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Season One Episodes“Set in the year 3000, Futurama is the acme of sci-fi animated sitcom from Simpsons creator Matt Groening. While not as universally popular as The Simpsons, Futurama is equally hip and hilarious, thanks to its zippy lateral-thinking contemporary pop cultural references, celebrity appearances (Pamela Anderson and Leonard Nimoy are among a number of guest stars to appear as disembodied heads in jars) and Bender, a distinctly Homer Simpson-esque robot.
Part of Futurama’s charm is that with decades of sci-fi junk behind us we’ve effectively been living with the distant future for years and can now have fun with it. Hence, the series stylishly jumbles motifs ranging from Lost in Space-style kitsch to the grim dystopia of Blade Runner. It also bridges the gap between the impossible dreams of your average science fiction fan and the slobbish reality of their comic reading, TV-gawping existence. Groening himself distinguishes his two series thus: “The Simpsons is fictional. Futurama is real.” The opening series (premiered in 1999) sees nerdy pizza delivery boy Fry transferred to the 31st century in a cryogenic mishap. There, he meets the beautiful, one-eyed Leela (voiced by Married with Children’s Katey Sagal) and the incorrigible alcoholic robot Bender. The three of them join Fry’s great (x30) nephew Professor Farmsworth and work in his intergalactic delivery service. Hyper-real yet strangely recognisable situations ensue–Fry discovers he is a billionaire thanks to 1,000 years accrued interest, Leela must fend off the attentions of Captain Kirk-like Lothario Zapp Brannigan, and Fry accidentally drinks the ruler of a strange planet of liquid beings.” –David Stubbs, Amazon
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Space Pilot 3000Written by Matt Groening, David X Cohen The Series Has LandedWritten by Ken Keller I, RoomateWritten by Eric Horsted
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Season Two Episodes“The continuing adventures of Fry, Leela, Bender, Zoidberg, Hermes, Professor Farnsworth and the rest who work at Planet Express. Not to forget Captain Zapp Brannigan (“We have failed to uphold Brannigan’s Law. However I did make it with a hot alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?”) and his hapless subordinate Kif Kroker. ” Play.com
Matt Groening’s second series of the 31st century sci-fi sitcom Futurama maintained the high scripting standards of the first as well bringing improved digital animation. Couch potato Fry now seems thoroughly reconciled to his new existence, transported 10 centuries hence to “New New York” and working for Professor Farnsworth’s delivery service. He’s surrounded by a cast of freaks, including the bitchily cute Amy (with whom he has a romantic brush) and Hermes, the West Indian bureaucrat. Most sympathetic is the one-eyed Leela (voiced by Katey Sagal). Like Lisa Simpson, she is brilliant but unappreciated; she finds solace in her pet Nibbler, a tiny creature with a voracious, carnivorous appetite. By contrast, Bender, the robot, is programmed with every human vice, a sort of metal Homer Simpson with a malevolent streak.
In one of the best episodes, Bender is given a “feelings” chip in order to empathise with Leela after he flushes Nibbler down the toilet. Elsewhere, Fry falls in love with a Mermaid when the team discover the lost city of Atlanta, Fry and Bender end up going to war after they join the army to get a discount on gum, and John Goodman guest stars as Santa Claus, an eight-foot gun-toting robot. Brimful with blink-and-you’ll-miss-them hip jokes (such as the sign for the Taco Bellevue hospital) and political and pop satire, Futurama isn’t a stern warning of things to come but rather, as the programme-makers put it, “a brilliant, hilarious reflection of our own materially (ridiculously) over-developed but morally under-developed society.” –David Stubbs, Amazon
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I Second that EmotionWritten by Patric M Verrone
Brannigan, Begin AgainWritten by Lewis Morton
A Head in the PollsWritten by J Stewart Burns
Xmas StoryWritten by David X Cohen
Why Must I be a Crustacean in Love?Written by Eric Kaplan
The Lesser of Two EvilsWritten by Eric Horsted
Put Your Head on My ShouldersWritten by Ken Keller
Raging Bender*
A Bicyclops Built for TwoWritten by Eric Kaplan
A Clone of My Ownritten by Patric M Verrone
How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove BackWritten by Bill Odenkirk
The Deep SouthWritten by J Stewart Burns
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Season Three EpisodesGood news, everyone, the third series of Futurama is just as funny as ever–irreverent, boundlessly inventive, warmhearted and chock full of in-jokes, sight gags and fleeting references to all manner of pop culture icons and obscure genre classics. In fact, if the show has a problem it’s this very fecundity: it’s all so lovingly crafted that scarcely a frame goes by without something both funny and clever going on: when a horse wins a race by a quantum fraction, Prof Farnsworth fulminates “You changed the result by observing it!”
