Up till now this season I've been defending a run of lots of great episodes from a different complainer every week. This week though someone else will have to fill that role. This may be the weakest episode of the season. I always seem to have more of a problem with the eps which don't require the sci-fi/future setting at all and where that is just used as window dressing or throwaway gags. This was one of those. Also I was disappointed Fry was barely in this one. I don't remember him being in the 1st act at all. He's probably my favorite Futurama character...always get the most humanly satirical jokes out of him. The other problem with this ep is that I'm not sure where the sympathies were supposed to lie. Somehow it seems we should have been rooting for the lobster comedian, but he was a totally unlikable guy. Calculon was similarly unlikable, with shifts of attitude that were hard to believe, and Zoidberg just seemed particularly weak-minded throughout. Worse yet, my only laugh came from the perfect Marisa Tomei joke. Well, at least the show is always great to look at.
-Eric Sansoni ([email])
"What I'm trying to communicate is that I'm willing to do nudity, no extra charge!" -Bill McNeal, Newsradio, 1998
The writers are doing what happened to the Simpsons when they ran outta material.
They start honing in on one character and writing and entire show featuring mainly him. All the shows of the new season are a total dissapointment as far as I'm concerned.
Oh boy will you love "The Route of All Evil" (3ACV12) It's main plot is all Cubert and The yet un-introduced son of Hermies. That I suspect it will be worse than tonight's episode by a lot.
And if you have yet to like any episode of this season you may not like Futurama at all, because by now they've covered pretty much every direction you can go to with Futurama this season. From mindless joke cement to full blown Sci-Fi plot and from tasteless gags to some fair satire. You have to have liked at least one of the eight episodes they ran since November or else you simply don't like the show period.
In this case tho', it really does apply. I used to think I liked Zoidberg. I suppose I do, but he really has no other use than comedic relief. Tonight's episode proved it. It's a clich�, but Worst Episode Ever�.
Still, it had its moments...all the ones without Zoidberg. They can't all be home runs.
It was duller than the average episode, but it was still better than "Bendless Love" from a couple of weeks ago. And in all truth, that episode wasn't that bad either, just kind of boring. A lower-tier Futurama episode is still pretty good, and is far better than some of the depths Simpsons has reached in its past two seasons (tonight's episode, for example).
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 06:56:08 GMT, Mike Zaite wrote:
Gawd, that Nsync episode was a travesty. It sucked. It sucked it "old school." And I usually *like* the musical Simpsons eps (I think Alf Clausen is one of the most underated musical talents in the TV biz today) I don't have any opinion on Nsync...but replacing regular character voices with pop stars singing was quite disconcerting.
Sad state of affairs when the funniest moment of the ep was the opening chalkboard gag. (I will not buy a presidential pardon.)
BTW. my favorite Simpsons musical moments..
10. "South of the Border" from the Kamp Krusty episode. 9. The Star Trek homage from "Deep Space Homer" (later to be duplicated in "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love") 8. Journey's "Any way you want it" at the end of the Rodney Dangerfield ep. 7. The Stonecutter's song 6. Cyndi Lauper singing "home of the br-aaa-have" 5. Bart and Milhouse goin' broadway style with "Springfield, Springfield" 4. The B-52's "Glove Slap" 3. The NY broadway musical song "I'm Checkin In." 2. Homer gettin the snot beat out of him against U2's "Pride" (in the name of love)- and Bono singin' "your arse is showing" 1. Troy McClure's "Doctor Zaius"
On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 15:12:53 -0600, Saturn S. Padua wrote:
I remember a story like that going around a long time ago, it's probably an urban legend. Some kiddie pop star was singing on a live TV show when his voice processor broke down. He tried to finish the song, but could not even stay on key. I actually thought that gag was pretty good.
Overall, I do agree that the episode was a bit weak, I think the South Park "boy band" episode was funnier. But then anything that puts down manufactured pop bands deserves some credit.
