Futurama: The Best and the Worst

[Mr Light]

The new season of Futurama is almost over! What are your favorite, and least favorite episodes?

THE BEST:
I was gonna go for a top ten but I couldn't rank them or eliminate anything so here's my favorites in order of air date.

When Aliens Attack: the quintessential episode. tons of great action and humor.
Mother's Day: a good combo of action and humor.
Problem With Popplers
War is the H Word: an actual war episode. We have all seen too many body bags and ball sacks. Love the Nixon / Kissinger stuff.
Amazon Women in the Mood
Time Keeps on Slippin': I love the fast paced random jumps and stories. Plus, the Harlem Globetrotters are hilarious. What happens if we lose? Nothing! There's no risk and nothing's at stake!
Roswell That Ends Well: another classic. great story, hilarious humor, good action at the end.
A Taste of Freedom: I loved seeing Zoidberg's people conquer Earth.
The Why of Fry: in many ways the series finale of the story with big revelations. I love the Nibblonians.
Where No Fan Has Gone Before: the Star Trek Reunion. Nuff said!
Farnsworth Parabox: the "evil" counterparts interactions are great.
300 Big Boys: I love how there's a ton of little stories going on.
****Bender's Big Score: the perfect story with a perfect blend of humor, action, heart, plot twists, etc, etc.
Late Phillip J Fry: an instant classic with hilarious stuff, true sci-fi concepts.


THE WORST:
I'm not going to include Season One episodes because those were all a rough work in progress. I'm going with the more recent ones I don't enjoy re-watching. Basically the overly emotional and sad ones.
The Sting: too sad!
Jurassic Bark: this episode is WAY too depressing. I come to this show to laugh.
Route All Evil: Cubert and Conrad? Ugh.
Where the Buggalo Roam: I just don't care about Amy and Kiff starring in an episode and I didn't like the Native Martian storyline.
Luck of the Fryish: too sad!

As far as the new season goes, I think it's just as good as the olden days. I haven't hated a single episode so far and there's been a lot of good ones. The only true misstep of the revival so far, I think, is the fourth movie, which I just did not care for. I kept expecting some big epic storyline of good and evil and it was just about Amy's Dad and a stupid little leech.

 

[bigdaddy]

You and my tastes are completely different. You don't like the sad episodes because they are sad? That's called good writing to me.

Also I think the fourth movie is the best. It's the one most together that isn't roll your eye lame. It's the one that felt most like a true movie.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

My faves:

Roswell That Ends Well
The Why of Fry
Where No Fan Has Gone Before
Farnsworth Parabox
The Late Phillip J Fry

I'm fuzzy on The Sting but I seem to recall really liking it.

 

[DeadmeatDiggory]

I think that "Jurassic Bark" is a beautiful episodes, that shows that Futurama is more than just a comedy show. That said, I do find it hard to sit through cause its sad ending, but its still beautiful.

 

[Mr Light]

Futurama for me is something to laugh at and enjoy and watch over and over... the sad episodes are not something I want to see over and over. I'm not saying they're not well written they're just not my favs.

 

[superstring01]

"My Problem With Popplers" is by far the best Futurama episode. I own the entire series and love it, but only ONE other episode comes close to "Popplers", "Where No Fan Has Gone Before." I still watch it (both, actually) and laugh my ass off every time. I watched it for the first time while a drug addict eons ago. Watching it now, reminds me of why I'm clean: I notice all the subtlety that I missed before.

Best line:
Branagan-- "Mmmm. These would be great with gwack-a-mole!"
Lrrr-- "Stop eating our young! And it's pronounced gwock-a-moley!"

~String

 

[AdmiralGarak]

It was surprisingly easy to pick my favorites.


The Top 10, chronologically:

• Love's Labours Lost in Space ("Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down.")
• Brannigan Begin Again ("Search them for paper, and bring me a rock!")
• Xmas Story ("Is there anything sadder? Only drowning puppies. And there'd have to be a lot of them.")
• The Luck of the Fryrish ("No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!")
• Time Keeps On Slippin' ("Drugs are for losers, and hypnosis is for losers with big, weird eyebrows.")
• Roswell That Ends Well ("The President is gagging on my gas bladder. What an honor!")
• Where No Fan Has Gone Before ("And when I directed Star Trek V, I got a magnificent performance out of me because I respected me so much.")
• The Farnsworth Parabox ("Your granny can go to hell!")
• Three Hundred Big Boys ("I don't know you well enough to get into that.")
• The Late Philip J. Fry ("That way you can't accidentally change history, or do something disgusting like sleep with your own grandmother.")

The Bottom 3

• A Bicyclops Built for Two (My least favorite episode. Never much liked the main story, but the internet stuff in the first act is some of the most hilarious stuff the show's done.)
• Bender's Game (Lots of funny moments, but the story is a complete mess.)
• Attack of the Killer App (Much like Bicyclops, a bad episode with some funny tech satire.)

