C&C - "Futurama" Season Five - Week One [11/3 - 11/6]

[livingfruitvirus]

Hey folks. When was the last time we did one of these?! Well, it's finally time for Futurama season 5 on Cartoon Network. Playing this week...

11/3 - "The Route of All Evil" [3ACV12]
11/4 - "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" [4ACV01]
11/5 - "Less Than Hero" [4ACV04]
11/6 - "A Taste of Freedom" [4ACV05]

It begiiiiiiiiiiins!

[Duke]

I wonder if Matt has heard of LowBrow yet...

I never liked how Dwight just appeared out of nowhere.

Is it just me, or is Leela angry today?

I'm not gonna ask where the air came from when Bender sneezed...

Leela's pretty strong to break the Game Boy.

The Game Boy seems to have regressed in 1,000 years.

Heh, Farnsworth and Hermes are real businessmen alright.

Can't go wrong with slamming the Fox network.

Kids are so impressionable these days, aren't they?

Yay! Paperboy parody! I love that game!

Everybody knows you need a stinky lobster monster if you want to have a REAL successful business.

I find the image of a pregnant robot the funniest thing ever. Funnier than StrongBad.

The ship hasn't blasted vertically since Episode 2, right?

Like I said, they are true businessmen.

Since when is there a cannon on the overbite?

Blobs are cool.

Just what was that dog doing in that scene?

Eh, an OK episode overall.

[Discloner]

I thought the whole gag where Bender was pregnant with ale was halarious. While the whole 'kids go off and create a blunder' things was...ok. :)

[Rabi~en~Rose]

nope..didn't like it. sorry but I prefer the show focus on fry, zoidberg, & bender.. not the proffessor, hermes, & their stupid kids. blah it was just plain boring! http://members.aol.com/kimminakochan/chicken.gif

[DianaGohan]

Hooray For The Futurama "The Route OF All Evil" Episode Review That I Have Not Seen Until Toady!!!

Not really in the mood to review. Funny stuff with Hermes and Farnsworth's sons, nice Bender making Beer subplot, a bit of character development on the blob, good jokes about delievering papers, emotional stuff about being a good father and being jealous of your kids and getting over it, not the greatest ending. A-

[Delthayre]

"The Route of All Evil" was amusing, but never broke out. There were a respectable few laughs, but nothing really stands out. The central plot was bland and since I didn't find Dwight and Qbert sympathetic, it didn't do anything for me. I think in part because I hate children. The Benderale subplot was more amusing, but nothing special. Although I'll forever remember the name...Benderale!

*** out of *****

[IWDP Lim]

Best part of the episode - The Little Prince dying. Again. Take that you stupid little French dehydration halucination.

Worst part - With all the video game refs they make on this show, there was a sever lack of actual Paperboy refrences. Where was the breakdancer, the old lady with the rolling pin, the space tornados, and the grim reaper. Defnitaly would've made this ep a lot better.

Leela seemed really out of chracter though, and there wasn't enough Zoidberg. way weak opening to this new block, oh well, at least there are some better eps coming.

[mjsmith]

Not a great beginning to McSeason 5, but, it'll grow on me as we progressed into Thanksgiving Night.

Have seen tomorrow night's one a couple of months ago, when Fox repeated it, but, the rest of this week's batch, haven't seen those, but I will. ;)

[ClockStomper]

The beer subplot was the good part, and the Cubert and Dwight parts made me realize why this was the leftover frome season 3, El stinko. Still, there were quite a bit of nice gags.

[Sketch]

I thought it was funny stuff. Bender "pregnant" was histarical!

[Anime Guy]

I remember LFV having a Bender avatar that said, "It's an ale!"

This was a good episode, not great, but good. That's about it.

[shoujoaifan]

Pretty good, and I was waiting to see when Quebert ("Nuh-Huh!") was going to show up again, as well as Dwight's 1st appearance ("My Manwhich!"). Even Scruffy showed up! ("Who are you?""Scruffy, the janitor.")

A bit surprised when the paper route story ended and we went into more father/son stuff with the blobs, but it was funny and made the episode seemed longer ("...in a good way"). The scene in the hospital was definitely corny, although funny seeing this 3 fathers, 2 being bandaged up, one a father/orinigal version, another blob (let's see, that makes, what, 7 fathers?), kicking back and drinking some homebrew beer.

Fortunately, seeing the son blob eat the other kids while thier fathers were oblivious balanced out the campy coriness (is that even a real phrase?)

[Lonestarr]

This was the first time I saw "The Route of All Evil" and I found it hilarious. There were so many funny lines:

"If you were my kids, you'd get a good talking-to...from your father...as soon as he got back from the Senate."