What's really wrong with his argument is that both shows have done it from day one. It looks like The Simpsons actually did it more...there was always a Bart episode, Homer episode, Lisa episode, or Marge episode. Less often was the focus in any episode split between the whole family. Let's look at Simpsons season 1: Bart the Genius, Homer's Odyssey, Bart the General, Moaning Lisa, The Telltale Head (Bart), Life on the Fast Lane (Marge), Homer's Night Out, The Crepes of Wrath (Bart). That was 8 out of 13 episodes in the first season which were centered around one character. By the time you got to season 2 and 3, you started seeing episodes centered on the secondary characters, like Principal Charming, Old Money, When Flanders Failed, Like Father, Like Clown, The Otto Show, and Bart's Friend Falls in Love.
Futurama was similar. Most of the episodes in season 1 were Fry-centered: Space Pilot 3000, A Fishful of Dollars, My Three Suns. Some were on Bender: Fear of a Bot Planet, Hell is Other Robots. One was on Leela: Love's Labors Lost in Space. Only 3 out of 9 had main plots starring the whole crew equally. In season 2, we saw the minor characters get added depth in Brannigan Begin Again, Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love, How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back, and A Clone of My Own, along with the many Bender, Fry, and Leela episodes. Only 8 out of 20 had a balanced focus between all the characters. For that matter, Futurama season 3 actually had the highest proportion of balanced character episodes, with 4 out of 8 so far. So any argument that a greater focus on solo character episodes represents a decline in the series must be false. If the show is declining, the statistics show exactly the opposite has to be true.
There are also the 2-character episodes in both series, like Lisa the Greek or Put Your Head on My Shoulder, which likewise cannot be said to feature all characters equally.
Clearly there's absolutely no correlation whatsoever between these shows' quality and whether or not an episode was based on one character or equally covered all of them. This technique was done from the beginning in both shows and is absolutely ingrained for almost any television series you can name. In fact, the solo character episodes are the real foundation of the shows, providing the in-depth characterization that helps us identify with these characters throughout the whole series. The producers are aware of this, which is probably why you see there have been sucha high proportion of such episodes in the early seasons.
-Eric Sansoni ([email])
"What I'm trying to communicate is that I'm willing to do nudity, no extra charge!" -Bill McNeal, Newsradio, 1998
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:38:54 GMT, [email] (Eric S.) wrote:
Quite right and well put!
While there have been some weak episodes, there have also been some that were hilarious. There seems to be some kind of contest going on to be the first to say the show sucks. "Hey I'm cooler than you, I said it sucked two episodes ago". And so on.
Even the Simpsons have good and bad episodes. But, every one is so convinced that it's going to suck, that they look for each episode to be bad. If they suddenly found a few episodes for season 3 or 4 that they never showed and ran them now, do you think anyone would say "this episode was great, just like season 3" or would it get panned "worst episode even, why can't they be like season 3"?
Last night's Futurama, in particular, was funny, though the pace was a bit slower than usual. I really enjoyed the cultural references to the aging "Borscht Belt" comedians who could not longer find work. As Vaudeville dried up, many talented acts fell by the wayside. The over acting that was need to project an emotion on the live stage looked ridiculous in movies, where everyone is up close.
I thought it was good to get to know Zoidberg's past. A lot of the humor in this episode was Jewish. The whole story of the son who doesn't want to follow in his father footsteps, the borscht belt comedian, Zoidberg's career options coming down to comedy and medicine. Two relatives who are both failures trying to convince each other that they are successful.
Every episode can't be everybody's favorite, but jumping to be the first to call the show's demise because one or two episodes seem a little less funny than the last is not necessary.
<Every episode can't be everybody's favorite, but jumping to be the first to call the show's demise because one or two episodes seem a little less funny than the last is not necessary. >
I actually think a lot of Season 2 episodes have been setting standards for the show to follow, is what the main problem is. I think Season two was nearly perfect, with the exception of 2AVC01-2AVC03, "Bicyclops", and "Bender Gets Made". Many of the episodes were well-written, very funny, and were charming. The only way to go is to get better.
