Your example is more drastic than mine and it’s entirely possible the whole thing became more pronounced over time. Mainly what I’m getting at is that I think of this whole thing as distinct from loss of quality.
Anyway, I can’t hate that African aid worker episode, isn’t that the one that gave us “Save me, Jebus!”?
I did enjoy it a lot at the time because of Jebus. But years later I saw the episode again, and other than Homer exclaiming Save me Jebus, the rest of the episode wasn’t very good.
I agree about the loss of quality over time. But I always thought this tendency not to focus the episodes was one of the symptoms of loss of quality over time.
The last four episodes were beautiful. They wrapped up Fry’s family connections back in 1999, they gave the crew a good team building excercise/alien horror show, they gave Dr Zoidberg a love connection, and then they gave Fry and Leela a very memorably goodbye.
My ever lasting impression of this show will now be Fry repeatedly falling from the Vampire State Building before hitting a button to go back 10 seconds in time.
A few more thoughts:
When they had their last season on Fox, they ended the show, but it felt like a weak ending. So I was happy that it kept going, but then it kept going in the form of those horrible movies, which made me think they should have left well enough alone. But then seasons 8, 9 and 10 were so good, and season 10 had so many good send-off episodes near the end that were a much better goodbye to the show and its characters. I’m glad they finally got to say goodbye the proper way.
Now I’ll have to track down that audio-only episode of The Nerdist linked above.
Is it just me, or did Netflix dump the first several seasons? I think the last time I went to watch everything before about season six was gone. So where do people go if they want to access the whole series?
Hulu, I believe.
Netflix losing the Fox seasons was the whole reason I was doing a marathon last year, and then losing these last four seasons was the reason I was doing a marathon this month to finish it before it went away.
Today should be the last day that Seasons 7 through 10 are available on Netflix.
Luckily as of a year ago I think I’ve seen all the episodes. But I also cancelled cable this month, so will sadly not be able to catch reruns on Comedy Central or Cartoon Network during dinner.
Um…what? That headline sounds like it’s written by someone who hasn’t actually watched either show.
Seems more like a feature-length version of this:
Hulu is reviving Futurama.
Noteworthy:
Dear TV execs: stop digging up the corpses of dead shows and reanimating them into increasingly deteriorated zombies. In Futurama’s case it’s already happened once, to no good result, so please just leave it alone.
The last season was so good, and ended in a great place. Not sure I want more. But I guess if the quality is good, I’ll still watch. Just don’t be like the movies.
I will admit that the later resurrections of Futurama, the movies and such, were not as strong as the original run. But if you offer me a choice of a world with new Futurama and a world without, well … that’s just no choice at all, my dudes. But by god, they better get DiMaggio on board.
Strong disagree that it was to no good result, though I am skeptical about another revival, especially without DiMaggio. There were some shaky seasons when it was first revived, and it never quite reached the same heights as 1-4, but the last couple were great.
Yeah, to quote myself from above in 2018 when I binged all of Futurama:
And also:
The fact that they’re willing to go forward without him should serve as a pretty gigantic red flag, it seems to me.
That could just be executives being executives, for all I know. Maybe playing hardball with negotiating. But the link says Groening and Cohen are involved, as well as most other principal actors. I’m willing to give it a fair shake.
I mean would you cancel the whole effort if one cast member can’t make it? That all or nothing approach seems bad creatively and business wise. My concern is not in the casting, but writing. That’s where it will live or die, as always.
Unequivocally yes, do it right or don’t do it at all. But more to the point, why are they doing it at all? As @Rock8man said, even if you like the newer seasons it already had a strong sendoff, there are no loose ends, and it’s been ages even since the revival. So, what good can actually come of this?