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Post by cyclica on Mar 13, 2011 16:57:06 GMT -5
Love's Labour's Lost In SpaceThis to me has always felt like the final set-up episode, as it introduces zapp, kiff and nibbler, possibly the three most important characters out of the main crew. Things I liked-- The 'cold opening', tricking us into thinking the after dinner mints were the whole meal leela and her date were having. It plays on the sci-fi cliche of people in the future having to eat meals in pill form, and it works because this is an early episode, and there's still a lot about this 'world' we don't know yet. - Having a retro bar in the future, which for fry is still futuristic, though it's dated for everyone else. - That whole conversation between leela and the professor, where mentions animals, forgets, and mentions them again. (Every pound of dark matter weights over ten thousand pounds!) - Zapp and kiff. They're easily the best parody of kirk and spock I've ever seen, and in this episode (and throughout series' 1 and 2) all their scenes are gold. I especially liked how zap seemingly comes across as a space-hero, only to reveal his stupidity, sexism, and heartless actions, like sending waves of his men to by killed by the killbots, and treating kiff badly. I also like how kiff's portrayed as a grumpy buytler in these early episodes, rather than the wimp who's scared or nervous all the time later on. - The whole leela / zapp subplot. Especially her scream the next morning as she realises what she's done. My favourite line- Zapp brannigan- "I don't pretend to understand brannigan's law, I merely enforce it". Though it's really close, as like I said, all of zapp and kiff's scenes were great. Things I didn't like / nitpicking-- The whole noah's ark subplot about rescuing animals was dodgy, and it felt like too late in the episode to start a new 'adventure', even it it was the reason they were out there to begin with. It was completely unrealistic for a planet to have so few animals, and for the crew to think they could save each species by rescuing only one of each, even assuming they resuced only pregnant females. And why not rescue the plants? - Nibbler. It's strange watching him act like an animal in these early episodes, knowing how intelligent he really is. And what was he doing on that planet anyway? - When bender advises leela to poke out her date's eye with a fork, he does this weird blink that just looks wrong, like the animation screwed up. - Speaking of bender, he looked angry throughout this episode, even when his voice / mood were neutral. I wonder if the animators were told to make him look angry, because it was a new thing they were trying with the character, or if it was just another mistake. - When we see leela with nibbler in her quarters at the end of the ep, she seems to already own a 'dog bed', which she must have bought before she discovered nibbler. More random things I noticed-- Fry asks zapp for his food 'to go' before he's taken to the brig, and in the next scene in the brig he's sitting next to a little foil swan.  - Both bolt rolands and the squeeky voiced teenage energy being from the club will be making appearances in the second movie, 'beast with a billion backs', with bolt in a bigger role. - One of the cool things about futurama is that you can notice new things when watching the episodes again later on, and even though I've seen this ep about fifty times, when I rewatched it for the review, I actually discovered something new! Leela encounters a 'mimic horse' that looks like her, and later on when nibbler is put into the ship surrounded by bigger animals, one of the animals at the back is a horse that looks a lot like nibbler!
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Post by cyclica on Mar 13, 2011 17:20:43 GMT -5
Sorry I've been a bit delayed with my reviews, I had actually watched this one last week, but only been able to make a review now. - As already stated, the introduction of Zapp is easily the highlight of the episode. He's a constantly engaging and humorous sleazebag, with great moment after great moment I was tempted to list all my favourite zapp lines and scenes, until I realised I'd be putting half the episode's script into this review. the incredibly short robes Yeah, what was the reasoning behind that anyway? Aside from being a random joke, was their any point to having zapp and kiff not wear any trousers? - Once again, the characters were pulled out of a tricky situation by a fortunate coincidence (in this case, that Nibbler excretes the very thing they need to power the ship's engine). This isn't a huge issue, but when these kinds of things are happening in episode after episode, it can get annoying. Coincidence? I think not! Nibbler was an intelligent being - he heard zapp say either the ship will be left on the imploding planet or they will be rescued, if only nibbler stays behind. It was loose/loose for him. So by excreting ship fuel, he saved the ship and himself, and all without compromising his secret, that he was intelligent. Though the question remains- did nibbler make the conscious descision to produce the fuel to save the ship, or did he just hear zapp's telling of the imploding planet and his own imminent death and just become really scared? - Maybe I've just forgotten, but is it ever stated that Nibbler's appearing before Leela was planned in some way? His not being named on the list of animals to be rescued adds credence to the idea that he wasn't originally there, as does the observation that if there had he and other Nibblonians been there, they'd have easily eaten everything else very quickly. And if Nibbler was 'planted' to meet Leela, was something else to source of Dark Matter in the planet's core? In the episode 'the why of fry', fry goes back in time and meets the nibbler of 1999, who tells him he's stationed on vergon 6. Though he never really explained why he's there. As to the planet being filled with nibblonian 'droppings', well perhaps nibbler's been contributing to it for a thoudsand years. Though more likely it's just lazy writing and you're not meant to think too hard about it. Which is odd given how well thought out so much of futurama and it's ongoing story is. |
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Post by partcynic on Mar 22, 2011 12:35:08 GMT -5
Sorry I'm so behind with these - between having been unwell and work, I have almost no time to myself.