"Good news: I'm a horse's butt." "'A horse's butt'? That doesn't sound like good news at all."

And I loved the reference to "The Deep South" ("My Manwich!").

The subplot with Bender's "pregnancy" was also funny.

Grade: B+

[AnimatedSnow47]

"The Route of All Evil" (A)

Another superb excellent episode, and that's from someone who usually doesn't like the Professor! There were tons of hilarious scenes, some of my favorites including:

The reference to ESB when the monster eats the Paperboy (liked that too) dog.
The voice machine that changed the others voices into the Professor's.
The joke about the FOX network.
The original 1989 Game Boy appearing in the year 3002(?) :)
Zoidberg in the trash (Then again, what's new? :))
Bender giving "birth" to BenderBrau
The "My Manwich!" continuity reference. :)

[Parallax]

"The Route of All Evil"

Review: 4 Stars

I loved it. Good to see other characters get funny episode plots, too. I loved the Bender making beer sub-plot, too. I loved the line, "It's An Ale!". The end was good, too. "It's What's On The Inside That Matters!" *Shot of the two kids in the slime alien*

[Eddie G.]

Eh okay, had its moments.

[Chuquita]

Wow, two pregnancy episodes in a row.

[DarkPoet89]

I fell asleep last night and missed yesterday's Futurama, but I managed to see the one tonight. It wasn't the best, but it was a decent episode. I have one question though. That horse named Spirit that was near the beginning of the episode: I apologize if this has been asked before, but was that horse based off of the one from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron or is it just a coincidence? Because the horse in this episode kind of resembled the one from the movie. Thank you.

[DianaGohan]

I Finally Get To See The Opening Of The Futurama Episode Review of "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch".

(Note: I've Seen this episode about two times, but haven't given a review of it, because I haven't seen the beginning, until now. So here's the review).

Thinking about it, this is probably the best character development episode for Amy in the series. I'd also say for Kif, but he only serves to further the plot with his love and determination (already seen in "When The Buggaglo Roam") while we get more of a development for Amy. Always seen as the fairly loose character of the series, Amy wanted to continue to be free and party (like on her party board) but realized her love for Kif at the end was worth more then that, and still unsure of whether she wanted to go through with it or not, came to him and helped finish the birthing ritual. It's a very nice and touching scene and more realistic then some other "love conquers all" ending ("I'll be ready then" after Kif says that it will take 20 years for they're children to come back to land shows a good amount of depth to her character. Wanting to committ and be serious but still wanting to lead her own life for however long she can. But I may be looking too deep into that).

The humor in this episode isn't bad either. Highlights include Zapp trying to seduce Leela on the phone, the Professor's angry dome, the Holoshed idea (well, not really that funny, but I thought it was a very well developed concepted used very well here) evil holographic Lincoln causing a rampage, Zapp blowing a whole in the ship when Atilla the Hun warns him not to, everyone's reactions to Kif being pregnent (espically Bender's "Just when I think I got you biological organisms figured out you go and confuse me more. Why I ought to!" and then tries to attack Kif), the Professor's Alien Crossbreeding machine ("Even I laughed when I created this. But I guess I'm showing myself off right now") and Zoidberg living in it, Leela revealing to be the one who gave the genetic DNA to Kif (not funny, but a very nice touch), the Baby Shower, the gang walking to the Birthing Ritual ceromony (espically Bender to the Frod "Whose that? A Frog, A Toad, or you're momma!?" laughing about it, being eaten by the Frod, Kif scaring it off, and then Bending nonchantly popping back saying "I'm back, baby"), Kif having to do the birthing ritual by himself, Amy attacking those preators threathening "her babies" (Well not funny, but it shows some character depth which I liked). I give this episode an A.

[Eddie G.]

Probably a coinsidence... good episode, funny, all the Zap episodes are. I always feel bad for Kiff though, poor guy.

[Dogasu]

Anyone have Zap's quote to Attilla the Hun about his "space talk mumbo-jumbo" or whatever he said before he shot his gun, puncturing the ship?

[ClockStomper]

I love Holographic Lincoln. Anyway, This one of the few 4th season eps I managed to catch on FOX, and it's average for compared to the rest of the series, but about a B for the 4th season, which is seperated between really good (Fry or Leela centric episodes) bad (Bender episodes, he "does a Homer" this season and becomes unfunny) and average.

I liked how they showed one of the tadpoles had one eye, like Leela.

[Samurai Karasu]

"So the Toilet seat is like the uncle or something?"

BEST LINE EVER

[Duke]

Love the licenses.

I thought the mystery of Leela's parents was solved in Season 5, not 4...

I love cracks at New Jersey. Especially since my friend lives in New Jersey.

