Think I'm about done watching Futurama...

[CODE-D]

Futurama ended when fry fulfilled his destiny by beating the brains and possibly hooked up with leela.
THE END.

And miss out on the greatest non-Simpsons episode of any animated series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Hands_Are_Idle_Playthings]? I think not.

I will accept The Devil's Hands as being the last episode of the series.

Nevermind I thought that was the last episode of season 4....and I didnt know a lot of those eps were in season 4.

Just pretend The Why Of Fry is the last ep of season 4 and we''ll count all of season 4.
But I always thought that was the last ep before it was cancelled. It did seem to have some finality to it for me to thinj that.

I take it you didn't like the movies?

They were okay....but the beast with backs one made it clear that they are preparing for just being on and making episodes until whenever. And the new eps use the characters in ways just for the heck of it and their dialogue seems forced sometimes to push a theme. I also noticed some eps have them being a lot dumber than usual for plot(especially bender) which used to be restricted to fry.
You should make episodes as if your going to be canceled any minute, its what led to the simpsons fall....

I dont care if it continues, I just wont be waiting for each new ep. If its on and theres nothing else i want to watch sure.

 

[Frybird]

Geezus, why are people so immediately butthurt once some cartoon/comedy series makes fun of thier own agenda.

I remember Simpsons Episodes doing blatant advertising for things like Buddhism, South Park lashing out at everyone (and doing that World of Warcraft thing wich i still consider one of the worst episodes in the history of ever) and Family Guy pushing agendas that are just...awful.
But i still could enjoy episodes afterward, because you know what? If it's funny it's funny, and a series is not ruined by a single episode, or even five of them.

I haven't seen the episode yet i admit, but even if it is 21 minutes of horrible horrible propaganda, that's ONE episode.

We certainly have NOT

have reached the point where episodes are coming out as 30 minute propaganda opportunities.

even with one episode being that (if it even is).

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I think they let too much of the "outside" seep into the writing. The humor of the show came from the situations that were happening, now it's become more reliant on references. Not necessarily bad, I just can't seem to find myself interested in it anymore.

 

[Wintermoot]

post-cancellation was Futurama trying to reference real-world things (like the iPad/2012 phenomenon) which felt completely out of place the only fun episode from the last two seasons was the one where Bender got a son.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Such as the most recent episode which pretty much has the theme of "Obama is the greatest man alive, he is a fantastic leader and the best president this country has ever had. All criticism of him is hateful, ignorant, and entirely based upon lies and rumors."

As I said, I don't mind a cartoonist weaving in their political views into their cartoons, but it has to be done with a delicate touch as it was before in pre-cancelation Futurama. When you make episodes like the one from last night, you're just completely alienating half your audience. Does Matt honestly believe a conservative will watch that episode and suddenly think "He's right, all my disagreements with Obama's policies and the current state of the nation under his administration are just ridiculous. He's a wonderful man and I should be thankful that he got elected"? Because if that's the aim, it's not going to happen.

I'm a big Futurama fan so not entirely objective, but I have to be honest, I genuinely don't see how there was a political agenda or anything to do with current day political leaders. It was a spoof/parody of America's political process certainly, the Nixon-in-a-jar character, Leela being opinionated and Bender being Bender.

Where was the Obama reference you're talking about? What does conservative/liberal whatever even mean, let alone be reflected in the episode? Nixon watching the squirrel on the telephone wire, Bender with the giraffe and quoting the Professor, all laugh out loud funny moments. I thought it was a very good episode. I think Americans in general read politics into everything, even a show parodying/satirising politics.

I do agree that a little something is missing from many new episodes. There seems to be a recurring thing where people quote the obvious in a silly way which I don't really find that funny.

"Earth? That's the planet we live on"
"A robot called BB Rodriguez? Wait, I'M a robot called BB Rodriguez"
"3012? That's the year that's this year"

Conclusion: Futurama rules. Anyone who disagrees can kiss my shiny, metal ass.

 

[RJ 17]

I'm a big Futurama fan so not entirely objective, but I have to be honest, I genuinely don't see how there was a political agenda or anything to do with current day political leaders. It was a spoof/parody of America's political process certainly, the Nixon-in-a-jar character, Leela being opinionated and Bender being Bender.

Where was the Obama reference you're talking about? What does conservative/liberal whatever even mean, let alone be reflected in the episode? Nixon watching the squirrel on the telephone wire, Bender with the giraffe and quoting the Professor, all laugh out loud funny moments. I thought it was a very good episode. I think Americans in general read politics into everything, even a show parodying/satirising politics.

