and reach the logical endpoint of an... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "The Late Philip J. Fry" (6.7)
At its core, Futurama, like a lot of science fiction, is about saying “Wouldn’t it be cool if?” and then exploring the consequences. The difference is that Futurama is willing to talk about the craziest possible circumstances, whereas someone like Philip K. Dick treats things a great deal more seriously. While they don’t do much as far as character relationships go, a lot of my favorite Futurama episodes occur when they go to a planet of liquid people or what would happen if you had a robot as a buddy (OK, a lot of the episodes explore that idea).... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "Lethal Inspection" (6.6)
Unlike its predecessor The Simpsons, Futurama actually has a pretty miniscule cast, and the show often fields them in a wide variety of positions. Need someone in politics? There’s Nixon. Need someone in the military? There’s Zapp. Need someone evil in any capacity whatsoever? That’s what we’ve got Mom for. You may call it lazy shorthand, but really, it just functions to speed things along to what really matters, not to mention developing characters who would otherwise be bit parts. Because of this, the core of the cast has ended up a great deal deeper than any other non-continuity-based sitcom... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "The Duh-Vinci Code" (6.5)
It’s an extremely embarrassing admission for me to make that I read through The Da Vinci Code. I suspect most people reading this article are in the same boat, given the sheer readership of the book — even the book’s supporters are hard pressed convincing anyone it’s better than the literary equivalent of a Michael Bay flick. Even if you had no real interest in it, you may have been like me and simply curious to see why exactly another 80 million in our semi-illiterate society have read the book. But this review isn’t just a set-up for bashing the... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "Attack of the Killer Apps" (6.3)
South Park has and advantage over other animated shows, over pretty much all scripted shows actually—it can be made very quickly, and thus comment about contemporary events the moment its creators feel like it. Admittedly, this usually doesn’t result in anything approximating nuanced commentary, especially of late, but it’s still something valuable about the show. Say what you will, but South Park has stayed more relevant than, say, The Simpsons because once in a blue moon this commentary manages to hit on target right as an event is happening.... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsFuturama Review: "Rebirth" 6.1
Good news, everyone! Futurama is back on the, well, not the air exactly, but back to televising new episodes. Not that this should surprise anyone at this point, since the return offered more publicity than the show has ever received in the past, but it’s still a blessing and—if you haven’t figured it out by now—I’ll be covering it weekly.... read more
Found in: TV, Reviews
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