Day Three Hundred and Fifty-seven - Futurama: Season 2, Episode 8, "He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're on the can!"

I may grouse that Futurama has fallen far over the years, basically turning into a somewhat better version of Family Guy that is set in the third millenium A.D.,  but I will always owe a debt to Matt, Billy, John, Katey, et al. for all the good work they did... especially in those early seasons.

Once such example of the sweet, yet insane, adventures of the Planet Express Crew was their first Christmas episode, "Xmas Story," which starts them off on a ski trip in the first act but quickly turns into a race for survival against Robot Santa in acts two and three.

This episode happens pre-Leela's Homeworld and still predicates on the notion that she is the last of her kind, a single cyclops alien with no one to love during the holidays, a fact that Fry agitates by deciding to mope over being a man out of time, alone himself. There's never much in the way that shows things from Leela's side, and Fry's realizations concerning how he hurt her with his careless words are a little too quick, but there's only so much you can do in 22 minutes. At least, that's the excuse I want to use, but I've seen quite a few examples of better characterization from the series that would serve as a counterpoint (Luck of the Fryish, Jurassic Bark).

I think the strength of this episode lies in its many gags. The future ski vacation allows pretty much everyone to shine, from "Trees Down!" to Amy's thinly-veiled cast fetish to the Professor sleep slaloming, that first act is packed full of great one-off jokes. I think my favorite is when Hermes goes bobsledding and fails, first with Zoidberg accidentally following suit and Fry saying 'the heck with it' and doing it a third time. Great stuff.

Acts two and three lose a little bit of that momentum, thanks to the Fry/Leela melodrama, but manages to stay somewhat strong despite that. It helps that Robot Santa is voiced by John Goodman and Bender is off fleecing the poor and destitute. Tinny Tim is so cute in his misfortune and the digital clock gag is just beautiful.

This was also back before Zoidberg was the butt of every joke and even got to be the hero now and then. The fact he's the only one of the crew (possibly the world) whom Robot Santa hasn't deemed "naughty" is deliciously funny. I'm rather glad he was able to find the love of his life in the last season. Plus, I love his Apology Dance!

Xmas Story is one of my favorite Christmas episodes of any series... ranking pretty darn high up there. One of my others will be my pick for the twenty-fifth, which shall remain a mystery until then. Sadly, my absolute favorite isn't available on Netflix in the US (though, I think it is in Canada), but I'll save that for the twenty-fifth as well.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

8!

Day Three Hundred and Fifty - Futurama: Season 10, Episode 10, "One last flashback to the year 2000."

It's pretty much a given that at least once a season Futurama will pull at the heartstrings somehow. Whether it's with Seymour the Ever-Vigilant Mutt or the Five-leaf Clover, as bad as the show can get this late in its run, it still manages to hit you right in the feels.

There's a disaster in the making, a sonic spaceship is heading straight to earth and is destroying every piece of rock in its path and it's up to Fry to figure out what they want considering the fact that he's the only one who recognizes the tune it's belting out. In order to kickstart his memories, The Professor helps Fry dive into his dreamspace where he revisits all of his haunts that last day before he was frozen in our time.

While it's not as high a quality as Life of the Fryish or Jurassic Bark, Game of Tones is pretty darn cute and touches on probably one of the last untapped mines from that period of pre-Futurama wackiness, his sports-crazy mother (voiced by Tress MacNeille). While it's a bit of a stretch to think that Fry would risk the end of the world just to spend more dreamtime with his mother, when he can still have access to the memory world after he finds the tune, but it's good to see the old family again... even that cantankerous old hawk of a father of his.

There are a couple of gags that feel like the Futurama of old, not the Family Guy, break-the-fourth-wall and every other rule while they're at it style of jokes. I love the thought-spikes and the vibrating football game, Nixon and Agnew and the Close Encounters bits. It's not on par with the stuff of old, but still pretty darn decent.

It's kind of sad to think that there are just three short episodes left before the whole shebang is done... at least for now. Sure, there's always talk of finding home on another network (especially from the cast, when asked), but I get this sinking feeling that this is it. We'll have to just wait and see, I guess, and just savor the last few as they come.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Forty-five - Futurama: Season 10, Episode 1, "It's Finally Happening!"

Welp, it happened.

Futurama was cancelled... again... and the last season has finally hit Netflix.

I almost want to feel sad, as Billy West, Katy Sagal, and John DiMaggio have almost always brought me quality scifi adventure with occasionally poignant and thoughtful episodes. Things were especially strong before the "Movie Season" era, but after its return to full run status, the show really hasn't been the same.

