Futurama Season 3

Sweet zombie Jesus! 22 new episodes of Futurama to play with – I’m in robot heaven! Bummer I’m a meatbag then…

So, why the odd number of episodes yet again? Well, for those of chump-like dispositions who haven’t been paying attention thus far (space slap!), these remarkably natty, sleek and compact little DVD sets are based upon production seasons, rather than the somewhat nebulous airing seasons the disrespect shown to this animated gem resulted in. So, when you hear of five seasons existing and get as excited as if you were up for death by snu-snu, the bad news (everyone) that there are actually only four real ones should have you reaching for copious amounts of the Benderbrau. Blowful, ain’t it?

Still, we may as well celebrate while we can – another excuse for the Benderbrau – woo, let’s get drunk! For the employees (and shareholders) of Planet Express are back in our home-like places for another large amount of Earth-minutes. In case you’ve been hanging around one too many big, awful, disembodied flying brain things, this means; Philip J. Fry, visitor from the past; Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, old coot; Turanga Leela, uni-eyed space captain and fellow facer of the exigent finding-shoes-that-fit challenge; Dr John Zoidberg, perma-hungry crustacean; Ms Amy Wong, klutxy – opps – erm, oops again, klutzy - rich kid slumming it; Hermes Conrad, bureaucrat par excellence; and, fanfare please, Bender Bending Rodriguez, appreciator of fine brews, fine cigars and fine cuss words. Oh, and he’s somewhat of a robot. Hey, you got a problem with that?

But wait, there’s more! Previous blow-in favourites like inept space captain (his gig doesn’t deserve capitalisation) Zapp Brannigan and his poor, downtrodden aide Kif pop up, along with Morbo and Linda, the chick he shares news reading duties with, soapie-hunk (of metal) Calculon, Reverend Lionel Preacherbot, Professor Farnsworth’s cloned ‘son’ Cubert, Amy’s parents (the Wongs, well gloviously!) and the ever-mysterious Scruffy, suspected janitorial type. And other stuff like guest heads and things – listen meatbag, we’ve got 22 episodes to plough through here, I haven’t got all paragraph you know!

So THAT's what it was!

Having clambered to its feet faster than Planet Express Ship with an excess of dark matter in her belly, Futurama’s third season sees a continuation of its established fine form, even managing to transcend the usual assaults of pop culture references of both the super-nerdy and not-so-super-nerdy varieties and allowing some genuinely sweet and touching moments to seep into the mixture – to nothing but great effect. So all the fabulous usual stuff is all here and more – and any spotty types whining “oh blithery poop� about the squooshy bits should just piss off and go to another computer swap meet or something.

So what exactly is up this time, you may very well aks? Read on, puny human, read on, for tomorrow you may be crushed…

Disc 1

• Amazon Women in the Mood
  Summary: After an extremely distressing double half date, everybody kind of crashes on a strange planet thingy populated by really big chicks with a thing for snu-snu…
  

  Guest head: Bea Arthur
  

  Classic line: “Oh won't you take me to... funky town?� - Morbo.
  

• Parasites Lost
  Summary: It’s time for a fantastic voyage, after Fry’s eating a truck-stop egg salad sammich makes him all, like, umm, smart and strong and stuff…
  

  Classic line: “Eww, it's like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone is throwing up!� – Fry.
  

• A Tale of Two Santas
  Summary: While the real Santa goes with the floe, Bender gets to don the fuzzy hat and do the sleigh dealie. The denizens of Earth, however, don’t realize that he’s nice (well comparatively), not naughty…
  

  Guest head: Coolio
  

  Classic line: “Look out Earth, I'm dreaming of a red X-mas!� - Santa Claus.
  

• The Luck of the Fryrish
  Summary: Sick of his cruddy luck, Fry ventures to Old New York in search of his lucky seven-leaf clover, but it seems his brother stole it so he gets all pissed off and stuff…
  

  Classic line: “Grab a shovel, I'm only one skull short of a Mouseketeer reunion.� – Bender.
  

• The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz
  Summary: Leela objects to a highly-controversial mission, so Bender is put in charge – leading to a penguin sanctuary covered in goop, and the birth of an unexpected horny penguin dictator…
  

  Classic line: “The tanker has 6000 hulls, so, unlike me, it's entirely leak-proof.� - Professor Farnsworth.
  

  Whoa, check out the cans!