I do agree that a little something is missing from many new episodes. There seems to be a recurring thing where people quote the obvious in a silly way which I don't really find that funny.

"Earth? That's the planet we live on"
"A robot called BB Rodriguez? Wait, I'M a robot called BB Rodriguez"
"3012? That's the year that's this year"

Conclusion: Futurama rules. Anyone who disagrees can kiss my shiny, metal ass.

Alright, I'll cut you some slack seeing that you're from England, so allow me to point out what you were missing.

Essentially the guy that Leela was supporting WAS Obama...except they made him white. The entire episode was a glorification of Obama, insisting that he is a golden child that we should all be thankful for. When Nixon has Bender go look for dirt on him and yet Bender turns up with absolutely nothin but a Nobel Prize and a straight-A transcript from Harvard. It's saying that all negative criticisms are nothing but lies and rumors spread by conservatives.

During the debate, all the other political candidates are either rednecks or morons, yet the Obama parallel speaks calmly, passionately, and is made out to be the good guy. It even goes so far as to imply that he's too smart for the general public to appreciate (which is actually a direct quote from Leela).

I assure you, my friend, that episode was nothing but an "All Hail Obama" episode. I don't know how much you know about Obama, but the good-guy candidate was a direct side-by-side parallel of Obama...literally the only difference between the two was that in Futurama they made him white...and Obama isn't actually from the future.

Where the message really comes through is the notiong of "I've seen the destruction brought on if Nixon (representing EVIL conservatives) wins, and so I've come to make sure he doesn't win the election." Conservatives will lead us to destruction, Liberalism will lead us to Utopia. You may not have the context given that you're in another country, but the only way that episode could have been more politically biased was if it cut to a screen saying Vote Obama 2012 before rolling the credits.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

what disgusts me the most about the newer seasons: too much political bullshit.

I too independently came to that conclusion.
Somewhere between the "Robosexual (i.e. Gay) Rights" episode and the "Apple is an Evil Mind Control Corporation" I found myself wondering when it was going to get to the funny parts.
I mean, I generally agree with Gay Rights activists and people who hate on Apple for gratuitously ripping customers off, and even I found the messages of those episodes heavy handed...

Haven't seen this latest one yet. But it just turned me off a bit. Pushing political agendas just isn't all that funny, unless you're directly parodying them at the same time.

 

[RJ 17]

Geezus, why are people so immediately butthurt once some cartoon/comedy series makes fun of thier own agenda.

I don't care what agenda it's pushing, I care THAT it's pushing an agenda.

Look at the episodes before it was cancelled, the vast majority of them were their own little story. There might be a political reference here and there, but in the end, each was an original plot based on the "adventures" of the Planet Express crew. After it was brought back from cancellation the show started pushing an agenda more and more. Go watch the newest episode and try telling me I'm wrong. I'm not saying that specific, single episode pissed me off and now I'm done with it, it's been a reoccuring theme throughout these new seasons. This most recent episode was just the culmination of it all.

But i still could enjoy episodes afterward, because you know what? If it's funny it's funny, and a series is not ruined by a single episode, or even five of them.

Fair enough. Beyond the fact that I don't like that the show is now pushing an agenda more than stories, I'll say that I just quite frankly don't find it to be nearly as funny as it used to be. I'd argue that this is BECAUSE they're pushing an agenda more rather than going for original stories, but suffice to say the writers just haven't recaptured the magic that made Futurama great in the past.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

As I said, I don't mind a cartoonist weaving in their political views into their cartoons, but it has to be done with a delicate touch as it was before in pre-cancelation Futurama. When you make episodes like the one from last night, you're just completely alienating half your audience. Does Matt honestly believe a conservative will watch that episode and suddenly think "He's right, all my disagreements with Obama's policies and the current state of the nation under his administration are just ridiculous. He's a wonderful man and I should be thankful that he got elected"? Because if that's the aim, it's not going to happen.

It's as though Matt got into a competition with Seth Macfarlane for who could make the most liberal-agenda-pushing show. The difference is that Family Guy at least still has some funny gags, Futurama is just getting lame.

You can't really say he's completely alienating half his audience. Futurama's target audience is likely 35 and younger, the majority of which is presumably college kids. This demographic is largely liberal. Moreover, those of us in this demographic that aren't liberal are probably so used to be bombarded by 'hip' liberal propaganda in real life and online (via our friend's facebook, youtube, gaming sites, ridiculous images from 4chan that get reposted everywhere, etc) that we should be pretty unaffected by seeing it on TV.

