The Officially Awesome Futurama Season 7 / Volume 6 Time!

[Myasishchev]

Neutopia finally got going in the last five or six minutes. It would've been a lot better if the gender switch had been the whole episode.y.

That's what I was thinking and the mis-leading preview made it seem that's what the episode was about,instead we got a typical "battle of the sexes" trope instead.

A gender switching episode would of been more fun,especially if they played up the Leela/Fry relationship with it,by having them have a better one with the switched sexes which of course falls apart once they switch back.

That would've been pretty good, although they did that one better last season with the body switching machine. (And to nerd out for one moment, the blank states and Zoidberg's "look it up" actually doesn't make sense when you take into account that continuiblah blah blah gross sex).

I did forget the other good line from that episode, "It's lucky for us all our fans are tremendous perverts!" It's funny and true.

 

[Christopher]

Benderama was rather good for a Bender-centered episode. Those tend to be the lesser lights of Futurama, as far I'm concerned, insofar as Bender is good in moderation, and is unpleasant in large amounts, which is why it's ironic that the largest amount of Bender ever turned out okay.

Well, there have been some terrific Bender episodes -- "Godfellas," "Jurassic Bark" (to an extent), "Lethal Inspection" -- but yeah, he's been the focus of a lot of weak ones too. Although you could probably say the same about every major character.

 

[Myasishchev]

I've never considered Jurassic Bark a Bender-focused episode. Bender is in it, I guess? Lethal Inspection is a fine episode, although for my money that's the Hermes talking.

Also, you can tell which Futurama movies are good by the ones that don't have "Bender" in the title.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Neutopia was ok, but the whole male vs female setup was so forced and obvious and quick. I agree with others that the end of the episode was the best part, where they were swapped. And it had a Motley Crue song, which gained it some cred.

Benderama was a cool episode. I loved that they based it on the grey goo idea, so it made for a very fun episode, even if they went overboard in the end and had a few plot holes. But it was entertaining, so that's all that matters.

So overall it was a decent return for Futurama.

 

[Christopher]

I've never considered Jurassic Bark a Bender-focused episode. Bender is in it, I guess?

It's very much an episode about the Fry-Bender relationship. Bender is jealous of Fry's feelings for Seymour, yet eventually he takes a dangerous and selfless action to save his "rival" because of his feelings for Fry. That's one of Bender's finest moments.

Also, you can tell which Futurama movies are good by the ones that don't have "Bender" in the title.

Actually I think Bender's Big Score is the strongest, and Bender's Game is no lower than third of the four. And note that on the whole I'm not a major Bender fan.

 

[Myasishchev]

Weird. Beast With a Billion Backs is by far the strongest for me, followed at some distance by The Wild Green Yonder, then Bender's Big Score, and then Bender's Game, which was probably the worst hour and a half of consecutive Futurama I can think of.

 

[Christopher]

And BWaBB is my least favorite of the movies. Nothing weird about different people having different tastes.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I've never considered Jurassic Bark a Bender-focused episode. Bender is in it, I guess?

It's very much an episode about the Fry-Bender relationship. Bender is jealous of Fry's feelings for Seymour, yet eventually he takes a dangerous and selfless action to save his "rival" because of his feelings for Fry. That's one of Bender's finest moments.

I think Bender would consider that one of his weakest moments

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Although it went a little too far at the end, with the way the space giant was dealt with. He really didn't deserve that.

Of course he didn't deserve it.

This is Bender we're talking about.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

I wanted so much to like the return of Futurama. First the movies sucked, but I chalked that up to them not being used to the new longer format and having to plan for the chopping of the episodes. Then came the first new stand alone episodes... and they STILL sucked. I chalked that up to the team being rusty. The newest stuff? Still crappy. It's almost like futurama... only not funny at all. Just like when Family guy returned they were just too busy making call backs to all the favorite jokes from the older episodes and seemed to have forgotten what made the show funny to begin with.

The show just feels dead and wrong. It reminds me of that movie Pet Cemetery, maybe it was better off being left dead rather than being resurrected as... this.

 

[Yoda]

Yeah, this isn't the fantastic show from its first couple of seasons. Not Simpsons bad, but still not very good. I think it was starting to lose it a bit when it first got canceled though.

