Futurama

It's 20 episodes released in two batches, with the final episode of the first batch releasing next week. This season is also either season 8 or season 11 depending on where you look, so the second half might be "season 12" on whatever the more granular season count is, I'm not sure. Regardless of what you call it, we don't have a date for season 8 part 2/season 11 part 2/season 12.

You know, watching this episode made me think "Whatever". The framing device was quite bad and it would have made more sense without it. It seemed like it was just one Big-Lipped Alligator Moment after another.

Tbh, I don't think the revival should have happened.

Callbacks can be funny when done right, but I'm finding that too many of the episodes in this season are, thus far, borrowing far too much from the exact same plots of episodes from the older seasons in ways that aren't as funny or clever as they could be, and it's leaving a lot to be desired. And while the plots are easy enough to follow, I still find myself perplexed more often than not about what actually happened, what the point was, or what the joke even was, this latest episode being a prime example of that; it was basically another "Anthology of Interest" episode, but the framing device is so disconnected from the toy commercial segments and parodies that it kinda felt like a fever dream.

I will admit to chuckling once or twice a handful of times, and ironically I thought the COVID episode was legitimately good. The jokes may have been dated as hell, but to me they still worked.

That or the bar got set so low it was the only episode thus far to clear it for me, and it's about the only good thing I can really say about the season.

They should've brought back the What-If machine.

^ I’m honestly confused as to why they didn’t. It would have made the episode coherent at the very least.

Oh shit, this episode is good, like no qualms good.

With that said, wait, no more new eps even though it's still middle of the season?

Edited by Ookamikun on Sep 25th 2023 at 8:41:34 PM

Mid-season hiatuses are pretty standard.

No, the hiatus is for the release of Season 9.

Also, Amy is consistently not the ditz anymore...or is that the lack of focus?

Definitely one of the better episodes this season. I was worried for a bit that we'd get a repeat of last week, and the entire episode would be Minecraft, but we got more than that.

Also, it seems pretty clear that at the end, the Bender that "appeared" was from a "higher" universe, come down to solve the problem.

I don't have hugely strong feelings about episode 10. It was certainly slicker than the previous episode.

I have some quibbles about Bender and Him being so affected by being called fake, it's had lots of episodes focusing on his robot nature and free will and likewise no-one has any reaction to him committing suicide to go down into the simulation? ...eh,

Just finished the episode, and holy shit. That was SUCH A BOUNCEBACK from last week's mess. Definitely my favorite episode of the season and up there with the classics for me.

So yeah, that's the first 10 episodes of the Hulu run. Overall, I like it, but I cannot say it was absolutely fantastic. Regardless however, I still feel there were more ups than downs. The first 6 episodes are good, but not amazing, and while they definitely fumbled towards the end, the final one more than made up for it.

If I had to rank them at the moment:

1. "All the Way Down" - As I already said, my favorite of these episodes. Genius concept and great execution, it's got all the gears of classic Futurama and basically none of the flaws this season has had. I'd been concerned about the revival not having it's "Late Philip J. Fry"/"Lethal Inspection" moment for a while now, but this is pretty much what I was waiting for.
2. "Children of a Lesser Bog" - My previous favorite of the season and the closest the revival had to its "Late Philip J. Fry"/"Lethal Inspection" moment for me before "All the Way Down" - even despite some clunky exposition. Great development for Amy, and I love the kids as new additions to the show.
3. "Parasites Regained" - The episode I was most hyped for, and honestly, I liked it a lot overall. I appreciate more as a Spiritual Successor to "Parasites Lost" than as a direct sequel, and the Dune stuff wasn't shabby (surprised it took the show this long to get around to spoofing Dune). Not quite as amazing as I hoped, but still very good.
4. "I Know What You Did Last Xmas" - I know we kinda spent some time dumping on this episode when it came out, but I actually liked it a lot. While there is some iffy time travel logic and a few minor plot holes, I enjoyed the Bender-Zoidberg team-up a lot (they honestly seem like a natural comedic duo, given Zoidberg's desperate desire for acceptance and frequent naivety and Bender's extreme self-centeredness and habit of being a bad influence on others), plus the family stuff was really sweet, especially the crew deciding to bring Xmas to Bender and Zoidberg.
5. "How the West 101..." - A really fun episode that executes its topicality a lot better than I think a lot of us feared. Not the most amazing episode of the season, but definitely a very entertaining piece.
6. "The Impossible Stream" - While I do like Rebirth, I agree that this episode was better overall. While in a lot of ways mostly just an excuse to get all the meta-jokes about revival and cancellation out of their system (which I didn't super-mind, as they've done this before), it did leave me overall with a good amount of hope for the remainder of the season.
7. "Related to Items You've Viewed" - I know we didn't like this one either, but I found it quite enjoyable. I didn't mind the topical aspect very much since it fits with Mom's character and I liked the commentary on Amazon's pervasiveness, but the real highlight was of course the Fry/Leela stuff. I also found the ending funny and very appropriate as social commentary (a lotta folks elsewhere have pointed out that Phineas and Ferb solved an episode's conflict in the exact same way, which makes it even funnier to me). A nice episode, but not one of my all-time favorites.
8. "Zapp Gets Cancelled" - This episode was a lot less bad than I expected, but still not a standout of the season. It's basically a rehash of "Brannigan, Begin Again" is a lot of ways, but it was cool to see more of DOOP and I liked the designs of the new alien characters we saw in the episode. Overall, not bad, but not my favorite either.
9. "Rage Against the Vaccine" - Honestly, this episode was not quite as bad as I expected, but still not very good. The topicality was a bit too much for me, but I did appreciate the more creative take on Covid as a Hate Plague, as well as the return of the Angry Dome (with more great Fry/Leela bits) and the use of Dr. Banjo's continued role as an anti-science pseudo-intellectual to contrast Farnsworth. I also liked Hermes' subplot overall, but the Labarbara/Barbados thing (which I never liked from the start, especially as someone who doesn't really like Barbados Slim) is getting old. A pretty mediocre episode overall, but not as abysmal as it could have been.
10. "The Prince and the Product" - To be honest, with the exception of "Reincarnation", I don't like any of the anthology episodes except the original 2 from the Fox run ("Saturday Morning Fun Pit"'s okay, I guess), but this one was the absolute worst. As I said before, it feels like it's trying to be a Bizarro Episode, but it just ends up being utterly incoherent in the most aggravating way possible. The toy segments were meh, and the framing device was frustrating, and that especially irks me, because it was cool getting to see The King of Space and his lammassus and the characters looked very cute as toys to me. So yeah, worst episode of the season and one of the show's worst episodes for me, hands down.

