Futurama - "The Futurama Holiday Spectactcular" - Talkback [11/21]

Dang, you beat me to it. I was just going to declare this the single worst episode of Futurama to date.

Usually even the weaker episodes like " That's Lobstertainment", "Route of All Evil" and "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV" have 1 or 2 worthwhile moments, but this one was just out-and-out bad. This is the first epsiode which I haven't even entertained the thought of catching in reruns.
 
Just the parts with Cubert and Dwight.

The Futurama Holiday Special, however, was not good at all. It seemed as though this special was written by a different team of writers who were trying to emulate Futurama's style without having a clear idea what exactly that is. The only way that this was better than the last couple of DTV movies was because this was (mercifully) only a half hour long.
 
:^: Yeah, basically this. :^:

Some parts of "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV" are indeed very funny, particularly Bender's parts and his speech towards the end. But the parts involving Cubert, Dwight and Tinny Tim were just lame, the bit with the robot actors didn't make sense: why recast the robot who played Calculon's son? He's a robot, couldn't they just have built another identical robot to replace him? And the gag with the kid robot auditioning with a robot mother was just too much of a stretch. (Though admittedly, a lot of the stuff involving the robots on Futurama just don't make sense, and are only done to be funny.)

Finally, the whole shtick with the F.A.R.T.ers (Fathers Against Rude Television) was really lame; I get that they had to put 'fathers' somewhere in the group's name in order for the joke to work (though they could've easily had the 'F' stand for 'Families'), but the notion that only men are outraged by Bender was just ridiculous. If anything, more women should be offended by him, given his general attitude towards women. The whole thing with F.A.R.T. is surprisingly misogynistic for Futurama, a show which usually does a slightly better job of handling its' female characters compared to other shows (including The Simpsons). Plus, like "Route of All Evil", I can't stand to see the Professor (one of my favorite characters on the show) reduced to acting like a stereotypical dumb sitcom dad. (I'll excuse Hermes because he actually is a dad.)
 
Back
Top