Customer Reviews

Futurama, Vol. 3

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I got this Boxed Set for Christmas (Finally the Australians get something before the U.S.A). Anyway, This is my overall review of the 22 episodes:
DISC 1
01: Amazon Women In The Mood: 4/5, Death By "Snu Snu" is funny.
02: Parasites Lost: 3/5: Fry gets infected by parasites which makes him irresistable to Leela.
03: A Tale Of Two Santas: 5/5, Bender becomes Santa after Muderous Old Saint Nick is frozen.
04: The Luck Of The Fryish: 5/5: Fry finds out that his brother (Yancy) stole his 7 leaf clover, along with his name.
05: Bird Bot Of Ice-Catraz: 5/5: After crashing a tanker, Bender believes he's a penguin.
06: Bendless Love: 3/5: Bender falls in love with Flexo's Ex.
DISC 2
07: The Day rhe Earth Stood Stupid: Leela learns that Nibble belongs to an ancient, intelligent race. Everyone on Earth is made stupid except Fry. 5/5.
08: Thats Lobstertainment: 5/5: Zoidberg convinces a famous reletive to make a movie with Calculon.
09: The Cyberhouse Rules: 5/5: Leela gets to eyes; Bender adopts 12 oprhans, attempting to make money.
10: Where The Buggalo Roam: 3/5: A Race of martians kidnapp Amy and her Buggalo herd.
11: Insane In The Mainframe: After being involved in a backrobbery with Bender's friend Roberto, Fry and Bender are sent to the robot "looney bin" for criminly insane robots. 5/5.
12: The Route Of All Evil: Cubert & Dwight open a competing delivery buisness, and overpower Planet Express. 5/5
DISC 3
13: Bendin' In The Wind: 5/5: Bender goes on a tour with Beck after he breaks his body (This ep has awesome music).
14: Time Keeps On Slipping: 4/5: The crew interferes with time, causing time slips.
15: I Dated A Robot: 3/5: Fry downloads a Lucy Liu bot.
16: A Leela Of Her Own: 5/5: Leela becomes the first women in Major Leauge Blernsball, and becomes the worst player in history.
17: A Pharaoh To Remember: 5/5: Bender becomes Pharaoh of a far-away planet.
DISC 4
18: Anthology Of Interest II: 5/5: Bender becomes human, Fry discovers what life would be like if it were more like a game and Leela is pictured in "The Wizard Of Oz", all through the "What If" Machine.
19: Roswell That Ends Well: The crew travels to Roswell, 1947.4/5
20: Godfellas: Bender becomes god of a society of tiny people.5/5
21: Future Stock: 5/5: Fry teams up with a buisness man from the 1980s.
22: 30% Iron Chef: Bender challenges Elzar on the Iron Chef cooking show.
Overall: 5/5.
I love this show

Futurama is so sharp and so funny at times that it manages to be dark, cynical, funny and uplifting all in the same episode, as in The Luck Of The Fryish. That episode and many other truly clever and funny stories are included in this set. Matt Groening's vision that technology improves with time, but people rarely do is alive and well in the 22 episodes in this set. Many classic as well as grade-B science fiction themes are explored with hilarious results, such as in Godfellas and Amazon Women In The Mood respectively. The show gives great comedic treatment to ideas seen in countless SF movies, TV shows and stories from the past. Episodes in this set range from good to great; there are no bad ones.

Extra features such as commentary by creator Matt Groening and deleted scenes make the set a special treat. With comedy this dense, you can watch these over and over again many times and still find new things to laugh at as with other great comedy shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Monty Python's Flying Circus. I highly recommend this set and I hope to buy it as soon as it is available!

I must say, I was skeptical when I first saw this show being previewed to air on FOX. I thought "Oh great! A ridiculous spin-off of The Simpsons." But when the show started airing on Adult Swim after it was cancelled, I thought, "What the heck? I have nothing to lose right?"

Well! I was astonished at how well everything went together! Matt Groening has certainly out-done himself this time! I couldn't believe how much imagination and wit was put into this show. It made me think: "If Matt Groening has this much talent in imagination and humor, then why is it that "The Simpsons" has been stale for a period of time now?"

