Official Futurama Thread - Futurama back in '08 -RK has 2 years to afford cable

[Ravi]

http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2010-3-4-new-futurama-episodes-premiere-on-comedy-central-in-june

New 'Futurama' episodes premiere on Comedy Central in June
Billy West, John DiMaggio and Katey Sagal and the full vocal cast will also be back
Published on Thursday, Mar 4, 2010 By Daniel Fienberg

New episodes of the resurrected animation favorite "Futurama" will return to Comedy Central in June.
 
Comedy Central sources confirm to HitFix that Thursday, June 24 at 10:00 p.m. is currently set to be the premiere of the first new half-hour episode of "Futurama"since 2003.
 
"Futurama" launched in 1999 on FOX and aired through 2003. Adult Swim and then Comedy Central kept the show alive in repeats, with Comedy Central giving a home to extra-long "Futurama" episodes "Bender's Big Score," "The Beast with a Billion Backs," "Bender's Game" and "Into the Wild Green Yonder."
 
Ratings for the constantly recycled repeats, as well as DVD sales, helped to spur talk of a comeback and, in June of 2009, Comedy Central announced that the network had ordered 26 new episodes to premiere starting this year.
 
Fan enthusiasm was temporarily tempered by overblown reports that the vocal talent including Billy West, John DiMaggio and Katey Sagal might be replaced for the run of new episodes. Eventually, the full cast reached new agreements and Philip Fry, Bender, Leela and the rest of the "Futurama" gang will sound very much like you're used to them sounding.
 
Created by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening, "Futurama" won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 2002.

[// w ø l r å s]

I can't wait till this thread blows up in three months.

[ono]

Can't believe no one's posted here yet since Rebirth.  So glad Futurama is back.  Been marathoning with the old DVDs after the first two new eps premiered last week.  Tonight's ep is pretty great too.  Loved the sendup of the iPhone.  Better than anything posted in that Apple thread.

[// w ø l r å s]

Man, I wish I had cable.  I was at a bar on a slow night, but also friends with the owner anyway, so he put on Futurama on the big screens and that was cool.  But I'll be missing it tonight.

I guess this thread didn't really blow up after all.

But they have been very humorous, I assure you all.

[Ravi]

The show's as good as ever, though what's with the topical (iPhone) or not-so-topical (Susan Boyle, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) references?

[// w ø l r å s]

Where can I stream these new episodes?

[matt35mm]

I've been watching them all here:

http://www.futurama-stream.com/latest-episodes

Clean and simple.

[ono]

Really enjoyed the last episode.  Language mavins will love the running joke of Mom's robot extermination squad -- especially the last exchange.

ROBOT 1: But I don't see how it sur--
ROBOT 2: Someone said HOWITZER!!!
* they all shoot each other.

Beautiful.

But even better is they gave a little heart to the most boring character on the show, and tied together an unlikely combination of characters in the process.  It's interesting how the past three episodes have had these odder pairings -- Bender and Amy, Fry and the Professor, and now Bender and Hermes.  What's next?  Zoidberg and Scruffy?  ...well, maybe not after Scruffy tried to cook him.

[matt35mm]

That reminds me of a joke I made up when I was a kid.

PERSON 1: These Zoohoos are pretty good.
PERSON 2: They're called Yoohoos, with a Y, not Z.
PERSON 1: NAZI???
(starts shooting wildly)

Anyway, I've been disappointed with the recent episodes.  They're clearly attempting to be topical, but it takes too long for them to produce an episode for it to work.  For example, the episodes about the "eyePhone" and the Da Vinci Code.  A lot of the jokes are still pretty good, but the stories are not as strong, and the character stuff has been kind of slapdash.  In the robosexuality episode, Amy and Kif break up, Amy is suddenly in love with Bender, then in the last minute of the episode, it all goes back to the way it was.  Futurama used to stick with its relationship developments.  The everything-back-to-normal deal is more of a contemporary Simpsons structure.

But I've yet to see the newest episode.

[ono]

The Late Philip J. Fry SPOILERS


PROF: Just slow down.  I'll shoot Hitler out the window.  (fires gun)  Aw, hit Eleanor Roosevelt by mistake.

Love it.  Funny and poignant, one of the best episodes ever.

And to be fair, Futurama rarely sticks with its development, especially re: Leela and Fry.  But we can give them a pass there.

[// w ø l r å s]

This season is far from a let down (besides the Susan Boyle joke as a black hole of comedy, even though it's voiced by Craig Ferguson, which would otherwise could've been a great guest voice).

[ono]

This is why I don't like cats.

[// w ø l r å s]

I keep flipping back and forth as to whether or not I like this season.  The episodes are fine, but they don't seem to have as much rewatch value as seasons prior.

They're still online for free on that site Matt posted a while ago, so I have the ability to rewatch them and maybe get a better gauge of it, but something seems off.  The writing is there, the characters are still with their sharply defined personas, but the storylines seem like they wanted to tackle such huge, current issues coming right back out of the gate.  I'm not sure how else they could've come off doing it, but at least they didn't turn into Family Guy or anything.

[// w ø l r å s]

This may be over-excitement because of uncertainty of the new episodes, but this new one Clockwork Origin is pretty incredible.  It seamlessly taps into a lot of amazing themes and ideas that Futurama dances around but never completely submerges in because of how much depth there is to cover.  But the whole episode makes incredible parallels between creation and evolution, on top of that, it suggests the next step of evolution could be technology.

Please someone else see this so we can discuss this.

[ono]

I did.  It's not as emotional as The Late Philip J. Fry, but it was a very solid episode.  It was very balanced, I think, in showing both sides of the coin (love the ape professor -- the missing link calls back to that Late Philip episode where they see the statues of different races taking each other over -- people, apes, birds, cows, blobs, etc), and approaching things in a novel way (no matter how implausible -- though, that is the essence of science fiction).  I can't get behind the idea that technology evolves of its own volition, but what came of that idea was one of the most original episodes of anything I can remember seeing.  It reminded me of that short blurb in one of the Futurama movies where the snake and the frog, in different phases of evolution, usurp each other in order to survive.  I think it was To The Wild Green Yonder.