Prof. F> And thanks to my trusty SafetySphere™, I surblived with only tribial brain dablage…
I liked them both, but it was kind of weird. I guess I appreciated the movie format a lot more than I expected. They seemed kind of short and rushed, like they didn’t have time to fully do a story.
I thought that joke was kinda “meh.” I liked the original “Uranus-Urectum” joke better. In the original, the Professor didn’t even get upset at hearing Fry call the planet “Uranus,” he just clued him in on the new name. But in this episode, he presumably said “Uranus,” and everyone turned hostile, and Farnsworth slapped Fry. I did like the mention of “indecent” TV shows such as The Pimpsons and Assorama.
I liked the dialogue at the end of Rebirth when Robo-Fry and Robo-Leela stripped off their outer human skins.
Robo-Fry: Hasta la vista, weiner.
Robo-Leela: I’ll be back.
Amy (cluelessly): Why did their voices change?
Also, hasn’t Nixon’s head been President for an awfully long time? He was first elected in 3000. Time apparently flows on the show the same as in real life, so, presumably it is now 3010 in the Futurama-verse. Haven’t there been any elections in the past 10 years? Does the Earth’s constitution even have term limits for the Presidency?
About 90% of the time. Why do you ask?
The second episode was iffy, but let’s no lose our sense of what’s truly important:
The great taste of Charleston Chew!
I think you missed it. The “Urectum joke” is when said planet appears on the map of the solar system when Nixon is explaining the trajectory of the death sphere. I never got the impression that the censored planet was Urectum.
The “Urectum” joke is from the first-season episode, “A Big Piece of Garbage,” when the Professor was demonstrating his smelloscope.
I still thought the joke in the new episode was kind of “meh.” Whether it was Urectum or not, I just didn’t think it was very clever.
The Urectum joke that people are refering to in the new episode is that on the chart of the solar sytem, the seventh planet from the sun is labelled “Urectum”.
That is the Urectum joke in the new episode, the only Urectum joke in the new episode.
The joke of Fry whispering to the Professor the name of the destroyed planet, the planet so obscene that even the name must not be mentioned, this is not a Urectum joke.
The joke here is that Fry said something so obscene that everyone was upset and the Professor was so offended he felt compelled to slap him, and yet we don’t know what he said. What is (supposed to be) funny about it is that it is left to our imagination, it’s upon the not knowing what he said that the humor is founded.
Not suggesting that you’re supposed to think it was a funny gag, just pointing out that the interpretation that Fry was saying “Uranus/Urectum” is off.
Anyone notice that neither episode really had much of a B-story?
Bender having to party / the crew trying to get Earth to repent were about as much B-story as we got.
Personally, I think that the lack of a B-story is was made both episodes not as strong as the better Futurama episodes.
Still, I liked them both well enough.
The second episode seemed weaker to me, but having the V’giny = V’ger connection pointed out to me actually strengthens the episode as a whole. I just thought it was a “give it a silly name” kind of a joke. Having the joke be based on something makes it more valid in my eyes.
This is why I didn’t want the show to return. It was one of the few shows that had a consistently good run. It had a nice long life, and went out gracefully. I really don’t want it to suffer the same fate as The Simpsons.
Since there were comments about the new episodes in the “oh goody, it’s coming back” thread and someone started a new thread, I merged the two together. This may make a little of the continuity funky on posts since last evening, for which I apologize.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Hopefully you used a paradox-correcting merge code.
I’ve always thought Futurama was uneven. I rarely agree on which episodes I like and what the majority seems to list as the best. Same with a lot of other shows. I even liked a couple of the extended DVD whatsits.
I thought these two episodes were just fine, and I have no more problem with them than any of the others. Basically, they had good jokes in them that made me laugh.
I saw them as more or less typical Futurama. Certainly not among the best episodes, but it’s always been somewhat uneven. Hopefully they’re be some standouts, time will tell.
My doomometer is in the shop, what does yours say about this thread.
I’m getting a reading of over 40 megafonzies!
Oh, wait. This isn’t my Doomometer.
I missed where the star chart said “Urectum.” So, I admit to being confused and not realizing that those were two different jokes. I withdraw my objection, then.
A wizard moved it.
Still, it beats the pants off Family Guy’s return.
I don’t see the Simpsons’ fate as a bad one. The last couple of seasons since the movie have definitely seen a consistent increase in quality. Episodes have generally gotten good reviews here on the Dope, and the consensus here seems to be that there have been very few genuinely bad episodes. If Futurama can keep par with the last couple of seasons of the Simpsons, then we’re in for quite a few good episodes.
What troubles me the most about the second episode is that there’s a fundamental shift where rather than the gags being in the service of the story, the story was merely a framework to hang gags from. Furthermore, the geek humour was mere riffing without any real point underneath it all.
And yes, ho ho ho, the Garden of Eden myth implies incest between Adam and Eve’s children. What 12 year old hasn’t already figured that out?
At the very least, Rebirth had the great “Studio 1[sup]2[/sup]2[sup]1[/sup]3[sup]3[/sup]” gag. David X. Cohen is a true geek and very smart guy.
Are the new writers coming from non-geek backgrounds? What will become of our P and NP gags?
I saw this, recognized that it must be a joke, but must admit I need help with this one.
Can’t even figure out how to search it.