Futurama Season 7 Discussion Thread

[Tosk]

The last season definitely had the heart it was lacking at the beginning.

To be fair though, the first season is about getting to know the characters. It's a lot easier to do "heart" later on when we really know and care for the characters.

Come tell us what you think when you hit episodes like "Luck of the Fryrish" and "Jurassic Bark".

 

[bigdaddy]

I liked the finale.

I've pretty much only seen the first and last season so far, with scattered episodes in between. I think the quality of the writing in the last season was way better than the quality of writing they had at the beginning, which is the opposite of most TV series.

(And I think the biggest mistake they made in the series was the heads. In the series premiere they give the writers an out to make easy references to 20th century celebrities in a show that takes place in the distant future. I mean, who flipping cares about Richard Nixon, really?!)

Futurama had the potential to get more network success, but I think a lot of people were hoping for another Simpsons and instead got a show with nihilist overtones that was at it's best when it was cartoon-violent and cynical. The last season definitely had the heart it was lacking at the beginning.

You are not watching the same show as the rest of us.

The first season is very sitcomy, about getting to know the characters. The best seasons is 4/5 (Volume four on the DVDs).

Nixon is awesone, have you watched the Nixon episodes?

 

[1001001]

Yes, give it time.

You have many, many good episodes coming in the seasons ahead.

And yes, Nixon is awesome.



For those who have watched the whole series, I found this today, and thought it was pretty cool:

"17 GIFs of Things 'Futurama' Did Better Than Anyone Else"

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/1...a--did-better-than-anyone-else-004335737.html

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The only episode I remember from the first season from the first season that I thought was a really good episode was the first Zapp Brannigan episode.

Besides that I remember a lot of lame song setups (Robot hell, Hermes bureaucracy), the writers being obsessed with aliens eating humans, setups designed around making 20th century celebrity references (Beastie Boys, Pamela Anderson, etc), and all the characters basically being cynically opportunistic and compulsive. The writers had a pattern back then of commenting on current politics by having everybody rephrase their commentary as an accepted fact of the future.

I think the episode that finally made me quit as the Amazon episode. "Didn't you tell them lack of good fundamental make up for lack of ability to dunk?" Okay we get it, WNBA stupid. Stop relying on current references, it's a show about the future damn it!

I'm going to try watching it through on Netflix, I suppose maybe I'll change my mind.

 

[Christopher]

^Every work of fiction about the future is really about the present.

 

[1001001]

^Every work of fiction about the future is really about the present.

Correct.

 

[Mister Fandango]

^Every work of fiction about the future is really about the present.

By that asinine belief, every work of fiction, period, is really about the present. Hell, even non-fiction, since the only way that's even remotely true is if you really stretch logic to the breaking point.

It's the same kind of stupidity that college professors use when they try to explain all the intricate, overcomplicated thoughts Shakespeare had behind the writing every single letter of his works.

 

[Mr Light]

I thought it was a very solid finale. Better than "Devil's Hands" and "Overclocked" and definitely better than "Wild Green Yonder".

 

[bigdaddy]

It's the same kind of stupidity that college professors use when they try to explain all the intricate, overcomplicated thoughts Shakespeare had behind the writing every single letter of his works.

All the time in high school of me saying "How do you know what he means? Have you met him?!"

I thought it was a very solid finale. Better than "Devil's Hands" and "Overclocked" and definitely better than "Wild Green Yonder".

I agree. This one, Devil's Hands, Overclocked (I'd like it more with less Bender) and Wild Green Yonder was just odd.

 

[Yoda]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OThQqFcdog[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_MBFxSEpqo[/yt]

 

[shivkala]

I know everything is derivitive of something else, but all I could think of while watching the finale was Stargate SG-1's finale, "Unending."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

^Every work of fiction about the future is really about the present.

I would revise that to say, every work of fiction about the future is about the human condition in general, removed from the facts of the present.

Yes, most of great science fiction parallels problems of the present. But not specific elements of the present. Not specific people who are alive in present day or specific organizations. The more verbatim specific the analogies get, the less they tend to work. For instance, the environment episode from TNG.

I watched a few first season episodes and my feeling is that the premises for the episodes are awesome but the jokes aren't funny. I think the reason I like the newer episodes better is that they focus on letting the jokes flow from the characters based on science fiction tropes. Not just making specific references to specific things in present day.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, most of great science fiction parallels problems of the present. But not specific elements of the present. Not specific people who are alive in present day or specific organizations.

That depends on the particular work. A lot of characters in classic SF have been allegories for the Communists or the Nazis or Joseph McCarthy or what-have-you.

I watched a few first season episodes and my feeling is that the premises for the episodes are awesome but the jokes aren't funny. I think the reason I like the newer episodes better is that they focus on letting the jokes flow from the characters based on science fiction tropes. Not just making specific references to specific things in present day.

That's not an early/late divide. Just about any era of Futurama has a mix of stories that use science fiction ideas to drive a character-based narrative (e.g. "Parasites Lost," "Time Keeps on Slippin'," or "The Sting") and stories that are just riffs on present-day trends with vague trappings of future technology (like "Raging Bender," "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV," or "Attack of the Killer App").

You say you've only seen the first and last seasons so far. Well, the last season has a lot of the strengths that developed after the first season, but those strengths arose far sooner, and the last season is not as strong overall as the intermediate seasons were.

 

[Pondwater]

I thought the finale was sweet. Fry and Leela get married and grow old together.

 

[Unicron]

Came across this and thought it was cool.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ Hell, I couldn't even do the pattern on his jacket let alone the rest.

 

[bigdaddy]

I have a question about the finale.

They walked all over the planet, they walked on water to get places and didn't sink in. Yet when they drank their wine the wine moved. How did that work?

 

[Christopher]

I have a question about the finale.

They walked all over the planet, they walked on water to get places and didn't sink in. Yet when they drank their wine the wine moved. How did that work?

Chronitons are lighter than air, so they floated upward, flowing around the objects Fry and Leela interacted with, but not sinking down to affect things below their feet.

(Just read it in the Professor's voice, and it'll work.)

 

[bigdaddy]

But the bubble didn't go up 260 stories. :-p

 

[Bacl]

Fabulous finale, so much for fitting than the others. My wife and I were teary-eyed.

I have one and only one issue!
When the Professor takes Zoidberg's ten dollars and then resets time...why doesn't Zoidberg have the ten dollars again? Later, when Fry goes in and steals the diamonds, he keeps taking the same one over and over again. So what was up with Zoidberg's ten dollar bill?