I loved the first episode, not so much the second one. The first episode had some fantastic lines though. “In your time maybe, but in this time shut up.”
Well, fanboy that I am, I felt they both worked pretty well. There was something slightly off-note about the Leela-Zapp story, both characters were acting a little bit out of character at that point, but the “Transfabulous Adventures of Zapp Brannigan” had me sold anyways.
“Nnnnnrrgghhh…Actually, I’m kind of proud of that one.”
But I think any doubts about their writing have been dissolved. They know how to pace out 30 min episodes, and there’s been no obvious change in tone from either being away, on a new channel, or recovering from the movies. (The 1st episode was a little continuity-heavy, but the 2nd one got right back into long term consequence-free episodic story).
I was a little disappointed that Fry seems to have forgotten about the dangers of dating robots. Or else he just never talked about that in the bathroom.
“That’s the one thing we’ll never understand.”
Because it certainly isn’t one of Fry’s defining character traits that he regularly forgets significant events in his life.
I was more surprised that they didn’t lampshade using stem cells to regenerate a robot. Original Futurama rarely let stuff like that slide by. And the unironic pop culture references (CSI Miami, iPod) were disconcerting.
I was disappointed from the perspective of they missed an opportunity for a series callback, not that it was out of character, really.
I feel like there was enough joke in the screen resolution comment to justify the CSI Miami comment. Also, since it came from Zapp it somehow makes it more ok.
The iPod thing was a little awkward though, since that wasn’t really used in the service of a joke.
Does anyone know if it aired in Canada last night? I couldn’t find it in the listings.
It doesn’t really make sense that Zapp would casually reference a show from a thousand years ago. It’s nitpicky, but again, it’s the sort of thing that old Futurama was really good about not doing. Instead they would have had him say “CSI Neptune”, or something like that.
Since there aren’t nearly as many writers on staff this time around, I’m pretty much resigned that the writing won’t be quite as layered or thought-out as in the glory days.
The vast majority of celebrities in the year 3010 are the heads of celebrities from the year 2010. It’s entirely possible that CSI Miami is still on, featuring the head of David Caruso solving jar-related crimes.
God help us.
“My God, he’s been… decanted!”
I was more annoyed by the fact that they called the image “blurry”.
Leela flying Zapp made up for it though.
There were plenty of good moments, I thought the second episode was a little weaker, but I fully expect them to need a few episodes to get their groove back, and I was pleasantly surprised by not keeping my expectations too high.
I’ll be interested to see what happens with Fry and Leela going forward – will their relationship last or will the writers do something to re-establish the status quo. With Leela “taking one for the team” at the end of the 2nd episode, it looks like they might drive Fry and Leela apart… not necessarily to their satisfaction and relief, but just create enough of a conflict between them so that they aren’t together but at least one of them wants to be back together. Hell, it might be that Fry can’t accept that Leela fucked Zapp again and splits up with her and it’s Leela’s turn to pine.
We haven’t seen anything of Kif and Amy since the 2nd Movie, IIRC. I hope that isn’t abandoned.
I couldn’t find it either, but I wasn’t looking super hard. We used to get South Park eons later than the US so I suspected it was something like that again.
Was the snafu where robot Leela was wearing both human Leela’s armband (on her right arm) and the bandage (on her left arm) during the one scene near the end intentional?
BigWeather – my husband noticed that too. I have a hard time believing that it was glossed over (considering the rest of the episode they were so careful about it). Accidents happen, of course… but Futurama is such a detail-oriented show I can only draw two conclusions from it:
- It will come back as relevant later on, somehow. (…)
- They were rushing and while everyone noticed it, they didn’t have time to re-draw the scene. (troubling)
Probably 2, and hopefully not a sign of things to come.
I loved Studio 1^2 2^1 3^3 – that’s the Futurama I know and love.
Yes. If you look closely, I think terminator-robot Leela also has the armband.
My guess is they just did that scene first, maybe before they finalized the bandage / armband as a way to distinguish them. I could easily see removiing robo-leela’s armband as a visual clarity thing after they saw rough drafts, and it probably just slipped through the cracks.
The rest of the show was polished enough visually that it didn’t seem like sloppiness, just a mistake.
Oh, actually, there was at least one other. In one scene (I believe when Zoidberg is declaring Leela dead), it looked like zoidberg is standing in front of the professor, but as he gestures, his claw passes behind him.
I think, I’d have to re-watch to be sure.
I knew there was a joke in there that I wasn’t getting. Personally, I was surprised that in the second episode they waited until the very end to make a joke about ‘V-GINY’, when Fry giggled over the name.
I’m guessing it’s a helluva lot cheaper to make the show now then it was in 1999.