***
Agreed on all counts. They were one of the show's trump cards in the first couple of seasons.
The scream made me smile - though Zapp must be a very heavy sleeper, as he doesn't actually wake up until Leela's sneaking away.
Yeah - it's weird given that Leela even mentioned bringing two of each type back (and had to explain why to Bender).
That left me wondering too.
That's not what I meant there - it was that the one creature that was remaining just so happened to be capable of producing exactly what they needed at that moment.
Yep - I'd be tempted to say this is just one of those incidents that fell through the cracks.
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Post by cyclica on Mar 24, 2011 16:18:32 GMT -5
^ I'm sorry to hear you were unwell.
Are you feeling better now?
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Post by partcynic on Mar 26, 2011 11:45:28 GMT -5
^ Yes, thank you. Enough to have finally written my next review! *** Note: It's now been a couple of weeks since I watched this episode, and as I don't like watching the same thing twice in a short timeframe, I'm working from slightly dim memories and a transcript. I stand by my points as I would for any other ep, but these ones are on slightly less firm ground. 1x05 Fear of a Bot PlanetLikes:- The brief opening scene was cute. The gag with the planet might have been predictable, but I still smiled. - While much of the characterisation for Bender was poor, I liked that his antagonism towards humans was raised in multiple episodes prior to this one. - The sequence with Fry and Leela exploring the robot planet was lots of fun (Leela's robot dance; the question to enter the city; the Tetris wall; the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" scream when they were discovered). I wasn't fond of the annoying urination joke, but everything else was enjoyable, with my favourite bit being the movie theatre. The flick Fry and Leela saw was a perfect spoof of '50s horror films, and the lines were consistently good. - The brief bit with the human hunt was okay, as was Bender's response to the robot pornography warehouse. Mixed Bag:- I had mixed feelings on the blernsball segment. As a non-American, I don't care much about baseball (or its futurised derivatives), and the interest it provided was limited to showing us what the sport's like now. I enjoyed the joke with Zoidberg and the hotdog (though like that teaser gag, it was obvious), but that was about it. Dislikes:- Nothing in the Bender story worked for me. As I said when reviewing the pilot, he can be a great character, but as the designated 'edgy' figure, he's also at risk of turning into Jerkass Homer Mk 2. Unfortunately, those behaviours were on full display in the early part of this episode, and it scuppered the main plot/development for me. If we'd had a bigger buildup (and more evidence) of robots being a seriously exploited/oppressed class, Bender's anger might have been believable, but he just came across as a lazy sponge whining because he was expected to do his job. As Leela pointed out, he does nothing at the best of times, so he had no reason to complain, and it was odd that Leela and Fry were the ones who had to change to accomodate him. The only time I found their behaviour towards Bender genuinely rude was when Fry was acting like the robot planet was empty (itself out of character - and didn't we do the 'Fry hurts Bender by being oblivious to his feelings' story in "I, Roommate"?) - otherwise, the treatment he got was deserved. - Intentional or not, the title pun (on "Fear of a Black Planet") is in really poor taste. Using allegory to draw comparisons to the rights of real-life minority groups is always risky, but it fails entirely when the complaining minority is depicted as a layabout who brings problems upon the self through their own laziness and ignorance. On top of that, we also get the reveal that the minority group leaders are deliberately blaming the majority for their problems to distract from the fact that they're all self-caused, which sits