I’ll have a chance to stop by the sto’ and buy it today, but I don’t even have as much as 22mins of free time to watch any of it until the end of the week.
I really all but discovered this show on DVD. I was aware of it during the original run but I could never manage to be near a T.V. when it was on. I literally only saw about four or five episodes the entire time it was on FOX. It was constantly getting pre-empted and when it wasn’t pre-empted it was on at friggin’ 7:00 on a Sunday- just not a time when I’m in front of the T.V.
Still, those few shows that I saw were so good that I felt completely confident buying the first Box Set when it came out- even though I had hardly seen any of the material that it contained. So, when I get the new Box Set, as with when I got the others, I’ll be seeing most of these episodes for the first time (Please don’t spoil the final episode in this Thread!).
Yippee!
(Now if they could just release the remainder of the Mr.Show episodes . . . )
That was such a good series. Something I noticed recently that is really cool but doesn’t deserve its own thread:
In the second episode when they go to the moon they have to take refuge from the cold in the Apollo 11 lunar lander they discover. I thought I’d spotted a plot hole – didn’t Armstrong and co. use the lander to get back to Earth? Right as they’re being rescued, however, there’s a small plaque that reads “Lander returned to site by historical stickler’s orginisation.”
I was close to buying a multiregion DVD player and buying the British DVD’s, since they were released there months before they were over here.
It’s also, quite possibly, the smartest cartoon ever made. There’s a scene with a horse race with the following exchange:
Announcer: And the winner is…number 3, in a quantum finish!
Prof. Farnsworth: No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!
And then there’s a scene where they are buying beer, where we are treated to seeing both Old Fortran malt liquor, and Klein’s beer, in the appropriate type of bottle, of course.
I’ve had this set for about a week already (I’m special) and it’s really the show’s best season. The parallel universe, the Futurama babies, the space bee, the final episode … all brilliant.
One of my favorite aspects of these sets is the commentaries – funny people who get along and who actually seem to enjoy doing these things (which is all too rare). However, they recorded the ones for this set shortly after learning the show had been cancelled, which means there’s a none-too-subtle undercurrent of bitterness throughtout. Also, many of the episodes hadn’t aired yet, so there were a lot of lulls as those who hadn’t seen the episodes tried to watch them.
Still, this set has one of my favorite lines from Zoidberg, after he devolves into a tadpole: “Hooray! I’m a teenage heartthrob again!”
I always enjoyed this show when it wasn’t pre-empted and when I remembered to turn the TV on, but I’ve really grown to love it on DVD. There are tons of episodes I missed, even though I thought I had seen most of them. And there are so many in-jokes and references to past episodes that it’s actually much funnier when you watch a bunch of episodes in a short timespan. I did see the final episode when it originally aired, but at the time I had no idea it was the final episode. Fox didn’t promote the show at all.
Maybe if enough people buy the DVDs, Fox will consider bringing it back…
Hey, it worked for Family Guy, so there’s still hope!
(actually, some of the rumors I’ve heard is that Cartoon Network wants to produce more episodes, but Fox, in it’s untimate wisdom, decides that it will hold on to the rights to Futurama, but not do anything with it. Don’t they realize they could let Cartoon Network make more and cash in big, fat, juicy royalty checks!)
So this box set actually contains season 4 and season 5? I know season 5 was just showing episodes originally meant to be shown in season 3 and 4, but I’m a little fuzzy as to what actually is in this set.
Technically, there was no season 5. There were 4 seasons produced, but Fox streched them out into 5 airing cycles. So, yeah, your kinda right, in that season five was showing season 3 and 4 episodes, cause Fox kept putting off when it was showing the eps.
Same here. I also got the Family Guy sets long before they were available here. This is the fun part about having a region free player w/PAL converter built in.
I got all of Michael Palin’s travel series, too. I don’t know if they’ll ever be released here. The only title listed at Amazon is “Pole to Pole” and it’s in a “not yet released but you can sign up to find out when” status.
Just got it yesterday and it makes me angry and sad that this series did not survive. A few friends and I were discussing which cartoon series was the best and they all raved about Family Guy, but to me Futurama was far wittier and clever. They had seen maybe one or two episodes and couldn’t understand the appeal.
But it was also so good that you actually felt something for the main characters
Hell, any cartoon that can make me actually feel choked up over two badly drawn characters kissing and walking off into the distance (I’m refering to the holophoner images, of course) has to have done something right.
It is a real kick in the teeth that Family Guy gets to come back and Futurama has to remain shelved.
Damn straight. The writing on Futurama took actual skill. Family Guy was just dumb humor and sight gags. The writers at Family Guy probably swound something like this:
“Uh-oh…nothing silly has happened in a while.”
“We’ll have a giant squid!”
“Perfect! Then we don’t need to write any actual funny dialogue!”
“Uhh…what else?”
“Stewie will have some kind of plot to dominate the world and/or kill Lois!”
“Hey, a baby genius, no one has ever thought of that idea!”
“Oh, and Peter being fat and dumb, man, we’re pretty original to come up by that one all by ourselves. Let’s have him do something dumb!”
I admit I like the show, but I also admit that it’s just dumb humor that atkes no thinking to laugh at. Futurama has such perfect jokes, and real plots that carry over into one another. Also, the fact that an episode praqctically made me cry says something. (I give you three guesses as to the episode in question)
