I thought Murder's ending was pretty great, even though it was easy to see from a mile away. Recall that earlier in the episode, the "Professor" already claimed it was a test before devouring Hermes. Fry and Bender were probably like "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I could've done with less murder but considering how the group just essentially watched/learned each other "died" at the hands of a deceptive space monster, I wouldn't say it was a totally inappropriate action. Predictable, but still within reason. Or Futurama's own definition of reason.
Futurama
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It's mostly how it was played for laughs afterwards that irked me, though Bender/Fry did seem briefly horrified at what they did, and it was kind of understandable circumstances, so that puts it above a lot of the other callous deaths of the series (certainly the one where the Mafia kills an innocent, loveable Bender lookalike, and everyone cheers).
I can see why they would logically shoot him, I just hate that the writers felt that would be a funny punchline to work towards.I was just kind of uncomfortable watching the final scene of the News going "this innocent and beloved person is missing, please call if you know anything". And it creeps me out that it is now a canon part of Frys character that he deliberately shot an innocent guy dead, and then covered it up.
It wasn't as bad as when Homer murders a coworker for shits and giggles in "the Last temptation of Homer", but it reminded me of that. Just an off putting baggage to give the character.
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Futurama is coming back. Again.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/futurama-revival-hulu-1235176203/
20 episodes on Hulu in 2023. So far everyone except Joe Dimaggio (Bender) is signed on to return, and they're hopeful to get him back.. Including showrunner David Cohen, I imagine a lot of the writers would return.
Mixed feelings. I love the show but it was feeling VERY tired by the end and it stopped when it needed to. And Disenchanted has been… meh. (Season 4 of that just came out btw.) Maybe if this season they finally ACTUALLY move the Fry/Leela relationship forward and change things up that'll help rather than the limbo before where they were sort of dating but not depending on the episode. Maybe have Zoidberg keep his girlfriend from the end of the last season and not make her a one episode joke. Keep Bender's son. Actually move the characters forward a bit. Part of the reason the show got stale is because nothing really changed over 140 episodes outside of Leela getting parents and them learning Nibbler could talk.
And they've had a few years away maybe the writers are refreshed now?
I guess Ken Keeler will get to write the series finale for the fifth time?
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Ugh. What is with Matt Groening shows not shutting the fuck up when they need to? The first revival was one thing since it did feel like the first run ended too soon, but this is just totally unnecessary.
But hey, whatever. If this turns out to be great I'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Good lord .
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Ahahahaha, what????? Again??
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"According to an individual with knowledge of the project, the producers are hopeful DiMaggio will return. Should that not happen, Bender will be recast." Uhm, no, thank you?
But I agree, Futurama had a good run, 8 seasons are enough and we got a great series finale. Let it rest, guys.
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Imagine being so disconnected from their fanbase that they would even consider doing a revival without the biggest draw onboard. But i mean if he joins it'll be fine i suppose, even at it's worst futurama was watchable
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Meh.
Loved the show but I never finished watching the stuff from the first revival, there were one or two good episodes but mostly it just seemed to lack a certain something the earlier episodes had.They just can't seem to accept that the show was never going to be another Simpsons.
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Yeah, I'm not sure I understand this one being revived. I feel like this show changed after its first revival and wasn't as good. When it was finished I was like "eh". So it coming back with that reputation of being "eh" doesn't really excite me.
Also, it's odd to think of this show after the era of Trump. Nixon was used because he was the most infamous crook of a president, but now he's been outdone by Trump.
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Yeah, I'm not sure I understand this one being revived. I feel like this show changed after its first revival and wasn't as good. When it was finished I was like "eh". So it coming back with that reputation of being "eh" doesn't really excite me.
Also, it's odd to think of this show after the era of Trump. Nixon was used because he was the most infamous crook of a president, but now he's been outdone by Trump.
so perhaps in the revival, Nixon gets removed from office for good and replaced by Trump. and given his real world track record, Futurama Trump would be the kind of person who would praise Zapp for being a nitwit, pick fights with the Omicronians, and persecute a random alien species every other week just to boost his approval ratings.
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Yeah, I'm not sure I understand this one being revived. I feel like this show changed after its first revival and wasn't as good. When it was finished I was like "eh". So it coming back with that reputation of being "eh" doesn't really excite me.
Some of the best episodes of the show were from the return. It had a few more lows, and was wearing out by the end certainly since they refused to change the status quo at all, but the return was certainly worthwhile.
If the new run gets even two or three more great episodes out of its 20 its probably worthwhile, as long as the other 17 are at least middle of the road and not outright awful.