 

[BlobVanDam]

I think it's come back as a good show, but not a great show. It's not as good as it was, but for the most part it's far from embarrassing either, unlike Simpsons. I'm definitely glad it's back, but it has a way to go before it becomes as good as the classics. But I also think that a couple of the new episodes may become "classics".

They have improved from the movies, and hopefully they can improve further.

 

[bigdaddy]

I wanted so much to like the return of Futurama. First the movies sucked, but I chalked that up to them not being used to the new longer format and having to plan for the chopping of the episodes. Then came the first new stand alone episodes... and they STILL sucked. I chalked that up to the team being rusty. The newest stuff? Still crappy. It's almost like futurama... only not funny at all. Just like when Family guy returned they were just too busy making call backs to all the favorite jokes from the older episodes and seemed to have forgotten what made the show funny to begin with.

The show just feels dead and wrong. It reminds me of that movie Pet Cemetery, maybe it was better off being left dead rather than being resurrected as... this.

Sucks that you feel that way, but I feel the return has been fine. I haven't seen the newest episodes yet, but even if they are rather bad, Futurama has made bad episodes for years and then makes up for it by having great episodes.

Also these episodes were made at the same time as last years episodes, not that that matters.

 

[Christopher]

Last season was about typical, a mix of good, adequate, and weak episodes with a few real gems. This is a continuation of the same production season, as the previous poster said, so we should expect about the same. It just happened to open with a real dud and follow it up with a fairly good, but not great, one. Luck of the draw, or poor scheduling.

 

[Dac]

Personally I feel all the new Futurama was as hit and miss as old Futurama. Ok, maybe not as hit and miss, but I did feel Season 6 was at least 50:50 good and bad. Hell, if Futurama never came back we'd have never gotten Attack of the Killer App, The Late Phillip J Fry and A Clockwork Origin - all episodes I would consider to be classics of the show. Hell, I even liked In-a-Gadda-da-Leela, Proposition Infinity, The Duh-Vinci Code, Lethal Inspection and Lrreconcilable Ndndifferences.

Hell, actually going through the list, the only episodes I would call weak are Rebirth and The mutants are revolting, but thats probably because I can't quite remember them much.

The Xmas special was poor though, and while I found quite a bit of Neutopia funny, overall it was weaker than the standard ep. I did like Benderama though.

 

[Christopher]

Wow, tastes differ. I hated "Killer App" and "Clockwork Origin," but found most of the ones on your "even liked" list to be among the strongest of the season.

 

[Dac]

Wow, tastes differ. I hated "Killer App" and "Clockwork Origin," but found most of the ones on your "even liked" list to be among the strongest of the season.

But I completely agree with you that Benders Big Score is by far the strongest of the movies, and The Beast With a Billion backs is the weakest

 

[Mr Light]

I thought both episodes of the premiere were very good. Though I wish the gender swap had lasted an entire episode.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Those two episodes were okay. Futurama's problem is that they've run through the good sci fi ideas and are really stretching now. But they did find creative ways to work with rather tired ideas.

I'm looking forward to

Spoiler: upcoming episode

the Minority Report parody

. That's the kind of premise that lends itself to sharper comedy.

 

[Christopher]

"Ghost in the Machines" was a pretty good one, better than the two last week. It had good jokes and gags (mostly), nice concepts, and a character-driven story that got kind of touching toward the end. Good development of previously established concepts, including the return of the Robot Devil and a callback to the concept of robot ghosts from "The Honking." I like the explanation for robot ghosts, that they're software adrift in the "cloud" of the wireless network connecting all robots. Except if that's the explanation, how could Bender's ghost exist on the Amish planet, with no technology around? Is the robot network galaxywide and non-lightspeed-limited? An ansible system, perhaps? (No, wait, that's right, they increased the speed of light centuries earlier.)

My main problems were with the beginning and end. First off, why does Fry not know about Parade Day? He's been living in the 31st century for over a decade now. The "other characters explain an odd future custom to Fry" trope is outdated. (Although I suppose it's possible that Fry has always happened to be off-planet or in terrible danger every time Parade Day rolled around.) And second, the very ending was weak, just kind of fizzling out in the last moments. And yeah, Bender kinda got out of death way too easily.