~DarthArada~ "Snuh!" Homer Simpson "We have all the time in the world..." ~George Lazenby/James Bond "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" MUSSOLINI TO EMBARK ON CHEST EXPANSION CAMPAIGN ~The Onion
This is so true. And the sad thing is that this sort of nonsense is encountered on every fan newsgroup out there. It seems as if me and the people writing this nonsense are watching two different shows. I hadn't really considered it, but I think you may be on to something, the one ups manship to see who can badmouth any given show the most. I mean you have people who week after week, year after year spend and great deal of time complaining about how bad the show is. It never really made any sense, if they think the show is so poorly done, if it is so beneath them, why are they wasting time watching it. More so, why are they devoting so much of their lives to talking about a show they don't like. I mean some of them write whole essays, weekly, about every little niggling detail of how the show did this or that wrong. I mean these people spend more time talking about the show they supposedly hate than I do telling how much I liked it. But I guess that is it, this is how they make themselves feel they are cool, by lording it over we "saps" who think the show itself is cool.
<This is so true. And the sad thing is that this sort of nonsense is encountered on every fan newsgroup out there. It seems as if me and the people writing this nonsense are watching two different shows. I hadn't really considered it, but I think you may be on to something, the one ups manship to see who can badmouth any given show the most. I mean you have people who week after week, year after year spend and great deal of time complaining about how bad the show is. It never really made any sense, if they think the show is so poorly done, if it is so beneath them, why are they wasting time watching it. More so, why are they devoting so much of their lives to talking about a show they don't like. I mean some of them write whole essays, weekly, about every little niggling detail of how the show did this or that wrong. I mean these people spend more time talking about the show they supposedly hate than I do telling how much I liked it. But I guess that is it, this is how they make themselves feel they are cool, by lording it over we "saps" who think the show itself is cool.>
Since when the heck did some sort of bashing-the-show contest come along?
~DarthArada~ "Snuh!" Homer Simpson "We have all the time in the world..." ~George Lazenby/James Bond "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" MUSSOLINI TO EMBARK ON CHEST EXPANSION CAMPAIGN ~The Onion
Bobbie said that Katie said that Susie said that her mommy told her that jdc said this on Mon, 26 Feb 2001 03:26:58 GMT:
First of all, the world did not begin with The Simpsons and just
because you associate a story structure with that show's decline, it
isn't any less capable of being put to use in a creative way.
Second of all, The Simpsons never "ran out of material", nor is
that a clear way of defining what actually happens to any project on
the decline. It's as much the vision, the interpretation and the
execution of material that makes the show what it is than just the
choice of subject matter. The Simpsons continues to use plots which,
although sometimes made ridiculous and boring, COULD have worked well.
Third of all, the process of "honing in on one character and
writing an entire show featuring mainly him" dates not only back to
the early episodes of Futurama, The Simpsons and almost any sitcom
ever made, but to all fiction! It's called a protagonist! If
anything, one of the weaknessess of the new Simpsons episodes is that
it only uses one protagonist in half its episodes: Homer.
Last of all, as was said before, Futurama has had plenty of
multiple-character plots this season. "War is the H-Word", "The
Honking", "Amazon Women in the Mood", "Parasites Lost" and "The Day
the Earth Stood Stupid" all were either group-themed or gave at least
three major characters a large involvement in the story. Nor did the
other episodes focus on "a single character." Minor characters such
as Flexo, Angelene, Calculon, Harold Zoid, the Robot Mafia, Michelle,
and many others cannot be ignored. The only episode which comes even
close to ignoring all but one major character is "The Cryonic Woman",
in which Fry and Michelle are alone for a long period of time, but
even this only lasted for half an episode.
I think you need to be careful about misleading generalizations.
That is, if you care about being misled.