It also raised the question: why did FOX cancel this show after only a handful of seasons? And why did they cancel "Family Guy"? Then the stupid number of reality shows began to emerge and FOX's so-called "reason" for cancelling this show and "Family Guy" began to surface. The reason for cancelling the shows in favor for reality shows (American Idol and all that other crap) was that FOX felt behind the times and decided to go with the "reality" trend. BAD MOVE!!! Now that the show "Family Guy" has had such a cult following in DVD sales, FOX has "miraculously" revived the show. But, chances are "Futurama" is not returning to FOX anytime soon, which pisses me off so bad because it was on for such a short while. Anyway here's the story about the show and characters. Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The series begins with Philip J. Fry, a New York City slacker who is cryogenically frozen by accident on New Year's Eve, 1999. He is defrosted one thousand years later on December 31, 2999 and finds himself in New New York City. Fry's attempt to escape from his now-mandatory job assignment as a delivery boy ends when he is hired on at Planet Express, a small intergalactic package delivery company run by his distantly descended nephew. The series covers the adventures of Fry and his colleagues as they travel around the universe making deliveries on behalf of Planet Express.

The futuristic time frame allowed the show's writers to be creative with their humour by introducing ideas and events from pulp science fiction of the mid 20th century into the series. As such, the show is as much a testament to the creativity of the writers as it is a story of Fry and his colleagues.

Characters
Philip J. Fry ("Fry") (Voiced by Billy West) - was "accidentally" cryogenically frozen just after New Year, 2000, and thawed out in time to usher in the year 3000. Something of a misfit in the 20th century, he adapted to 31st century life with ease after finding employment outside the field of pizza delivery and taking up residence in Bender's closet at the Robot Arms apartment building. He generally has a lower intelligence than the rest but occasionally has moments of genius. Through a time travel accident, he is his own grandfather.

Turanga Leela ("Leela") (Katey Sagal) - The ship's captain, and usually the most disciplined member of the Planet Express crew. For most of the series she believed she was an orphaned alien (mainly because she is almost completely human-looking, except for the fact that she only has one eye), and desired to learn of her origins. It was later revealed - in Season 4 - that she is a sewer mutant instead of an alien as previously believed.

Professor Hubert Farnsworth (Billy West) - Fry's great-great-...-great grand-nephew who runs Planet Express. In his 160s, he peers through cokebottle glasses, has bad posture and frequently forgets who or what he was talking about. Farnsworth is a mad scientist whose inventions are of variable usefulness. Has a long-standing rivalry with former student Professor Wernstrom. His catchphrases are "Good news, everyone!", and "Oh, my no."

Bender Bending Rodriguez ("Bender") (John DiMaggio) - a foul-mouthed, hard drinking, misanthropic robot (catchphrase: "Bite my shiny metal ass!") built in America's heartland - Mexico. He frequently violates the Three Laws of Robotics. The only thing he fears is an industrial-size electric can opener. He also is known to uncontrollably sing folk music when exposed to a magnetic field.

Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) - a Jamaican Bureaucrat with a flair for filing. He is also an Olympic Limbo-er. He manages Planet Express delivery business, and his responsibilities include paying bills, giving out legal waivers, and notifying next of kin. In direct contrast to most stereotypes of Jamaicans, he is an uptight workaholic, a stickler for doing everything according to regulations, and frequently admonishes the staff for not working hard enough. He frequently makes bizarre exclamations, such as "Sweet manatee of Galilee!", "Sweet lion of Zion!" or "Sweet gorilla of Manilla!" The character was originally named "Dexter" who did not sport a Jamaican accent; this was changed after the first few episodes were recorded.

Dr. John Zoidberg (Billy West) - a lobster-like alien from planet Decapod 10 who (as a self-proclaimed expert on humans) provides incompetent medical care for the crew. He is strongly disliked by Hermes Conrad and lives below the poverty line. Zoidberg combines features of several sea creatures, scuttling sideways like a crab, producing ink like an octopus or squid, and creating pearls in his digestive tract like oysters. He is often treated as the outcast in the group. Zoidberg is curiously a joke on a few levels. A famous New England sauce is named Lobster Newburg, while Zoidberg himself also exhibits many of the stereotypes of Jewish doctors, including his grammar, his accent, and his sandals.