I don't really like this episode too much. It just seems like a bunch of stuff was wasted.

Bender has some super-cool and super-useful abilities.

I will admit, this song is cool.

I always liked the CitiHall joke.

Is there anything Bender can't do?

I do like the evil badger & crab

Bender with a parachute is funny.

I didn't know Stampy was in the year 3000!

I love the '66 Batman jokes, and the Teddy Roosevelt jokes too.

Poor Leela's parents...

I guess the ZooKeeper got Wermstrom's fish suit.

I never understood how Bender could be out of breath...

[DianaGohan]

I laughed and laughed at this episode months ago in the Futurama Episode Review of "Less Then Hero".

(Okay, I copy and pasted this from when this episode first aired, so it's gonna sound familiar to those who saw it. But enough about that, I'm watching the episode).

Okay, first off, this has to be one of the best Season 4 episodes of Futurama, at least comedey wise. However, there was a bunch of emotions and drama here too. Mainly it was concerning Leela and her two parents. The best point about this is summed up in the line that all children are a bit embarassed by their parents and all parents are a bit dissapointed in their children. There are other small moments, but I don't want to mention all of them.

Then their's the comedey. Bender being used as an all purposed tool, Leela and Fry being mugged by the small robot with the gun, and then checking their superpowers ("Ability to dominate over aquatic life" "Hey Zoidberg, come over here!" "Screw you!" "Well don't have that"). Then with Bender Making the costumes, we get the start of all the superhero fun, and all of it was good, so it's hard to pick out a specific moment). A great episode (Then again, I am a sucker for Super Hero spoofs) and worthy of Futurama's return. A++

(Note: When I said Futurama's return, I meant to new episodes on FOX. Oh, and I liked the credits at the end).

To make up for an old review, I give you a new

DIANA TALKS TO THE DUKE!!!!

Love the licenses.

Yeah, Futurama has a lot of good little sign jokes throughtout it's run (my favorite comes in next Thursday's episode. My old-new review will point it out to you).

I thought the mystery of Leela's parents was solved in Season 5, not 4...

Nope. That was in season 4 (You see, that was episode 4ACVO2 ("Leela's Homeworld) and this is 4ACV04. They only could show a couple of the 4AC episodes for season 4 and decided to show the Leela's parents one, the Valentine's Day episode ("Love And Rocket") and the Star Trek one ("Where No Fan Has Gone Before") so that at least it would make a little sense conitnuity wise with the Season 5 episodes).

I love cracks at New Jersey. Especially since my friend lives in New Jersey.

Yeah, Futurama does a lot of cracks at New Jersey (my favorite was in "Hell is Other Robots" where Fry started to explain that having some sort of Hell in New Jersey makes sense).

I don't really like this episode too much. It just seems like a bunch of stuff was wasted.

BLASHEPMY I SAY!!!!!!!! (Of course, I'm a big sucker, as previously stated, for Super Hero parodies, like this, Aqua Teen's "Super Hero", the Family Guy's Viewer Mail Segment The Supergriffins, among others).

Bender has some super-cool and super-useful abilities.

Yeah, if There was a New Justice Team series, Bender would be the one with all the cool weapons and gadgets ("Hey Bender, where'd you get this cool superhero car." "I stole it last week from a guy who had an evil moustache, thusly making him evil, so I liberated the car and that's why I have it here, which is all legal just to let you know.").

I will admit, this song is cool.

Go Go Go New Justice Team
Fighting Evil's Such A Scream
I Forgot The Other Words To The Song About
THE NEW JUSTICE TEAM!!!

I always liked the CitiHall joke.

Yeah me to. Then again, I like a lot of jokes in this episode (why else would I give it an A++?).

Is there anything Bender can't do?

Yes.
1. Destroy The Sun
2. Produce Cancer
3. Get New Episodes On Adult Swim
4. Kill All Humans (He's Still Trying on that one though).

I do like the evil badger & crab

And you said that you didn't really like this episode, and yet find a good amount of things you like about it. Although it's hard not to laugh at lines like "A Badger with a troubled past".

Bender with a parachute is funny.

Despite having the most abilities of the team (it seems) he's still probably the weakest (well, when Fry and Leela have they're super powers anyway) so needs stuff like a parachtue to land. He's kinda like Batman... if Batman were a kelptomanic robot from the future with a swearing and drinking problem.

I didn't know Stampy was in the year 3000!

He also got Frozen after being tramutaized by what he saw in "Large Marge" and I think you know what I mean by that.

I love the '66 Batman jokes, and the Teddy Roosevelt jokes too.