Recurring minor characters (Elzar the chef, the robot mafia, the mutants in the sewers) pop up unexpectedly throughout, providing another wink to dedicated fans; like Red Dwarf, this is a show that loves the genre it sets out to spoof.
Shame, then, that the show has had a troubled broadcast history and never quite found the mainstream appeal of its stablemate The Simpsons.
This year, Fry and the Planet Express team find themselves stranded on a planet of unfeasibly large women (“Amazon Women in the Mood”), standing in for psychotic Robo-Santa (“A Tale of Two Santas”, with John Goodman reprising his evil robot) and variously falling in love with each other and sundry other humans, aliens, man-bots, fem-bots, virtual reality constructs and even the Planet Express ship itself. –Mark Walker, Amazon.
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Amazon Women in the MoodWritten by Lewis Morton
Parasites Lost*
Written by Bill Odenkirk
Luck of the Fryrish*
Written by Dan Veeber
Written by Eric Horsted
The Day the Earth Stood Stupid Written by David X Cohen, Jeff Westbrock
Written by Patric M Verrone
Written by Lewis Morton
Written by J Stewart Burns
Insane in the Mainframe*
The Route of All Evil*
Bendin’ in the Wind*
Time Keeps on Slipping*
I Dated a Robot*
“A Leela of Her Own”*
“A Pharaoh to Remember”*
Anthology of Interest II*
Roswell that Ends Well*
Goodfellas*
Future Stock*
The 30% Iron Chef*
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Season Four/Five EpisodesNo more good news everybody–this fourth series of Futurama is the show’s last. By turns frenetic and far-sighted, Matt Groening’s futuristic comedy provided belly-laughs for self-confessed SF nerds, but somehow failed to connect with a broader audience, even though it was often funnier and sharper than stablemate The Simpsons. So now bid farewell to the Planet Express team–Fry, Leela, Zoidberg, Bender, Amy, Hermes, Prof Farnsworth–as well as to kindly Kif, cloned Cubert, megalomaniac Mom, mutants in the sewer, the cast of robo-sitcom All My Circuits, swashbuckling space lothario and William Shatner wannabe Zapp Brannigan, Elzar the four-armed chef, and all the other characters that made Futurama such a unique experience.
This fourth and final year has all the elements that fans enjoyed so much–but also those elements that partially explain its cancellation. Recurring characters are great if you’ve watched the show before, as are the in-jokes; and the many parodies of classic science fiction are fine for the initiated, but risk leaving other viewers out in the cold. The show’s strengths and perceived weaknesses are exemplified in the episode “Where No Fan Has Gone Before”, in which the original cast of Star Trek play themselves: hilarious for Trekkers, but not really for anyone else. Elsewhere we find Leela discovering her real parents aren’t aliens at all but in fact live in the sewers; Kif getting pregnant; Fry discovering the fossilised remains of his faithful pet dog; and Bender being converted to steam power. Despite some ups and downs, it’s still the funniest animated show on TV. Those responsible for cancelling it can bite my shiny metal … –Mark Walker, Amazon.
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Love and Rocket* Written by Dan Vebber
Leela’s Homeworld*
Where No Fan Has Gone Before*
Crimes of the Hot*
Jurassic Bark*
A Taste of Freedom*
Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch*
Less then Hero*
Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles*
The Why of Fry*
The Sting*
The Farnsworth ParaboxWritten by Bill Odenkirk
Three Hundred Big Boys*
Spanish Fry*
Bend Her*
Obsoletely Fabulous*
Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV*
The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings* * Reviews not yet prepared |
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Futurama reviews are © 2006 – 2019 Chrystal Litchford, Ryan Bechtel and other named reviewers. Not for reproduction without the authors express permission
Futurama names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.