Also, it's odd to think of this show after the era of Trump. Nixon was used because he was the most infamous crook of a president, but now he's been outdone by Trump.
Nixon was used because Billy West did a crazy Nixon voice and they had fun with that. Same reason they had the robot preacher, and hedonism bot keeps coming around.
The real surprise is they never got around to doing Orson Welles considering they had Maurice Lamarche on hand, but maybe between the Critic and Animaniacs they felt he was doing that kind of role too much and avoided the temptation.
Considering that during Trumps presidency Billy did Zapp reading Trump tweets and it fit perfectly, it seems more like they'd have him run for president, win, and play with that.
if not for the fact the show is only starting production now, so maybe we'll be spared them running dated Trump jokes into the ground like Animaniacs did.
Hopefully they don't bring back Patric Verrone, who wrote all the worst episodes of the show in both runs.
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The real surprise is they never got around to doing Orson Welles considering they had Maurice Lamarche on hand, but maybe between the Critic and Animaniacs they felt he was doing that kind of role too much and avoided the temptation.
They had Welles in an episode (Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences)
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They had Welles in an episode (Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences)
Ah, one of the dozen episodes written by Patric Verrone. Who as I already noted, was the worst writer on the show by a mile.
Small wonder I don't remember that, I probably only watched the episode once.
(And n, I don't know that fact offhand, but I checked the author just like an hour ago and skimmed the list of episodes he did.)
Still, they had official Orson Wellles impersonator Maurice Lamarche and only went for it once is a bit of restraint on their part.
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Fortunately, this clip is all the Welles impersonated by Maurice Lamarche is all I'll ever need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uWW–w4SRs
And this
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Fortunately, this clip is all the Welles impersonated by Maurice Lamarche is all I'll ever need.
Fun story about that. Apparently Lamarche memorized that bit on a lark back in the day because it amused him so much, and he would just do that bit as his warm up to get in character for Brain. The writers noticed and then did a script of exactly that. He was very amused when he saw that script.
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DiMaggio back on as Bender!
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/futurama-john-dimaggio-hulu-revival-1235193435/
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Of course he is. It was a negotiation tactic, as was their saying they would cast someone else.
Literally the exact same thing happened the first time they came back. I was at the Comicon panel that suddenly just had no voice actors and only writers and that was an awkward panel.
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It wouldn't be Futurama if DiMaggio wasn't Bender.
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Here we go again
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Feckin' Ganondorf hasn't come back as many times as Futurama has.
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JUST PLEASE LET FRY AND LEELA BE A COUPLE THROUGHOUT, I BEG YOU
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Here we go again! Hopefully they've recharged over the long break, they were really running on fumes the final season last time around.
Two of the writers in the first ten episodes, David Cohen and Eric Kaplan, have written a lot of older episodes since the first season and are consistently great. One of the writers, Patric veronne, consistently wrote the worst episodes of the series because he does VERY current commentary that ages like milk, like when he did the Eye-Phone or the Obama election.
The other seven writers are all new to the show, or have only written one or two episodes, so there's no telling what their quality will be. Ken Keeler, possibly their best writer, isn't anywhere in the first ten.... so he'd better have written the series finale. For the fifth time.
First 10 eps will be airing July through September.
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The new episode of Futrama was pretty good. Plot was fairly contrived, but the show and the characters are still the same and there were some real funny bits.
May have just been me, but I thought that Fry sounded kinda raspy and older at times, which, you know, makes sense.
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Kinda glad it’s on a weekly schedule. Think there’s not a lot of buzz about this reboot this go around, or maybe I’m not looking in the right places.
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@Nobodyman said in Futurama:
May have just been me, but I thought that Fry sounded kinda raspy and older at times, which, you know, makes sense.
Thought the same with Phil LaMarr as Hermes. Still great performances though.
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Well, we're 5 episodes into the new run. So far it's... fine. All episodes that feel like they could have been anywhere in the series. No real clunkers yet, nothing that feels its tired and worn out, but no all time greats either. Long as we get 2 or 3 peak episodes out of the 20 it'll be worth it.
it is nice that Fry and Leela are actually jut an item finally. No on the fence or will they won't they, just officially dating full time and actually moving forward.
It's neat that they acknowledged that real time has passed even if the characters haven't exactly aged, so we actually got back to Amy and Kif's babes! 20 years after they originally set out with the promise of "I'll be ready in 20 years!" THAT is crazy purely because that was once upon a time a cop out cheat ending... and now that much time has actually passed! Curious to see if they show up in more than just the one episode.
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Agreed. It's been passably entertaining so far, but I'm hoping we'll get some strong ones soon.