very uncomfortably with the early parallels the ep tries to make. - The robots take Bender away because he works with humans? Didn't they think about that when making an order to a predominantly human-occupied business/planet? - Should the robots be fooled by Fry and Leela's costumes at all? They certainly looked like humans wearing saucepans and metal boxes to me. - While I'd have several criticisms for this episode regardless, a big chunk of it could have been alleviated if Bender had just acknowledged some of his own bad behaviour. The fact that he ends up being rewarded (of sorts) for his nasty actions leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and it would have been nice for the development to be more fulfilling than 'Fry and Leela must cater to Bender's every whim, no matter if that means they end up having to do his share of the work while getting nothing but attitude in return'. *** Overall, I'd say this is one of my less-liked eps of S1. Despite the extensive list of criticisms, I don't hate it, but the theme and dodgy development spoil the moments of good humour and agreeable adventure vibe - making this a 'below average' ep, while the earlier ones all sit in the 'above average' category. |
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Post by cyclica on Apr 2, 2011 16:13:21 GMT -5
Fear of a bot planetThe first skippable episode, and it didn't leave a big impression on me. There's nothing really wrong with it, there were a lot of good lines and ideas, but the whole episode seemed slow (as was typical for season 1), and it's definetly 'just another episode'. Things I liked-- The opening with the planet being squashed like an insect on the window was funny the first few times I saw it. Though it became less funny after watching it a thousand times, as part of the dvd menu sequence. - The first appearance of blernsball, which I don't think was mentioned again until 'a leela of her own', where they pretty much turned it into baseball. I much prefer it in this episode, where it was 'jazzed up' and made no sense. - The 'robots = minority' storyline. I never really felt bad for bender, since he never does any work and always gets what he wants, but the plot still worked. And besides, I was glad to have an episode that focused on bender, and explored how robots are treated in the future. This isn't really a 'set-up' episode, but there's still a lot about this world we don't yet know, and I'm happy to see see this world explored. - The animation, especially in the scene where hundreds of robots come pouring out of buildings and run through the street. That was an impressive bit of visual art, even if it was probably computer-generated. - The fifties B-movie in reverse, with a robot couple being threatened by a human, who wants to digest them with his 'system of mighty organs'.  I especially loved the irony of the general-bot warning the audience that there could be a human sitting among them, and then fry was alarmed by this! My favourite line- From one of the incompetant robot elders- "Silence! I Concur!" Nitpicking- Leela continues to be bland.  More random things I noticed-Leela is found guilty of being a human. Foreshadowing?
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Post by partcynic on Apr 6, 2011 12:34:23 GMT -5
I mostly agree. I think I liked this one less than you (I found much of the theme and characterisation to be a mess), but it was certainly an issue of execution as opposed to concept.
Heh - my memory's rusty here. I'll obviously find out as we go through the box sets, but which one used that in the opening?
I'm happy with the Bender focus, but his characterisation killed the plot for me. This story needed a bit more foreshadowing - as it is, the 'robot = minority' stuff ended up being underthought and offensive.
Yep - it was cool to spend time there. I wonder if there could have been some kind of tie-in with the Killbots Zapp mentioned.
I hadn't considered that. You're right, it was very nicely done.
Agreed. It was my personal favourite part of the episode.
