Futurama Season 2

Welcome to the world of tomorrow!!!

Good news everyone, Futurama is back, and this time we get 19 episodes to play with rather than 13. For those of a mathematical bent wondering why the odd numbers, these sets are going by production seasons rather than airing seasons – not that we’d know anything about that kind of stuff with those chumps and chumpettes at Channel 7 messing with the show.

Those already acquainted with the series will thrill to the continued exploits of the crew at Planet Express. Traveler from the past Fry, his great-times-lots nephew in Professor Farnsworth, (apparent) Cyclops-babe space pilot Leela (how do people find cartoon characters sexy?), klutzy chick with a really funky name Amy, freaked out crustacean dude doctor in Zoidberg, bureaucrat extraordinaire Hermes and, of course, the sleaziest robot of them all (and as such the coolest), Bender. Plus all manner of other familiar characters shoom in and out – Zapp Brannigan, his long-suffering sidekick Kiff, Reverend Lionel Preacherbot, the Crushinator and many more - with the odd new regular popping up to keep things interesting. For those uninitiated, first you get a big space slap, second you may wish to click here for our review of the first season, as it will let you know quite a bit more about what to expect. Hey, my couch groove is calling, so why reinvent the rocket?!

Now, quiet you – here’s a rundown of what’s in store this time around…

Disc 1

• I Second That Emotion
  Summary: After sending Nibbler on a trip to the sewer – via the most direct method imaginable – Bender has an empathy chip installed by the professor…
  

  Classic line: “And so we say goodbye to our beloved pet, Nibbler, who's gone to a place where I too hope one day to go - the toilet.� - Professor Farnsworth.
  

• Brannigan, Begin Again
  Summary: Zapp Brannigan is stripped of his rank after kabooming the new DOOP HQ. Subsequently landing a job with Planet Express he proves a mutinous fiend…
  

  Classic line: “Prepare to continue the epic struggle between good and neutral.� – Zapp Brannigan.
  

• A Head in the Polls
  Summary: The value of titanium is soaring, so Bender sells his body. Meanwhile, with an election looming a past president finds a trip to the pawn shop quite handy - and leggy, and…
  

  Guest head: Claudia Schiffer
  

  Classic line: “What an awful dream! Ones and zeroes everywhere! Eww, and I thought I saw a two!� - Bender.
  

  Santa Claus is gunn-ing you down!

• Xmas Story
  Summary: Fry discovers that the whole Santa Claus thing has changed somewhat in the past 1000 years – he’s now a huge robot who strikes fear into the hearts of all…
  

  Guest head: Conan O’Brien
  

  Classic line: “Ho ho ho! Time to get jolly on your naughty asses!� – Santa Claus.
  

• Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?
  Summary: Zoidberg is as frisky as a squid on Tuesday, although a trip to his home planet demonstrates that simply being full of love doesn’t necessarily get you any…
  

  Classic line: “Teach me to love you, squishy poet from beyond the stars!� - Edna.
  

• The Lesser of Two Evils
  Summary: Planet Express has been entrusted to deliver the tiara to the Miss Universe pageant – so the Professor employs extra security in the form of a bending unit named Flexo…
  

  Guest head: Bob Barker
  

  Classic line: “It’s funny because it’s poisonous.� - Zoidberg.
  

• Put Your Head on My Shoulders
  Summary: Amy and Fry are getting it on, but with Valentine’s Day approaching Fry gets itchy feet – until suddenly he can’t even feel his feet…
  

  Classic line: “Computer dating. It's like pimping, but you rarely have to use the phrase ‘upside your head’.� - Bender.
  

• Raging Bender
  Summary: Bender becomes the new star of the Ultimate Robot Fighting League…
  

  Guest head: Rich Little
  

  Classic line: “Man, I thought Ultimate Robot Fighting was real - like pro-wrestling - but it turns out it’s fixed, like boxing.� - Fry.
  

  Leela and Al...

• A Bicyclops Built For Two Summary: After meeting a guy named Alcazar in an Internet chat room, could it be that Leela isn’t actually the last Cyclops in the universe?
  

  Classic line: “If you could change form, why didn't you change it in the one place that counts?� – Leela.
  