Edited by MagnusForce on Sep 25th 2023 at 6:44:52 AM

I love how Fry and Leela being together is more of a natural thing than a highlight, too.

I dig that this episode pokes fun at conspiracy theorists by rightfully pointing out the insane amount of power that would be needed to generate an entire simulated universe, and if such a thing was even true it's simply impossible to prove it.

It's not exactly high praise to say this was one of the better episodes this season, but tbh the fact that it didn't borrow, or literally rip off from, the plots of earlier episodes (Bender's sense of mortality and self non-withstanding, since him getting upset at every time he's reminded of either in a way that makes him feel inferior is pretty in-character for him anyway), is such a big plus for me at this point that I'll consider it a win.

Has Bender stolen or done literally anything bad this season?

So this was a good way to end the current batch of episodes. These types of episodes that go all in with real sci-fi ideas is why I kind of prefer the post Fox era, as it's more willing to embrace the premise instead of fall back on sitcom antics. I do think Bender's whole sentimental streak was rushed, but that's the nature of a 22 minute episode. But it's high praise to say I wish it could have been a two-parter, or even a four-parter like the movies because they only just scraped the concept.

I was a little skeptical at first with the Minecraft-esque design, as it was feeling similar to the anthology episodes and "2D Blacktop," but it managed to improve the further it got into the premise. Amy pushing the idea their world is also a simulation is a nice reminder she was Farnsworths grad student and has a doctorate now.

Aww, yes! This was a much better episode than the last one. I'm still going to say the Santa one was my favorite. I'll always be glad they're keeping up Fry and Leela's relationship and they even end it on a note like that.

The ball and cups thing is actually a terrible example of quantum physics. Quantum effects don't work on such a large scale, and objects have a definite position even without an observer (which doesn't even go into what, exactly, constitutes an observer).

Ooh, the "is the robot a real personality" question. Kinda late for the show, but still interesting.

And yeah, Amy seems a lot less ditzy. She's kinda dull now.

Kinda weird though. I'm pretty sure we already established Bender's origin story, and how robots seem to start out as, well, robots, but then develop sapience over time. I feel that question should have come up back then.

Also with Bender suddenly being afraid of being turned off. We've been here before.

Oh look, Bender is making the professor swear an oath, and of course he forgets all about what to swear on, as Devereux once elaborately pointed out seems to happen a lot in fiction. Which raises the question, what would Bender make someone swear on to make an oath binding? Certainly not god.

Bender goes into a simulation of himself and risks losing himself in the process. Just like when he dated the Planet Express ship. See, that's what you get when you're a long runner and already worked through most of the sci-fi ideas.

Wow, that ending gave me chills. That was great. It is as I figured, once they dropped the topicality, the quality got a lot better.

Ehh... he's done a lot of complaining and bitching, but not much worse than that, really. They definitely toned him down a bit for this season. To be honest, all the characters feel a bit toned down this season.

Bender's sentimental schtick is getting a bit old, admittedly, and not even the episode seems particularly interested on concerned about it. And yes, the characters do brush him shutting down off way too easily, especially Fry. It's like even the characters silently admitted Like You Would Really Do It was in play.

Edited by Redmess on Sep 27th 2023 at 4:07:13 PM

I was wondering how much writing they'd done before they knew they definitely had DiMaggio back and if they'd reduced Bender's screen time in case they had an unconvincing sound-a-like instead.

Bender's sudden concern over not being "real" fits with how it never occurred to Bender that they lacked free will until someone pointed it out, then spent a whole episode having an existential crisis about it.

Right, except back then it was the main plot, whereas here it feels more like a sideshow. The episode is much more interested in the general existential question than with Bender's identity crisis specifically.

Since they did a Saturday-Morning Cartoon episode, I'd like to see them do a Three Shorts episode where they spoof more modern cartoons. I think it'd be fun to see them do Rick and Morty, especially since Farnsworth and Fry would make such a natural fit for the title characters.

Love it or hate it, Deadline just confirmed we’re getting another order of Futurama episodes: https://deadline.com/2023/11/futurama-renewed-two-more-seasons-hulu-1235590020/

10 episode series are dumb. Even dumber ordering 20 episodes and calling it two series instead of 1.

Still 30 more episodes(including the 10 already ordered), we might get a couple of good ones.

Probably, they got their 10 year long hiatus out of their system, and that seems to have helped already.