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Post by cyclica on Apr 8, 2011 13:24:44 GMT -5
- Intentional or not, the title pun (on "Fear of a Black Planet") is in really poor taste. Using allegory to draw comparisons to the rights of real-life minority groups is always risky, but it fails entirely when the complaining minority is depicted as a layabout who brings problems upon the self through their own laziness and ignorance. On top of that, we also get the reveal that the minority group leaders are deliberately blaming the majority for their problems to distract from the fact that they're all self-caused, which sits very uncomfortably with the early parallels the ep tries to make. I didn't think this episode was trying to make a point, like star trek or south park may do, but rather just used the robots = minorities idea as a jumping off point for comedy. And it felt like it became a different story once they got to the robot planet. From that point on, 'robots = humans' and 'humans = monsters', and 'the elders = politicians / spin doctors'. - The robots take Bender away because he works with humans? Didn't they think about that when making an order to a predominantly human-occupied business/planet? Good point. Also, you'd think a planet run by robots would have it's own lug nut manufactoring plants, and they wouldn't have to call upon another planet for help. And what's more, if lug nuts are so essential, why is one small box of them going to be enough? Does the entire robot population of the planet consist of one city? Overall, I'd say this is one of my less-liked eps of S1. I've always thought of seasons 1 and 2 as being consistanly good, certainly seasons 3 and 4 have always felt to me like a mix of very good and very bad episodes, and 1 and 2 seem average by comparison. But now I think about it, this probably would be my least enjoyed season 1 episode. I'm pretty sure it's season 3, though I can't remember which disk. If you're interested, the killbots did make an appearance in a deleted scene in 'LLLIS', and they returned to the show properly in one of the new episodes, where it turns out they worked for mom. |
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Post by partcynic on Apr 9, 2011 11:08:10 GMT -5
I agree that this ep was basically two stories and that there was no explicit point, but by making the insinuations it did at the start, it still sinks. For me, the lack of any obvious moralising doesn't change the fact that the story presented here was done so in the classic 'bigot's response to claims of discrimination' way, and needs to be critiqued for that.
Both very good points.
I think that's a good assessment. While my memory's definitely rusty, I recall that the show didn't put any true duds until S3, but a similar thing applied for its true classics. Or it could just be that the good eps in the S3/4 are so good that everything else pales in comparison.
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Post by partcynic on Apr 9, 2011 11:11:31 GMT -5
1x06 A Fishful of Dollars
Like "Fear of a Bot Planet", "A Fishful of Dollars" is one of those episodes that prioritises plot over character, and ends up taking people through some rather strange motions in order to facilitate its story. Like all S1 episodes, this edition can claim consistently pleasant humour and a respectable structure, but the weak theme - and character happenings posing as character development - drop it in my estimation compared to its siblings.
My Likes:
- The stuff at the start of the episode (ad dreams; everyone's experiences at the mall) is enjoyable - nothing great, but I was entertained.
- If Zapp was the newly-introduced highlight of "Love's Labour's Lost in Space", then Mom was the scene-stealer here. I really enjoy the contrast between her corporate presentation and real persona, and it's good to have an 'evil' character who's astute, intelligent and ruthless. Her sons were less successful (being the Three Stooges transplanted into the future), but their minor roles worked, and their sibling hierarchy is kind of interesting.
- Pamela Anderson's role was one of those Simpsons-style, tacked-on guest spots, but it fit in context of the plot, and the humour was likeably self-deprecating.
- Outside of the Mom scenes, I wasn't especially impressed by anything (the weak story and poor development saw to that), but the jokes were always decent. I didn't laugh out loud, but I got a couple of small smiles, and was tided over nicely until the end.
My Dislikes:
- The general plot of 'character gets a lot of money, only to lose it all by the episode's close, where it's promptly forgotten about by everyone' is a tired sitcom story, and "Futurama"'s take on it didn't add anything new or interesting to the cliche.
- Amy, the daughter of incredibly wealthy parents, is willing to contribute to Bender's bail, but doesn't offer to cover the last fifty cents? I know the rich stay rich by being stingy, but just how miserly is she?
- After the events of "I, Roommate", shouldn't Bender have been a bit more bothered/hurt by Fry upping and moving out?
- The character stuff for Fry was a big fail for me. In the pilot, we were repeatedly shown that his life in '99/2000 was a misery, and there was almost nothing he looked back on fondly. Since coming to the future, he's landed on his feet, made great friends, gotten a job that lets him fulfil childhood dreams, and experienced next to no culture shock. Knowing this, the 'Fry wants to go back to the 20th Century' stuff made no sense, and the consequent development (discovering the worth of his friends) had no meaning. Instead, all it did was make him look like a self-centred jerk. Much like Bender in the last episode, this is a story idea that could have worked, but it needed more foreshadowing and prior development to be believable.
- The '20th century' sequence should have been toned down. It was amusing, but the multiple, blatant slips (and Fry's inability to pick up on them or be even remotely questioning) were too much. I know Fry lacks a delta brain wave, but that shouldn't be used as a catch-all excuse for plot-induced idiocy.