• Bendless Love
  Summary: Guess who’s somnambulistically bending? Our robot chum becomes a scab to satisfy his bending lust, and meets somebody to satisfy certain other lusts – but the green-eyed monster gets in the way, and we’re not talking Morbo…

  Classic line: “It's time to kick some shiny metal ass!� - Bender.
  

Disc 2

• The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
  Summary: An invasion of flying brain-like thingies makes everybody like really stupid and stuff, however Fry seems curiously immune to it all and just may be the Earth’s saviour-like thing.
  

  Classic line: “Wipe out all thought? My God, they're like flying televisions!� - Leela.
  

• That’s Lobstertainment
  Summary: When Zoidberg’s attempts at a stand-up comedy career tankety-tank, he looks to his famous uncle, Harold, for help – resulting in dramas of Calculon and Oscar varieties…
  

  Guest head: Hank Azaria
  

  Classic line: “I just pray they like me half as much as I do.� - Calculon.
  

  Two eyes? Whoa, what a freak!

• The Cyber House Rules
  Summary: Leela attends her Orphanarium reunion and the taunts begin again – but she discovers a former inmate is now a hunky doctor who can give her two eyes (and, fluh, other stuff). Meanwhile Bender discovers the fiscal advantages of adoption…
  

  Classic line: “What is it with you kids? Every other day it's food, food, food!� - Bender.
  

• Where the Buggalo Roam Summary: It’s Mars Day BBQ time, and Kif has to meet Amy’s parents (erm, again). When their prized herd of buggalo go missing, the boneless green one sets out to prove his manhood – oh, and save the day - not realising that the natives are rustlers…
  

  Classic line: “I am the man with no name! Zapp Brannigan, at your service.� – Duh, guess…
  

• Insane in the Mainframe
  Summary: After inadvertently becoming embroiled in a bank robbery, Bender and Fry are sent to the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots. Fry can’t beat ’em, so he ends up joining ‘em…
  Classic line: “Beep.� - Fry.
  

• The Route of All Evil
  Summary: While Bender becomes a brewery, boarding school expulsions Cubert and Dwight set about starting their own delivery company, which soon swallows up Planet Express…
  

  Classic line: “You ruined us with sleazy business practices and a complete disregard for human decency. Of course we are proud of you!� - Hermes.
  

Disc 3

• Bendin’ in the Wind
  Summary: Bender gets broken up, but finds a friend and outlet for his folk singing dreams in Beck. The rest of the gang follow them around groupie-stylee in a Kombi Fry found in Old New York…
  

  Guest head: Beck
  

  Classic line: “Kudos Bender. You got mangled and now you're a singer - both our dreams came true!� - Hermes.
  

• Time Keeps on Slipping
  Summary: Farnsworth challenges mutant atomic supermen the Harlem Globetrotters, however his mutation creation means time kind of gets broken…
  

  Classic line: “Fry, please try to understand. You're a man, I'm a woman - we're just too different.� - Leela.
  

• I Dated a Robot
  Summary: Fry kinda fulfils a dream by dating Lucy Lui(bot). Typically, Leela disapproves, so the quest to bring down Nappster.com begins – but they counter with a horde of lethal Liu clones…
  

  Guest head: Lucy Liu
  

  Classic line: “You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!� – Nappster nerd.
  

• A Leela of Her Own
  Summary: Leela becomes the latest Blernsball star for the beleaguered (of their own) New New York Mets. Well, sort of not really, actually – for she’s not the role-model she thinks she is…
  

  Classic line: “When will man learn that all races are equally inferior to robots?� – Bender.
  

• A Pharaoh to Remember
  Summary: Bender is desperate to be remembered, a delivery to Osiris 4 just may offer him his opportunity…
  

  Classic line: “You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work but they don't pay you or let you go...� - Fry.
  

Disc 4

Wucka wucka wucka wucka...

• Anthology of Interest, Part II
  Summary: The “what if?� machine gets dusted off again, so Bender finds out what he’d be like as a meatbag, Fry checks out a video game world and Leela discovers there’s no place like home…
  

  Classic line: “Wucka wucka wucka wucka – mmm, just like stale marshmallows!� - Zoidberg.
  

• Roswell That Ends Well
  Summary: Red and blue makes for purple-shmurple, for instead it results in a back in time thingy – to 1947 Roswell, Fry’s grandfather, a captured Zoidberg and a broken-up Bender…
  

  Classic line: “That’s no flying saucer, that’s my ass!� - Bender.
  