Case in point, this first episode of the final season... 2-D Blacktop.

Despite its inspired third-act journey to Flatland, a two dimensional world based on Edwin Abbott Abbott's (no, that's not a typo) novella, the rest of the episode is filled with crap gags that are more Family Guy than classic Futurama... and that's a GREAT disservice to the series. I mean, honestly, having Speed Buggy and Speed Racer show up for gags is all well and good, but have them quietly populating the background, don't do one-off reference jokes that break the fourth wall. It's bad enough when Seth MacFarlane does it.

Maybe it's just that they've run out of ideas on how to support the main thematic setpieces, but I see the same problem happening in modern era Simpsons, as well. It's like the story editors have burnt out and don't have anywhere else to go... that or they really ARE pandering to the Family Guy crowd.

That's not to say that there aren't a decent amount of old-style Futurama jokes to be had... like the Constellation Class spaceship in the background of the junkyard and Bender warming up his "blame-Fry" routine, it's just that there's not enough to cover up the shameless bits.

With this as the season premiere to it's 10th, I can definitely see how the writing was on the wall for the series. This is technically my first run of the last season, as I gave up cable in favor of Netflix well over a year ago, so I'll definitely keep going all the way through to it's finale... but, at this point, I'm really only interested in seeing the Adventure Time cameos later in the season.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Forty-one - Futurama: Season 7, Episode 3, or "Wait, we're still making Palin Jokes?"

Woo! Season 7 finally dropped on Netflix and I couldn't be happier!

Wait, now that I think about it, in the grand scheme of things, I probably could be happier. I could be happily married, dividing my time between a private island in the Caribbean and warm cabin in Alaska or Washington. My royalties check could be in the six figures and all my bills could be paid. J.J. Abrams could've tapped me to write the new Star Wars movie.

NO! STOP! Get out of your revelry, Mokti! You must resist! Dream big, but come back to Earth!

Phew.

That was close.

So, Season 7.

I've been tempted to pick this up as I just saw it over at the store the other day at quite the reasonable price. Now that it's on Netflix, I might wait a while... which is kind of a bummer, now that I think about it. I love owning series and movies, but it's just easier to double click than it is to pop a disc into my PS3 (that's right, Playstation rep-prah-zent!).

I'm sure that I'll get it eventually, it's just better for my budget if I put it on the list.

Anyway, I zoomed straight to the election episode as I remember the first time Richard Nixon's Head was elected the President of Earth. It felt like pretty good satire similar to the Simpsons election episodes of old (you know, Kang and Kodos replacing Clinton and Dole?).

Does that date me too much?

In the episode, Leela gets an itch to get involved in the process. That would be fine if the episode just centered on that. Instead, she gets involved by almost immediately becoming the head staffer for an actually reasonable sounding candidate... who is being overshadowed by the vacuous candidates our election cycle tends to throw at us.

To be honest, I was kind of mad when the writers threw another tired Palin joke at us. Not that I don't think the gal deserves to be mocked mercilessly, but it didn't have any panache. It felt like a retread of a rework of a grainy representation of Tiny Fey's impersonation from 2008's cycle.

I mean... c'mon guys. Michelle Bachman would've been a bit more prosaic as a target, wouldn't she? She was actually in the primary for quite a while, for one thing.

The main thrust of the episode is the same old birther argument. Personally, I think both the joke and the argument is dead as a doornail, but I do know plenty of people in the oil town where I live and work that STILL FREAKING BELIEVE.

Maybe the satire would've been okay if they had got the Severed Head in a Jar of Donald Trump in on the action, but seeing as how he's suing folks for jokes of late, methinks Groening and company went a safer route.

And that's more that just a bit sad (even if it is just speculation). Futurama was hip and prescient once upon a time. Since the reboot, though, it feels like they just don't know where to go. Their time travel stories used to make some odd amount of sense. Now, instead of being smart, they opt for sitcom era resets at the end of the 22 minutes of allotted time.

Instead of averting the coming Robot Apocalypse (at the hands of a certain B.B.Rodriguez), the epi is given a silly paradox out. I would've been much happier if the Professor had just swooped in and saved the day by putting the Baby Travers in a biodome that simulated the Robo Apoc so that the loop could be maintained... but noooooooo.

Anyways, as much as I'm piling on the hate, it's STILL good to have Futurama around. Even at its worst, it's better than Family Guy ever was.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~