- How on earth were Mom's sons able to get hold of all of Fry's money? Withdrawing the entirety of his account would not be advised or approved even if he actually wanted to do it, let alone being done by three strangers while he was unconscious/out of contact. And if they were going to steal it all, they could have probably done it without going to the effort of obtaining his PIN.
- The ending with Zoidberg was kind of cute, but it felt like the episode randomly stopped instead of reaching a full conclusion.
***
Overall, I'd chalk "A Fishful of Dollars" up as a S1 nicety that doesn't offer much beyond that, mainly because its attempt at character development falls so flat. Still, it's entertaining enough, and the consistently amusing spectre of Mom is enough to stop it from sinking too low.
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Post by cyclica on Apr 14, 2011 14:15:52 GMT -5
I'll be offline this weekend, so I'm doing this review early. Or late, I suppose, cosidering I should have done it last weekend. A fishfull of dollars
Things I liked-- The idea of someone going to the future and becoming rich because they've left money in the bank was kind of an obvious story idea, but I still liked this episode. We get the first appearance from mom, the shows first real antagonist, and some focus on fry, who had been pushed to the back a bit in recent eps. - The joke about rap music now being called 'classical'. Though I do wonder if all of today's music will be called classical, and there doesn't seem to be any new genre of music in the future. - Pamela anderson's cameo. Usually I hate celebrity cameos, it feels like they're forced into the show just to get viewers, but here her appearance makes sense, she's making fun of herself, and besides it's funny how fry doesn't notice she's clearly a head on top of a man's head and body. - The recurring joke of fry revealing his pin number to just about anyone, thereby making the whole 'fake pinucci' scene completely pointless. Mom's sons could almost have just walked up to fry and asked for his pin number. My favourite line- Fry being asked he had ads in his dreams in the past- "Only on TV and radio. And in magazines and movies and at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and bananas and T-shirts and written in the sky. But not in dreams. No, sir-ee!" Nitpicking-- The dream sequence at the start with ancient egyptian algebra wasn't funny. Not annoying either, but still kinda dull. - Bender squirts a saleswoman with oil, causing her to choke, even though the oil is everywhere except in her mouth. - Why is zoidberg so obsessed with anchovies? They went extinct hundreds of years before he was born, yet at the end he acts like he's addicted to them. - In the future they can bring back the dead as heads in jars, they can bring back the occasional dinosaur (as seen in other eps), but they can't resurrect anchovies? - Is anchovy oil really going to put mom out of business? Aren't there any other oily fish in the future that can be substituted for anchovies? - Mom and her sons are a little different here then they are later on. For one, it's walt who slaps his younger brothers, whereas later it's mom who slaps all three of them. And I could never got a handle on what the younger two brother's personalities are supposed to be. Are they both supposed to be idiots, or just one? Why is the middle brother so deserving of getting slapped in this ep, and why is it the youngest who gets slapped the most in later eps? - Walt looks nothing at all like mr panucci. In fact, the whole fake pizza place scene must be fry at his absolute stupidest, if can't even tell what his old boss looks like, or other basic facts about his own life, like how the pizza place looked. - Aside from fry, the main characters all had very little to do. Leela and bender were only there to be 'the friends' who fry abandons, any one of the mains could have filled that role. Only zoidberg had anything character-specific to do. In fact, hermes only had one line in this ep, saying 'to fry', toasting him when he became rich. - It's not really a fault with this episode, but couldn't they have come up with a real name for mom? Whenever I talk to people about the show, I never know whether to refer to her as 'mum' or put on an american accent so I can say 'mom'. It sounds weird either way. More random things I noticed-- First appearance of scruffy! With no lines. - In the year 3000, mom, possibly the richest person on earth, has security cameras that record onto vhs, and her big screen tv has a vhs player. ;D Overall, despite the long list of complaints, I consider this a good episode, though a little dull. There were very few really funny lines, and the only thing really of interest was seeing mom's first appearance. |
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Post by cyclica on Apr 19, 2011 14:49:40 GMT -5