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

The one about the "Were-car" is the worst one, imo. Horrible episode.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

No mention of Leela's Homeworld yet? Dear God, that one really gets me!

A few others that come to mind would be The Sting, Amazon Women in the Mood ('the Velour Fog') and Roswell that Ends Well.

I'm surprised some people dislike the more emotional episodes. Those, for me, are a big part of what elevates Futurama over, say, Family Guy.

As for worst, The Route of All Evil sticks out in my mind. Dwight and Cubert aren't exactly the best characters to build an episode around.

 

[Mr Light]

I like the were-car episode!

Leela's Homeworld had a great touching ending but the rest of it before that wasn't so great.

 

[Dac]

I have too many favorites.

Jurrassic Bark
Lucky of The Fryish
Farnsworth Parabox
The Late Phillip J Fry
Benders Big Score
War the H-word
When Aliens Attack ("Whats that?!" The Alien Mothership Sir. "Then what did we just blow up? The Hubble Telescope.)
The Problem with Popplers
Where No Fan has Gone before

I could go on like this for a while.

Having said that though, the only episode which really pisses me off is Attack of the Killer app. Not for the Apple piss take stuff which I quite liked, but the god awful Susan Boil bit which just left me scratching my head wondering WHY?!

 

[TheGodBen]

People actually like The Farnsworth Parabox? I consider that to be one of the lamest episodes, and after watching it for the first time, everyone in the room came to the conclusion that the show just wasn't as funny any more. Other episodes I didn't like:
Three Hundred Big Boys
The Sting
Love and Rocket
A Leela of Her Own
A Pharaoh to Remember
Attack of the Killer App
Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences

Worst of all: That's Lobstertainment

All of those episodes failed to get a single laugh out of me, and some of them made me feel embarrassed to be watching them.


My favourite episodes:
A Flight to Remember
When Aliens Attack
Brannigan, Begin Again
War is the H-Word
The Cryonic Woman
Amazon Women in the Mood
Parasites Lost
Jurassic Bark
Where No Fan Has Gone Before
The Prisoner of Benda

Absolute favourite: Time Keeps on Slippin'

 

[Canadave]

People actually like The Farnsworth Parabox? I consider that to be one of the lamest episodes, and after watching it for the first time, everyone in the room came to the conclusion that the show just wasn't as funny any more.

Really? It's definitely one of my favourites, and it's a great example of one of the things Futurama does best: take a tired SF trope (alternate universes) and take it to its logically ridiculous extreme.

 

[scnj]

I like stuff about pretty much every episode, but the two worst ones I can think of are A Voyage To Remember and Fry And The Slurm Factory, more due to seeing them too many times than anything else.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

People actually like The Farnsworth Parabox? I consider that to be one of the lamest episodes, and after watching it for the first time, everyone in the room came to the conclusion that the show just wasn't as funny any more.

Really? It's definitely one of my favourites, and it's a great example of one of the things Futurama does best: take a tired SF trope (alternate universes) and take it to its logically ridiculous extreme.

Yeah that's why I like it too.

And I'll add Parasites Lost to my list.

That's Lobstertainment is one of the few I remember that fell totally flat.

 

[Canadave]

^ Yeah, I can definitely agree to that one. I think it stems from that fact that Zoidberg works best when he's a supporting character, OR if Decapodian culture is also a feature. Zoidberg starring with no crazy Decapodian plot? That tends to fall flat.

 

[Alex1939]

The late Phillip J Fry has been my favorite of the new episodes and probably among my favorites of the entire series.

 

[Mr Light]

I like Lobstertainment. It's good but not great. I like Harold Zoid's directing commands, never satisfied that Calculon is acting hard enough. Then when Calculon says he'll kill Bender, "you, and that snivelling lobster! Dead! DEAD!!!!!" and Zoid says "Oy! NOW he emotes!"

 

[TheGodBen]

Really? It's definitely one of my favourites, and it's a great example of one of the things Futurama does best: take a tired SF trope (alternate universes) and take it to its logically ridiculous extreme.

I don't know why it didn't work for me, but I was down on a lot of episodes of Futurama at that time. In terms of the five TV seasons (not production seasons): I thought the first season was good, but rough, the second and third seasons were fantastic, season 4 had its moments but had a lot of bad episodes, and season 5 had a neutral mix of good and bad episodes. Watching them in production order on the DVDs isn't so bad, but the order in which they aired somehow magnified my perception of the decline in quality. And it wasn't just me, my friends and family all agreed that something was off about the show in those last two seasons.

I remember that when I first watched The Farnsworth Parabox, I was with 3 or 4 other people, and nobody laughed (which feels awkward when you're watching it as a group). When Fry sat on the box and the universe was squashed, someone said "Is it just me, or is Futurama not funny any more?" To which we all agreed that something wasn't quite right. Perhaps that initial viewing experience left a bad taste that I can't get over, but after repeated viewings, I still haven't found anything funny in that episode.

 

[Joeman]

Godfellas is easily my favorite.