Amy Wong (Lauren Tom) - an intern at Planet Express (kept around because she shares the professor's blood type) and heir to half of Mars. Her parents, who constantly pester her about the lack of grandchildren, came to own half the planet through a legitimate deal that parodied colonial exploitation of gullible natives. On the show, Amy is known for being somewhat shallow and ditzy, and for her overuse of futuristic 31st century slang. She also tends to dress provocatively, frequently being the person on screen wearing the least clothing. When aggravated, she occasionally starts cursing in Cantonese.

Well, there you have it! Now you know a little about the show, and why I'am angered by FOX.

Futurama was one of the best, most creative show to hit airwaves, and season three had some of the best episodes.

Disc One
Amazon Women In The Mood: Fry, Bender, Kif, Leela, Amy, and Zapp find themselves trapped on a planet ruled by man hating women. 3/5

Parasites Lost: After eating an old sandwich at a truck stop, Fry's body becomes infected by parasites. 5/5

A Tale of Two Santas: After Santa gets frozen into the ice on Uranus, Bender must take over his duties.5/5

The Luck of The Fryish: Fry searches the ruins of old New York for his lucky clover, but discovers that his brother stole the clover, along with his name.5/5

The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz:Leela refuses to participate in a delivery, making Bender captain. 3/5

Bendless Love: Bender falls in love with a coworker at a bending plant, only to discover that she use to date Flexo. 4/5

Disc Two:
The Day The Earth Stood Stupid: Evil brains attack the Earth, and only Fry is immune to their powers. 5/5

That's Lobstertainment: Dr. Zoidberg's uncle persuades Zoidberg into producing his latest movie. 2/5

The Cyber House Rules: Wanting to fit in, Leela has another eye grafted onto her head. 4/5

Where The Buggalo Roam: Kif retrieves Amy's parent's buggalo herd, but they still won't accept him.3/5

Insane In The Mainframe: Fry and Bender get sent to a robot asylum. After Fry leaves, he thinks he's a robot. 5/5

The Route of All Evil: Hermes and the professor's clones open a delivery service, and begin doing better than their dads. 3/5

Disc Three:
Bendin' In The Wind: Bender becomes broken, and with the help of Beck, launch a tour to inspire other broken robots. 3/5

Time Keeps On Slipping: The professor creates super powered mutants to beat the Harlem Globetrotters. To do this, he needed to use a special chemical, and now, time is randomely skipping. 5/5

I Dated A Robot: Fry downloades a Lucy Liu bot. 4/5

A Leela of Her Own: Leela becomes the first female blernsball player. 4/5

A Pharoah to Remember: Bender becomes the sadistic ruler of Osiris 4. 4/5

Disc Four:
Anthology of Interest 2: Bender discovers what it would be like to be human, Fry lives in a video game, and Leela discovers what it would be like if she had found her home. 4/5

Roswell That Ends Well: This Emmy Winning episode finds the Planet Express team launched back in time to 1947 Roswell, New Mexico. 5/5

Godfellas: Bender gets launched out of the ship, and becomes God to a race of aliens. 3/5

Future Stock: A frozen guy becomes CEO fo Planet Express. 3/5

the 30% Iron Chef: Bender competes in a cooking contest against Elzar. 4/5

The definite highlight of season three is Roswell That Ends Well, or Insane In the Mainframe, but season three also has several other classic episodes.

This is a great collection of the third season of Futurama. Note that this is the Complete Production Season of Futurama of 22 episodes, and is not listed in the same air order as shown of FOX. This set includes commentaries for every episode (IMO the funniest and most entertaining yet!), the Emmy award winning episode "Roswell that Ends Well" with an alternate commentary, deleted scenes from several episodes, a story board for "Parasites Lost", an animatic for "Anthology of Interest II" 3D Model tests for several effects used in the show, a table read for "A Tale of two Santas" (hidden easter egg), still art gallery, and more!

Even if you've seen all of the episodes in this set on the Cartoon Network, I'd still buy it for the commentaries alone which to me, are a lot more fun to listen to that the Simpsons commentaries. I'd also reccomend buying the Season 4 set (which contains the last 18 episodes of the series) even though this set is slightly better.