I didn't laugh out loud, but I got a couple of small smiles, and was tided over nicely until the end. Well said, that really sums up the episode. - Amy, the daughter of incredibly wealthy parents, is willing to contribute to Bender's bail, but doesn't offer to cover the last fifty cents? I know the rich stay rich by being stingy, but just how miserly is she? I actually hadn't noticed that! Amy's wealth hadn't been mentioned since the pilot, and by this point in the marathon I had forgotten she was rich. - The character stuff for Fry was a big fail for me. In the pilot, we were repeatedly shown that his life in '99/2000 was a misery, and there was almost nothing he looked back on fondly. Since coming to the future, he's landed on his feet, made great friends, gotten a job that lets him fulfil childhood dreams, and experienced next to no culture shock. Knowing this, the 'Fry wants to go back to the 20th Century' stuff made no sense, and the consequent development (discovering the worth of his friends) had no meaning. Instead, all it did was make him look like a self-centred jerk. Much like Bender in the last episode, this is a story idea that could have worked, but it needed more foreshadowing and prior development to be believable. I'd buy that he'd be nostalgic for 20th century things even if he did like his old life, and I'd buy that he got too caught up in enjoying things from the past to notice his friends in the present. But where it starts to fall apart is how angry he is at his friends, and the lesson he learns at the end implies he temporarily abandoned his current life in favour of living in the past. If that speech to mom scene was cut, and all we had was fry just going back to work as normal and his friends forgiving him for being a jerk, there would be no problem. |
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Post by partcynic on Apr 22, 2011 16:10:23 GMT -5
Agreed (actually, I agree with most of the positives you mentioned, but these two especially). Those are both good points. I'd been so focused on the Fry character stuff that I hadn't considered the problems with Mom's part of the plot. Fry's fluctuating intelligence is one of the things that's bugging me more on rewatching. It's fine for him to be a bit slow to catch on/not possess the academic type of intelligence, but that scene just made him too stupid to be believable. Yes - he treats them really badly for no reason (or at least not one that's consistent with his basic character). You could be forgiven for thinking that he had an invisible (but skilled) brain-slug on his head for most of the episode. |
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Post by partcynic on Apr 22, 2011 16:19:10 GMT -5
1x07 "My Three Suns"
Completing a trio of S1 mediocrities, "My Three Suns" is another episode that doesn't really move me in any way. If anything, it's a case of half a lesson learned, solving the characterisation problems of "Fear of a Bot Planet" but struggling to avoid the generic sitcom cliches of "A Fishful of Dollars". The result is a workable episode that nevertheless demonstrates that "Futurama" fares best when developing its characters, as opposed to coming up with wacky scenarios and forcing the characters to react to them.
Likes
- It's neat to get introduced to Elzar, and Bender's fondness for cooking humanised him in a way that previous attempts had failed to (the throwaway comment about being a folk singer). I liked that this revelation served a role the in early part of the story, and it was good to have Hermes explicitly state that unless Bender actually did something, Planet Express couldn't keep employing him.
- The overall atmosphere of mindless adventure worked. Although nothing really impressed me (and the bits of 'depth' were superficial and underwhelming), I was able to watch from start to finish by just going with the flow, and provided you don't think too much, this is perfectly enjoyable.
Mixed Bag:
- The opening five-or-so minutes didn't have much connection to the real plot. While the Bender material that was dealt with needed to be sorted, his position as chef had little influence on the 'Fry becomes emperor' story (sure, the meal he served made Fry thirsty, but wouldn't the long trek under the hot sun have done the same thing?) It was like his segment was artificially tacked onto the start of a completed episode, and it didn't fit.
- It seems like the writers learned from the failure of "Fear of a Bot Planet", and actually decided to make a character acknowledge and apologise for bad behaviour. I appreciated that Fry came to realise the error of his ways, but I still can't say that justified the basic sitcom plot. I'm willing to let things slide considering this is just the first season, but I'll admit I'm looking forward to the point when the series carves out its own identity as opposed to just being a 90s comedy set in space.
- It was good that Leela pointed out the ridiculousness of the Trisolians (or whatever they were called) crowning assassins as new emperors, but that didn't make the story any less silly or unbelievable. What kind of people would unthinkingly hand over their societal/planetary power to a foreigner who'd just appeared and killed their prior ruler?
- I guess you could handwave this with physiological difference, but why did the previous drink-deaths prove fatal, while the emperor Fry consumed remained alive? Are we supposed to believe that Fry's body didn't remotely digest him, and that he didn't need to use the bathroom at all in the 24 hours between 'killing' the emperor and his manifestation at the coronation?