• Godfellas
  Summary: Space pirates and Bender seeking solace in a missile tube leaves us with Bender in Spaaaaaaaaace – where he kind of becomes God and just may sort of meet him as well (wha, wha, what?!)
  

  Classic line: “Who would have known playing God could have such terrible consequences?� - Bender.
  

• Future Stock
  Summary: Planet Express is on the verge of bankruptcy, could that guy - you know, the ‘80s Reaganaut – be the answer to taking on Mom?
  

  Classic line: “A-ha! Once again the conservative sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor.� - Zoidberg.
  

• The 30% Iron Chef
  Summary: Bender’s dreams of being a great cook are kind of dashed by the fact that he’s crap – but a Yoda-esque meeting and a challenge to Elzar for the title of “Iron Cook� may see things change. Umm, please note that we did say “may�…
  

  Classic line: “Today, I've personalised each of your meals. For example, Amy, you're cute. So I've baked you a pony.� - Bender.
  

Just another generic crustacean...

For something from so far into the future, this particular little animated concoction is decidedly in a full-screen ratio of 4:3. Hmm, it must be one of those hokey but ever-so-fashionable retro trips or something. Still, at least they all fit the screens of our pathetic 21st century, human-made, non-interactive televisions quite snugly.

Mind you, things are decidedly un-puke-a-tronic visually, with another essentially flawless straight from bits and bytes to little shiny metal as- erm, disc treat. Again we must bring out the abraca-duh factor, for everybody should be more than well aware by now that Futurama employs a masterful combination of traditional 2D cel animation and computerised 3D stuff. It’s all done seamlessly and makes for some absolutely breathtaking visuals at times, all of which pop up here as clearly as if they were being viewed on a ‘puter monitor. 22 episodes result in perhaps one or two minor instances of aliasing and the odd juddery pan, but otherwise absolutely zero, zilch, nada and nothing in the way of other look-at-able gremlins, so anybody prepared to declare that this transfer Wang Chungs is a dumbhead. Colour is luscious; detail is more detailed than the imagination could ever imagine detail actually being; there’s essentially no such thing as shadow detail in a cartoon (fluh!) and skin tones – well, let’s not go there again, OK?

The retro vibe continues in the sonic department, with plain old Dolby Digital stereo with a little bit of surround stuff featured, rather than Oomfrontronic 57-channel galork-a-round hyper-noise or the like as some may expect (if so, get thee to a sanitarium). As such, 21st century delights such as subwoofwoofs get little to do without being bolstered by Prologicness, however things are at least all clear and clean, be they dialogue type stuff or shoomy, boomy spacey noise thingies.

Dance puny humans, or I will destroy you!

Christopher Tyng’s brilliant musical creations once again delight the senses, bolstered as they are by the use of a whole orchestra featuring lots of people clutching lots of instruments and playing them all in a structured format consisting of things called musical notes under the command of a person bearing a stick. These occasionally share time with 20th century contemporary tunes from the likes of Simple Minds, Roy Orbison, The American Breed, Miami Sound Machine and Rush.

Meanwhile, if you’re deaf you really miss out here, as the subtitles are rather ultra-crap, dropping out many words here and, resulting text which not truly representative what saying such not always funny as should.

After the relative lack of beefified extras that accompanied the second season, things are a bit better this time around, especially in the sneaky hidden stuff department. Again we get lovely menus all themed around various episodes (and they're anamorphically anamorphicised, too!), and again we get much to play with besides 22 episodes of the most underrated animated series in the history of the universe…

Audio commentaries: Oh niggle-snoosh, they’re messing with our heads! 22 episodes yielding 23 commentaries – and anybody who can sit through them all in a row is guaranteed to have pureed brain. The usual gang of quite wonderful geeky types have once again assembled to guide us through all things season three of Futurama, with various voice actors, directors and possibly even janitorial staff popping up here and there to put in their own two ningis worth. Things range from the nerdiest of the nerdy technical stuff to genuinely interesting stuff, talk of cuts, DYNs, references so obscure their mothers wouldn’t recognise them and more, with the odd gappy bit here and there and much childish giggling at times. Now, for those rightfully wondering why there are 23 of the things, the Emmy-award winning (did you hear that Fox, ye of the canceling red pen?) episode Roswell That Ends Well has a more technical commentary to accompany the usual quite silly one.