It remains to be said, this is one of the reasons South Park is so great in my opinion. I've never once felt like there was any agenda, they simply shit on everyone equally.

 

[Frybird]

post-cancellation was Futurama trying to reference real-world things (like the iPad/2012 phenomenon) which felt completely out of place the only fun episode from the last two seasons was the one where Bender got a son.

Seriously?

Just askin' cause, while Futurama HAD been better once (but not always, there are a good bunch of mediocre and/or boring episodes in the Fox era), we still got episodes like "The Late Philip J Fry" (the one with the forward-only time machine) and "Lethal Inspection" (where Bender finds out that he is defect and therefore mortal...wich is a bit of a retcon, but still made a fantastic episode) wich i count among my all time favorite Futurama Episodes as well es very good ones like "Overclockwise", "The Prisoner of Benda", "All the Presidents Heads" and "Reincarnation".

True, there were some horrible episodes and i'm not a fan of the more concrete Current-Event-Referencing either, but not only is any Futurama better than no Futurama, there are imo also many episodes in the last seasons that easily compete with the original ones.

 

[wottabout]

Where was the Obama reference you're talking about?

Since RJ 17's explanation seemed to consist of, "He's Obama because he's Obama," I will explain in case the Obama citizenship conspiracy theories haven't made it to London. People have been claiming since the last election that Obama wasn't born in the US, so they demanded that he reveal his birth certificate. He did and everything seemed to be accounted for, but there are a few people who still insist that Obama was not born in the US. Futurama was clearly basing the episode on that, so the character was based (at least in this aspect) on Obama.

I also found it kind of heavy-handed, personally. I thought it was funny, and I enjoy those jokes in political shows, but I'm not looking for that kind of humor in Futurama.

 

[minimacker]

I kind of like the new Futurama. Even though it has less 90s references, it's been filled in with more, well, modern references.

 

[Wintermoot]

Where was the Obama reference you're talking about?

Since RJ 17's explanation seemed to consist of, "He's Obama because he's Obama," I will explain in case the Obama citizenship conspiracy theories haven't made it to London. People have been claiming since the last election that Obama wasn't born in the US, so they demanded that he reveal his birth certificate. He did and everything seemed to be accounted for, but there are a few people who still insist that Obama was not born in the US. Futurama was clearly basing the episode on that, so the character was based (at least in this aspect) on Obama.

I also found it kind of heavy-handed, personally. I thought it was funny, and I enjoy those jokes in political shows, but I'm not looking for that kind of humor in Futurama.

crap forgot about those and I agree those were fun

 

[winginson]

Personally I prefer the original 4 seasons. I find the modern day references have consumed the episodes entirely, where they used to be more throw away shout-outs.

 

[J-meMalone]

I gave up after watching the I-Pod and Robbo-sexuality episodes, as you said I felt they got much too political, which is all the more ridiculous since it's set in the future. And because of that there's less room for jokes and the ones they do tell aren't as funny.

I've also found the writers seems a bit more smug than before. In one the message "This episode is brought to you by the number e", which initially I found amusing until they felt the need to explain it in tone that almost said "You ignorant simpleton" which REALLY rubbe me the wrong way...

 

[The_Waspman]

I gave up after watching the I-Pod and Robbo-sexuality episodes, as you said I felt they got much too political, which is all the more ridiculous since it's set in the future. And because of that there's less room for jokes and the ones they do tell aren't as funny.

I've also found the writers seems a bit more smug than before. In one the message "This episode is brought to you by the number e", which initially I found amusing until they felt the need to explain it in tone that almost said "You ignorant simpleton" which REALLY rubbe me the wrong way...

This exactly. From the four films onwards, a lot of the tone of the series has changed. It feels a lot more like a self congratulatory, back slapping 'hey look, we're back on the air, how amazing are we? Laugh at us, LAUGH AT US!!!'

The two episodes you mention are perhaps two of the best examples of why I don't find the show funny post cancellation. They also seem to be playing a lot more fast and loose with previously established canon. I know thats a petty thing to moan about in an animated show, but even so...

Yup, definately the smugness that did it for me. Not even all the nudity can make up for that...

 

[EHKOS]

I don't know if there have been more than six seasons, but they've been pretty good so far. I liked most episodes, like The Tip of the Zoidberg. Sure, some of them sucked, but there are a few older episodes I can't stand either. Take the good with the bad, and enjoy the quick humour bender dishes out.