There are many reviews that concentrate on the show, so I'll concentrate on DVD quality. :-) (Incidentially, look for my Futurama volume 1 review in regards to my title line and how it got past FOX broadcast censors, hehe... of course, to know the actual origin of "snoo-snoo", you'll have to watch a certain episode in this volume!)

While Volume 3 contains mostly season 3 episodes, it's been said that season 3 is the lowest rated. While season 3 does have a few turkeys in the midst, the remaining episodes easily make up for the loss. As a result, no demerits.

Volume 4 will be released this fall. These volumes were actually produced seasons. FOX aired these episodes in a different order and, indeed, the "fifth" season is nothing more than 16 episodes originally slated for seasons 3 and 4 (now add up how many episodes were aired officially for seasons 3 and 4... wow, they did cut back quite a few! I wonder if NFL has anything to do with that...) And if Volume 4 can be judged based on the quality of the previous volumes, I'd pre-order it right now!

FOX knows the value of its customers, or at least the value of DVD. The video/image quality of these episodes is as perfect as they can get. It's virtually identical, if not better, than that of broadcast quality. Colors are vibrant, pictures are crisp... yum!

The only minor down side is the lack of Dolby 5.1 treatment for the sound. However, in Dolby 2.0, it still rocks. No demerits.

The menu system I keep harping about is rectified in Volume 3. There's a better layout, a more consistent layout, and most deliciously there's finally a "PLAY ALL" feature.

If you're a fan of Futurama, this set is a MUST BUY. Heck, it's so good, I recommend you get it for full MSRP! But I have yet to argue with amazon.com's prices...

Great addition to any fan of Matt G. (simpsons et al), sci fi, cartoons in general! Hiliarious! Although I am probably going to be attacked for this, I think the series was in its prime with this volume.

Futurama might need a bit of time to get use to it, but once you tune in its sense of humor, you can keep watching every episode over and over without ever grow tired of it and always find new references you didn't notice before (are they really countless? I love the scientific ones, Mr. Groenig must know his physics!). And you should commend him for keeping the quality constant throughout all the seasons! Check it out on CartoonNetwork and you'll see!

Futurama volume 3 has some of the best episodes and a couple that are kind of flops. Among the best are "Parasites lost" "Luck of the Fryrish" "Amazon Women in the Mood" "Roswell that Ends Well" and "Anthology of Interest II" Just to name a few. Some of the flops are "A Leela of her own" and a few others that are just personally not my favorites (though some people love that episode). Anyhoo, even with all the mediocre episodes thrown in there, Vol. 3 is one of my favorites because it has some of the best episodes in the series. As always, the commentary is not all that useful, but they are hilarious. No Futu-fan should be without this box set. Then again, all of them are great. If you want a good site to reference the series go to www.gotfuturama.com. Hopefully some day we'll get a volume 5 with new seasons (I'm not gonna hold my breath though) but until that day, this box set will keep you laughing out loud becuase unlike Family guy, Futurama is great over and over again.

I loved Futurama. It's cancellation was likely one of the few I actually cared about.

This review is a tough one, though. On one hand Futurama hit some peaks in this season. Some of the episodes match anything The Simpsons could through at them, notably the award winning Roswell That Ends Well. Other stellar episodes include Fry becoming intelligent via parasites, a sentimental Fry learning how his brother dealt with his diesappearance, and the superior intellect of the Harlem Globetrotters.

There are some downers, though. Another Zoidberg episode showcases why he's hysterical for one liners yet not outstanding to wrap an episode around. The same with Bender - though I tend to find him the funniest character, and some of the Bender episodes are classics, here we have some that show why Bender is often funniest as an addition to a scene rather than the scene as a whole.

Overall you'll laugh very hard at this series, as long as you're a fan of the brand of humor found in shows such as The Simpsons, Malcom in the Middle and News Radio. Contrary to many opinions you needn't be a Sci-Fi fan (I loathe the stuff myself), you simply need a working knowledge of pop culture. This season falls flat at times, and lacks the overall consistency of the prior seasons (yet is more consistent than Season 4), but has peaks higher than all the prior seasons.

Worth owning and watching repeatedly. Remember to watch those commentaries, too, they tend to be a bit crazy and very rewarding.