Animatic from Anthology of Interest, Part II (22:39): Another exciting inclusion for animation geeks, this is basically the whole episode in pencil sketch form, featuring rudimentary animation that is often see-through (they call it ‘onion-skinning’, apparently) and even an appallingly bad pretend Leela as Peg Bundy obviously couldn’t make it on the day. What proves very interesting is the remarkable amount of differences between this and the finished episode, with some really funny jokes that it’s a shame weren’t used (including a Frogger one they should be ashamed of axing), and some really clunkola ones which were better off vapourised.

Storyboard – Parasites Lost: If you don’t mind hovering your face somewhere approximately five millimetres from your TV screen, you may have fun reading through this quite brilliant episode page by page by page by page (yes, there are quantrillions of them here), in what is essentially a quite rudimentary comic book style, complete with the odd scribbled note here and there to confound those poor suffering eyeballs even more.

Deleted Scenes: You want ’em? You get ‘em. Snippety-snips from most of the episodes – well OK, 17 of the 22 - feature, ranging in length from a blink and you’ll be “huh?�-ing 12 seconds through to 2:14. For those digging this whole number thing, there are 49 of them in all, some of which are slight extensions to bits from the final eps. Those expecting full audio and video quality in order to sticky-tape together longer episodes should be advised that you’re dreaming – and also that spending some time out of doors occasionally is a good thing, as you get vitamins and stuff from the sun that are kind of helpful if you wish to remain living.

3D Models: Calm down geekboys, we’re not talking the booby variety, rather a selection of brief turnarounds and the like of nine different rendered thingies from various episodes ranging from Santa Claus in his sleigh to Fry’s Kombi van. These vary greatly in length, and all feature a commentary of sorts.

How to Draw…: For those of a pencil-wielding bent – or those who can afford Wacom products – here’s all manner of dos and don’ts demonstrating how to draw both Fry and Leela the official way, via a series of rhomboids, lines, eyes as measurements and other such stuff. Oh dear, the mind boggles at what frighteningly perverse adjustments will be made to poor Leela by the spottier, “what’s society mean?� nerd-o-rama members of our world because of this particular inclusion. It can be safely assumed, however, that in real-life no such bra size would actually exist…

Stills Gallery: Ever dreamt of checking out 56 pencil sketches of obscure Futurama characters? Well, your prayers have been answered here, go nuts – woob woob woob!

International Clips: OK kiddies, repeat after me, “waste of space� (regardless of how much of the stuff there actually is in the universe that can be frittered away without care or thought). A 1:46 clip from Amazon Women in the Mood plays, offering the opportunity to thrill to hearing the obscure language known as “English�, gasp at one called “French�, keel over ecstatically at “Spanish� and swoon at one apparently known generally as “Italian�. I dunno, it all sounds kind of funny to me.

Trailers: An uncannily familiar ad for the first DVD release (1:32), a not so familiar but essentially just as useless ad for the second (1:18), an extended advertisement for the rather naff looking video game (everybody looks wrong in shonkily rendered 3D!) that clocks in at 2:09 and… oh, that’s it.

Other stuff: Keep an eye peeled (ow!) around disc startups for some not-so-typical copyright screens…

Easter eggs: Forget those puny pictorial extras like the last two sets offered up, these have more meat than your average meatbag – unused intro captions, a half hour-long and a bit (or thereabouts, if you plan on getting all hyper-time keeper on my ass) table read, an example of just how ubër-dorky David X. Cohen really is and a translationy thing you can find out more about by shooming your mouse pointer thingy neatly over the link to our Easter eggs section and clicking the left button (along with instructions on finding the ones we actually just spoke about too, doi!)

So much to enjoy, so much to titter at, so much to learn – like the fact that Fry knows zip about playing Space Invaders properly, just for starters…

Another superb collection that simply oozes cleverness, skill and even that human thing they call love – much like The Simpsons did many moons ago - all wrapped up in one neat, not really that shiny package but one which features four neat and very shiny things within it. The presentation is again superb, and anybody savvy enough to have clicked with the whole Futurama vibe simply couldn’t possibly aks for anything more.

I watched it, I can’t un-watch it – and I’d be crazy if I wanted to. You would be too, puny human, and I would have to destroy you and your tiny inferior brain – mwahahahaha!

Ahem. Sorry. Must repeat, I am not a big, green, bulbous-headed alien of undefined origin capable of crushing puny humans. I am not a big, green, bulbous-headed alien of undefined origin capable of crushing puny humans. I am not...