My biggest gripe so far is all the expository dialogue explaining things that happened in episodes from previous seasons. I get that they have to catch up new audiences, but a lot of it just feels really heavy-handed.
Regarding Amy and Kif's babies, it's nice that they followed up on that, though I could've done without them killing off most of them. I mean, I get that they didn't want to have 50+ characters running around, but there must have been some other way to handle it. Maybe just the three of them were ready to emerge or maybe a situation like Jake's kids from Adventure Time where they grow up right away?
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Well, that anthology episode was one of the worst episodes of the series. That one is active damage to the show.
Rage against the vaccine was also nothing but super obvious bad jokes we got plenty of over the last three years offering nothing new to say about the matter.... and Zapp gets Cancelled was... okay but not good since the big reset button was hit at the end instead of actually changing any of the dynamics after 200 episodes.
Only one episode to go this season and so far nothing has justified the return. But next ep is written by Cohen, one of the long runners who usually does good, so hopefully this season ends on a strong note? AAnd we haven't gotten the Ken Keeler episode yet either, and he's presumably doing the series? finale again.
But so far this first return season has ranged from mediocre to outright bad. The show has always been unever, but there's usually a few really good eps in there to balance it out.
We at least haven't gotten another Susan Boil episode I guess.
@Nobodyman said in Futurama:
Regarding Amy and Kif's babies, it's nice that they followed up on that, though I could've done without them killing off most of them. I mean, I get that they didn't want to have 50+ characters running around, but there must have been some other way to handle it. Maybe just the three of them were ready to emerge or maybe a situation like Jake's kids from Adventure Time where they grow up right away?
Considering the lot of them all aged differently anyway, that 100% would have been the appropriate solution. Could have had plenty of gags about being completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, while still giving the emotional focus to the three main ones.
They've thus far only been in the background since that episode anyway, so it wouldn't have hurt anything for there to be a few more in the short term.
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Disagree about Zapp gets cancelled. Of all episodes to not change the status quo, I think the cancel culture episode is the funniest to do so in and that was clearly kinda the point to me.
As far as the season in general, Id say maybe 2 of the eps are bad. The rest are good, what you did last Xmas was great imo, but yeah no all time highs either. Im optimistic about All the Way Down though both because Cohen is writing and the premise sounds very classic futurama
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The final episode of the season was a solid one, easily the best of the season. An actually interesting sci-fi premise, good jokes, and some heart. Cohen delivered. That one deserves a place on the shelf with the other seasons.
The episode with Kif and Amy's kids was nice enough (mostly neat for the fact of real world time having passed), and the Christmas episode was pretty decent.
3 out of 10 decent episodes is enough to justify the return, especially since one of the best writers isn't until next season. But man the other episodes were a really mixed bag. mostly forgettable but harmless.
THe bitcoin , amazon and Covid episodes are already aged, and are right next to the Eye-Phone and 2012 election episodes, and the one that kept harping on the matrix batteries. Way too blatant on a specific current subject and so the jokes fall flat because we've heard them before AND will age quickly.
And then Prince and the Product was outright one of the worst episodes of the series and I'm not sure what happened there given Eric Kaplan wrote some of the show's best episodes. Their anthologies have almost all been awkward excuses to use weird versions of the character designs and then the joke ends there.
So the show justified its return, but its easily the weakest season.
Also a little unfair to judge as its also the shortest season since every other season was 13-20 eps. Those remaining 3 could have been the balance on the good side.
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Yep. The finale was pretty good in that it at least felt like Futurama. Not top-tier perhaps, but still good.
As for the rest of the season, the Kif and Amy, Christmas, and Zapp episodes were fine, and I actually liked the Amazon episode, if only for the Fry and Leela stuff.
I personally didn't hate the Prince and the Product, but it's a shame these anthology episodes have fallen so low when the first two were among the highlights of the original run.
Incidentally, I watched the final season of Disenchantment more-or-less concurrently with Futurama, and, up until this final episode, which edges Futurama ahead for me, I wasn't sure which one I preferred. Both were pretty mediocre for the most part, but I feel like Disenchantment had something of an edge in that it at least knew what it was. What it was wasn't anything special, but the writers stuck with what they were doing. Whereas with this season of Futurama they mostly stuck with dated pop-culture-references-of-the-week, a nasty habit they picked up from the first revival and apparently have doubled down on.
I'd like to think they'll stop and do more timeless in the second half of the season, but I don't see any reason why they would. Apparently it's just want they want to do or what they think will get views. Regardless, here's hoping the next ten episodes are a lot better.