• A Clone of My Own
  Summary: After reaching his sesquicentennial birthday, Professor Farnsworth starts questioning his accomplishments, and creates a clone to carry on his life’s work…
  

  Classic line: “Up yours, Zoidberg! Up wherever your species traditionally crams things.� - Hermes.
  

• How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back
  Summary: Hermes’ knack for bureaucracy deserts him and he’s sent away – leaving super-bureaucrat Morgan Proctor to replace him – and to take a shine to Fry…
  

  Classic line: “Sweet someone of... someplace!� - Hermes.
  

• The Deep South
  Summary: The crew goes fishing on a day off, where Fry makes quite a splash with an Atlantan…
  

  Classic line: “In the event of an emergency, my ass can be used as a floatation device.� - Bender.
  

• Bender Gets Made
  Summary: Bender meets the Robot mafia – and fits in like a glove. A subsequent heist of Zuban cigars, however, poses an ethical dilemma…
  

  Classic line: “Get a load of the ball bearings on this guy!� – The Donbot.
  

• Mother’s Day
  Summary: Mom takes advantage of her day to indulge in a spot of world domination – by inspiring her children to rise up against humans…
  

  Classic line: “Hell hath no fury like the vast robot armies of a woman scorned.� – Mom’s son.
  

• The Problem With Popplers
  Summary: The crew discover nummy, nummy treats they dub “Popplers� on a far-flung planet. Highly addictive, all fall under their spell, until…
  

  Classic line: “Well, it's a type M planet, so it should at least have Roddenberries.� - Leela.
  

• Anthology of Interest 1
  Summary: Professor Farnsworth’s “what if?� machine leads to three separate tales whereby Bender, Fry and Leela indulge their curiosity…
  

  Classic line: “Blackmail's such an ugly word, I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool.� - Bender.
  

• War is the H-Word
  Summary: Bender and Fry sign up for the military thing in order to receive a discount card – but then war’s declared and… balls!
  

  Classic line: “These balls are making me testy…� - Bender.
  

• The Honking
  Summary: Bender inherits a castle from his uncle, The Archduke of Thermstadt, however nobody counted on the curse of the were-car…
  

  Classic line: “I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe.� - Robot.
  

• The Cryonic Woman
  Summary: After Fry and Bender’s joyride sees them and Leela sacked, it’s back to the cryonic lab. A chip mix-up sees Fry taking Leela’s old job, where who should he meet but his 20th century squeeze Michelle…
  

  Classic line: “Things are different this time. Before she was demanding and possessive, but now she wants me to do stuff and stay with her all the time.� - Fry.
  

Despite being set in the distant recesses of time yet to come, Futurama was made in a full-frame aspect, so there’s no anamorphic enhancement or groovy widescreen stuff or anything like that to behold – spluh!

Gender Bender!

Still, what is here is magnificent. Unlike The Simpsons, this combines a large amount of computer animation with traditional cel work carried out in Korea. The good news for us perfect-picture nerds is that it all ends up in a computer rather than on film, so when it comes to DVD transfer time everything comes across looking simply gorgeous. Colour is as colourful as the most colourful of colourful thingies you could ever imagine, with perfectly sharp definition and detail which at times amazes, as tiny background bits and pieces jump out at you as they scoot by. We can actually say that skintones are pretty good too, seeing as how the humanoid characters are for the most part pink and all – well, except for Amy who’s kind of yellow, Hermes who’s kind of brown, Farnsworth who’s kind of white – umm, OK, it was stupid place to go... Look, it’s a cartoon, and it scrubs up better than any other such creation involving traditional animation styles this reviewer has ever seen on DVD.

Bender and jazz buddy...

The audio once again comes via surround-encoded Dolby Digital 2.0, which is what it was originally made in. As much as 5.1 mixing would be nice, there’s still some decent surround usage, although luscious thoughts of what could have been with subwoofwoofs rumbling away merrily will just have to remain the things of dreams. The fabulous voice cast’s work is clear at all times - which is something to be thankful for as the subtitles take WAY too many liberties with what’s actually being said – all balanced perfectly with the myriad of futuristic sound effects and Christopher Tyng’s mega-funky, ding-ding-dongy theme, incidental music and the odd song. Unlike most cartoons, a full orchestra is used for Futurama’s scoring, and this extra effort really shows, without drawing too much attention to itself.

MMMmmm... crab is on the menu!