Dislikes:
- The opening sequence with Bender could have redefined the term 'generic'. While I liked the visual gag with the 'sub-standard' wash button, everything else was the kind of material you could see on any mediocre comedy, with no unique "Futurama" twists to make it interesting.
- Maybe it's just because I'm older, but Fry's manchild characterisation tends to irritate me now (though to be fair, this trope isn't limited to "Futurama"). I get fed up of seeing male characters be portrayed as clueless fools who I'm inexplicably supposed to like, while the characters who make sense (Leela) are portrayed as colourless naggers. Also didn't Fry also learn a 'valuable lesson'(TM) about appreciating his friends only one episode ago? There's no point trying character development if you're just going to forget it and repeat the same thing next time.
- When making the delivery, why did Leela set the ship so far away from the palace? I get there may be issues with landing sites in foreign worlds, but isn't requiring Fry to walk for what felt like hours a bit much?
- Fry can instantly understand what spinning things in a centrifuge will entail, but doesn't realise that buying organs on the street is a bad idea? On occasion, his erratic intelligence can be made to work, but a lot of the time it's blatant 'anything for a joke' shlock.
- Some of the jokes are forced and obvious (Bender making Amy and Zoidberg cry; the bit with Fry in the 'harem').
***
As with "Fear of a Bot Planet" and "A Fishful of Dollars", this is one of those pleasant adventure episodes that's watchable despite not really achieving anything. It does a decent job of providing simple entertainment, but it's otherwise your typical first-season offering, featuring no major missteps, but nothing truly amazing either.
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Post by cyclica on Apr 25, 2011 9:57:44 GMT -5
My three suns
Things I liked-
- Fry, leela and bender all had a lot to do in this episode. Bender was finally given a role within the company, to be the cook, which will be brought up again later on. It's a bit strange that everyone would be fine with a cook who cannot taste, though it's in keeping with having a doctor who knows nothing about medicine, a genius inventor who's losing his mind, an intern who's rich, a war hero who isn't heroic (zapp) and so on.
- The theme of fry not wanting leela's help. They could easily have made a simple episode of the gang getting into trouble on an alien world and escaping at the end, but the conflict between fry and leela adds an extra dimension to it, and it's fascinating because you can see both of their points of view. On one hand, fry doesn't want to be treated like a baby and thinks he can handle anything, and on the other hand leela knows this century better than fry, and knows his recklessness would get him into trouble. Usually I don't like leela filling the typical animated sitcom role of 'the nag' who tells male characters to stop doing crazy things, but where it works, and leela and fry play off each other really well.
- The humour. There are more jokes than the last few episodes, and there's lots of lines I found myself laughing out loud at- "You call that a couch? I demand a pillow!", "Are we even allowed in the forbidden zone?", "That's the saltyest thing I ever tasted, and I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt". I also loved the scene where fry is choosing his 'consorts' from bottles, and accidentally making himself look perverted in the process. Though My favourite line has to be fry's speech about the grasshopper and the octopus. It's especially funny to see leela's bemused reaction to it, as though she can't believe he's saying something this stupid, and this from someone she's known for a while now.
Nitpicking-
- If this is a desert world, how can the people be made of water? Wouldn't they just melt away in the heat?
- The aliens speak english? And yet there are no 'don't drink the emperor' signs in english, until fry delivers it anyway.
- Fry's reading of the speech was clearly not flawless, yet it was implied he would be punished if the reading wasn't flawless.
- I have issues with the ending of the episode. I loved bender being sort of the hero of the story in attempting to make fry cry out the emperor and lying to him about leela's fate, but once she returns the show becomes 'fry must suffer'. Did he really deserve to be beaten by all of his friends? They even continued after the emperor had left him.
- For that matter, how can the emperor survive being cried out one drip at a time? Half way through, you'd have two half-emperors. Couldn't fry have stopped crying when the emperor was most of the way out?
More things I noticed-
- First appearance of elzar, and possibly first appearance of the guy with a big number 9 on his front, who will play a big role in the fourth movie.
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I especially loved the irony of the general-bot warning the audience that there could be a human sitting among them, and then fry was alarmed by this!