Futurama Season 7

The 'Not sure if new episode or episode I saw while drunk' credits gag in the first episode killed me.

They were ok; some laughs, some misfires.  There were glimpses of brilliance, but the episodes are not consistent enough.  For example, the ending to the second one was so clumsy and bizarre.

Still, I too will be sad to see it go.  There is a lack of quality animated shows at the moment (when are the Venture Bros and the Boondocks coming back?).

I guess after 7 seasons a show has trouble blowing people away week in and out, but I've thought the new episodes have been pretty great.  Really liked the 2012 parody ep, even if it treads exactly no new ground in the Fry/Leela relationship.

"I'm stealing stuff I don't even need.  You want a Torah?"

"No thanks, I'm not hungry."

"One of the hundreds of contradictory prophecies is coming true!"

The Great Reveal-O is a great throwaway character.  Looking forward to the political episode that's about to start.

Awesome ep this week.

They may have promo'd it to death before air, but the best bit of the night was Fry's cheering against his own interests ("...and then people like me better watch out!").

Quote:

Originally Posted by wd40 

Is the Simpsons writing staff writing for this now? And at what point did bender become the main character? I guess it just dawned on me that he seems to be.

What? One of the season-premiere eps was Fry and Leela-centric, and last week's had equal parts Leela and Bender. Weird complaint.

Anyway, this week's ep was hilarious.

"Quiet, Zoidberg. God, I wish you were a husk."

I thought it was a pretty good episode.  In terms of premises, not the most brilliant.  But it was tight and consistent (without pulling any bizarre turns at the last second to reach an ending).

But what the hell, is Calculon really dead?  If so that must be one of the weirdest character deaths ever, especially considering that the "plan" didn't even work.

Simpsons already did it. 

There were shades of Zombie Simpsons creeping in, giving Leela dialogue where for no reason she just shouts a bunch of sound effects rather than say something. I hope that stops right fucking now, because it's horrible and stinks of shitty writers room gags that they love and nobody else does.

Although it's just a cartoon, I winced a little when Hermes got a bit of his skin peeled off by the potato peeler.

Not a great episode. But I did love the scene of Hermes, Bender and Amy ejecting in the lifeboat.

Anyone been watching this? The last 3 episodes have been unwatchable. It's weird, like how the The Simpsons suddenly went to shit within the space of a few episodes, within a season that was overall quite good up till then. Has there been a staff change?

Desperate, cloying, geek friendly, manipulative episodes, with acoustic guitar laced montages. Seems like they're trying to make every episode 'Jurassic Bark' - but that only worked because of how unexpected it was. 

I only catch these episodes way after repeat, but due to a space-time confluence of things, I caught the episode where Bender gains free will. I understand it is a very recent episode. I don't see any problem (I enjoyed the shit out of season 6 as well, its the movies I find unwatchable).

I think this might be because my stepson watches nothing but futurama, and so I've seen every episode, in utterly random order, and its much easier to see through that prism that the show has always been hit or miss, but it hits more than enough to make it worth the effort, and the laughs, when they land, are fantastic.

For the record, the worst episode of Futurama of all time is the Werecar, and I've never seen nothing that approaches that level of laughlessness. 
 

I guess the shows best days behind it, sure, but the S6 episode with Fry and his dad was pretty great, and its nice to see Fry and Leela just randomly fucking and it not being an issue.

 

Kwanzaabot always makes me laugh, man. 

Awesome intro "animation" this week!

I've watched the first 2 or 3 of this season, and was not particularly impressed. I guess I'll catch up on the rest out of loyalty, and hopefully won't end up really depressed after.

And yeah, the Holiday Spectacular was a massively dissapointing ending to a season with some surprising bright spots.
 

Was that the season end or the series end? Either way it was craptacular, but if that was the series end, then it both sucked and blew.

Thought the fox-hunting episode was pretty great actually. Felt like an old-school ep.

Mutual of Omicron was worth a chuckle.

I actually liked "Naturama"...it was something different. I still would like another "Anthology of Interest" episode though....

I don't watch this every week anymore because I think the quality has declined to the point where it's no longer "appointment television", but I don't think it's reached the point where I'd call it downright terrible. From what I've seen of this half season (most of it, give or take about 3 or 4 episodes), it's still very watchable and entertaining most of the time, and there's even an excellent episode once in awhile.

Having said that, I also hope the series ends sooner rather than later, just so it can end while it still has some dignity. I'd rather see it go out that way, rather than at a point where people don't even enjoy it at all anymore week to week because it's got so stale and unfunny. Right now I think it's at about the level of late season 8/early season 9 of "The Simpsons" - still generally agreeable, but the cracks are starting to show.

Instead of ending at a time when people would say "FINALLY WE CAN GET THIS PIECE OF SHIT OFF THE AIR" (as I will say when the once majestic, now acrid "Simpsons" gets mercy killed), it should go out when it's at the moderate level "The Simpsons" was at before its Great Fall ("Great" meaning "large" or "immense". I use it in the pejorative sense!).

Speaking specifically about this week's episodes, I really dig these gimmicky eps that give us the characters in new contexts and forms. "Naturama" wasn't as good as last season's "Reincarnation", but it was similarly a nice change of pace deftly playing off our affection from the characters built up since the beginning of the series. The first episode was okay, but it was another example of this show getting repetitive and formulaic at times.

Just like they keep going back to that formula of an episode being comedic before dropping in a twist or montage at the end to try to make us feel unexpectedly emotional before it's over (getting less and less effective since the days of "Luck of the Fryish", when it was a hugely moving shock), they once again pulled the old 'something seemingly horrifying happens, but then it's okay, because it only happened to a robot' trick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wd40 

mid-season end.  There is at least one more half to go.

Ok. I know lightning can't strike twice with a series finale like Devil's Hands, but I thought they'd at least make the effort. Good to know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naisu Baddi 
Just like they keep going back to that formula of an episode being comedic before dropping in a twist or montage at the end to try to make us feel unexpectedly emotional before it's over (getting less and less effective since the days of "Luck of the Fryish", when it was a hugely moving shock), they once again pulled the old 'something seemingly horrifying happens, but then it's okay, because it only happened to a robot' trick.

Yeah, this is a strange case where hindsight seems to have hurt the series.  Futurama was off the air for so long that rather than create new ideas, the writers are trying to mimic their own success.

But for every Luck of the Fryish there was a Less Than Hero.  And every once in a while there would be a God Fellas (which was philosophically brilliant in a way that the Free will Hunting totally missed).  The writing staff seems to have forgot all those other elements and just keep trying to churn out the same episode every week.

This last one was better because they finally broke out of the mold for once.  It's too bad that it required such a severe gimmick to make it work; I am not confident that the remaining episodes are going to be any better.

IIRC, this next group of episodes are going to be Season 7-B