So, what manner of goodies can we wrap our claws around and intone “clack!� to this time ‘round? Well, actually the selection is a little disappointing when compared to the first release. There’s nothing in the way of featurettes or interviews whatsoever, and it just leaves you with a bit of a “what are they hiding?� vibe - or maybe that’s just the paranoia speaking… At any rate, the four different menus (‘cos there’s like four discs, fluh!) all have lovely animated intros based on bits of the show, which veer off into still menus where the action is. As for this extras action, here goes…

Audio commentaries: The first season featured commentaries on all episodes and the great news is that this trend continues here. Generally quite massive, all-in affairs, they all feature series creator Matt Groening, executive producer David X. Cohen and supervising director Rich Moore entertaining all manner of folk including writers, directors, voice talent (usually Billy West and/or John DiMaggio) – even composer Christopher Tyng pops up on a couple of occasions.

They vary greatly – some are hilarious, mile-a-minute, interruption-filled nightmares, while some have massive gaps as our commentators seem to get lost in the action. There is heaps of information for fans to get jiggy with though, from the hyper-technical to simple did-you-notices, secrets behind some of the more obscure gags, letting us know scenes plundered - erm – scenes which are homages to classic films, and all manner of other pop culture ephemera. Be warned though, as with the first lot of commentaries, some discretion may be required if you haven’t seen further into series’ three and four, for the odd spoiler does get dropped.

Animatic from Why Must I Be A Crustacean in Love? (20:40): If you’re not an animation nerd you may wish to skip this paragraph, but those fascinated by the process will surely lap up this little extra. It’s basically a run through of the pretty much finished script (there is the occasional scene which didn’t make the finished version) presented in “onion skin� form – pencil sketches, often with see-through characters – with some crude animation at times, little in the way of sound effects but all voices in place.

Storyboard – A Bicyclops Built For Two: Abandon all hope those without room-sized screens! Now, hello to the three people left reading – firstly, you have too much money, secondly you may at least be chuffed to know that here we get the entire episode sketched out in comic book style, complete with the odd scribbled production note, all presented on a squillion still frames.

Deleted Scenes: Excisions from 15 of the season’s 19 episodes are here. Of varying lengths, some are as brief as 13 seconds, whilst some are as chunkified as 1:40 – the longer ones generally compiling two, three or more snips. In all they add up to around 11 minutes of extra footage, all in fairly good shape, although sometimes they don’t feature finished sound.

Still Gallery: 37 examples of concept art, mostly pencil sketches of incidental characters from the second season.

Alien Alphabet: Ever wanted to decode those weird-ass signs scattered about the show? Well, here’s the ticket. Except they’ve come up with a new language now (debuted within this very set) so it may not work anyway – roll on the season three set!

International Clips: One of those features that conjures up thoughts of “why bother?�, this is 40 seconds of Bender having his empathy chip installed (from I Second That Emotion), with a choice of French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish soundtracks. Seeing as every episode is here in its entirety with French and Italian options, this is pretty much a waste of time.

Alien advertisements: Simply the “Futurama is brought to you by� messages from the openings of four episodes – more specifically ‘Arachno Spores’ (:09), ‘Glagnar’s Human Rinds’ (:10), ‘Molten Boron’ (:09) and ‘Soylent Chow’ (:11).

Season One DVD trailer: Unless you’re a particularly hopeless meatbag, you’ll get what this one’s on about. It runs for 1:30 and even though space is apparently boundlessly huge, this is still a waste of it.

Easter eggs: Seven googies are secreted away over the four discs, all “Class of Futurama� yearbook-styled entries featuring production peoples. If you’re idler than Al Bundy on Mogodon, you may wish to pop into our Easter eggs section to find out more.

The best animated thing to hit TV screens since The Simpsons, and so much more full of life, wit, charm and devilishness than the hollow corpse of that once great little yellow family which we’re subjected to today, season two of Futurama continues superbly from the series’ quick-off-the-blocks and up-to-pace beginnings. The DVD presentation is as good as the first, with only the extras department offering a little disappointment (if you can be bummed when there are 19 commentaries included, of course) – which is the only thing stopping this from receiving our hallowed (hey, we need to believe the hype!) gold award.

Any self respecting pop-culture junkie couldn’t aks for more – well, except perhaps for speedy delivery of the remaining two seasons. Hopefully Fox don’t use Planet Express…