"A man boxing a kangaroo is preposterous, but a kangaroo boxing a robot? I'm afraid you lost me.". Yeah, that was a good joke, and who can go wrong with Old Batman refrences (then again, tossing a few BTAS refrences in they're and it'd just confust a lot of people. which would be funny).

Poor Leela's parents...

Yeah, having to live down in the sewers and then being kidnapped by evil super villians. Sounds like the Morlocks from X-Men. That's something I just noticed to.

I guess the ZooKeeper got Wermstrom's fish suit.

He probably sold it to the common man after showing it off to the scientist's in "A Big Piece Of Garbage".

I never understood how Bender could be out of breath...

Well, in the future, robots can only run for long on they're inboard batteries before they recharge a bit, which to us appears like they're out of breath.

And that was more of

DIANA TALKS TO THE DUKE!!!!

[mjsmith]

I thought the best surprise of Wednesday's episode is the end credits. Haven't seen that one before. :D

Can hardly wait for tomorrow's Taste Of Freedom. Haven't seen that before!!! :o

[Samurai Karasu]

I thought the best surprise of Wednesday's episode is the end credits. Haven't seen that one before. :D

Can hardly wait for tomorrow's Taste Of Freedom. Haven't seen that before!!! :o


It's A Zoidberg heavy episode...but I don't think it's that great. I never thought those things would coexist.

[Duke]

And you said that you didn't really like this episode, and yet find a good amount of things you like about it. Although it's hard not to laugh at lines like "A Badger with a troubled past".

I like a bunch of the jokes, but as a whole, I just think it's average.

[Anime Guy]

I thought the best surprise of Wednesday's episode is the end credits. Haven't seen that one before. :D

Yeah, Fox didn't show those. Kinda like how they don't show the full credits on Simpsons episodes until they air on weekdays.

[Duke]

Zoidberg dancing is funny!

I like the punk remix of the Futurama theme. They seriously need a soundtrack released.

Morbo is AWESOME! ^_^

Nice fireworks. They're pretty cool.

I've always loved that Earth's flag is the American flag with a picture of Earth instead of stars.

Love the embassys, they're awesome.

I like the Freedom Train. Bender=Roolz.

The Boy Scouts have changed since I was a Wolf Scout.

Who's the last judge that was shown?

Is it just me, or does Amy's suit look like the one from Legally Blonde, except blue?

Lesse, how many times has Earth been invaded now?

I wanna try a Charleston Chew...

I like the detailed flooring when the Nimbus was cut in half.

I've always wanted to launch a shark.

Love the unbreakable comb gag.

Zoidberg's home planet's flag reminds me of the flag of Strong Badia.

Cracks at Red Lobster are funny.

This episode was much better than yesterdays.

[DianaGohan]

You Can't Have Freedom Without Flag Eating In The "A Taste Of Freedom" Futurama Episode Review.

As a little note for myself, this is the only episode of Futurama I hadn't seen... until tonight. Now I have seen the whole series, and it is glorious.

The star of tonight's episode: Dr. John Zoidberg, our favorite Lobster Doctor Poor Ass Crustecan, who defends the rights of our freedom. This plot reminds me of the classic "Texas Vrs Johnson" court case combined a bit with the latest South Park episode, but it's a good combo. In the end, we learn that sometimes to express freedom, you must do something that seems to go against it, but some freedoms you must learn not to abuse. This added a good new side to Zoidberg (the fact that he's partroic) and led to a very nicely devloped plot.

Although this episode was VERY short on humor. Highlights include the crew celebrating Freedom day (Including Fry's reaction to the naked hot pool dip and Bender's freedom train) Zoidberg wanting Hot Coco marshmellows, the trial, Zapp Braningan falling for the Crustacean's disguise, and Zoidberg biting a bit out of the flag at the end. The lack of humor earns this episode a B.

[Samurai Karasu]

Ok I was wrong I really do like this episode ^^.

Woman Crab: Oh sure become a comedian.Ignore all the doctors training you have,AND MAKE YOUR PARENTS SPIN IN THEIR GRAVES!!!

Women Crab: Oh sure become a doctor. AND GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS OF BECOMING A COMEDIAN!!

[eyager]

A taste of Freedom: D- I really don't like political propaganda episodes. I know it is no secret from the episodes of the simpsons I've seen that the writers/producers are all in favor of burning the flag. Personally I don't really care if its burned or not, although some people treat it like it's the same thing as lighting a puppy dog on fire. But the heavy handed approach to the issue combined with the fact that flag burning really hasn't been a hot issue in recent years makes me wonder why they decided to waste an entire episode on it. They completely forgot to make the episode funny. To quote CBG "The worst show ever"

[Spastic Minnow]

The only episode I haven't seen any of yet. (there are a couple I've missed the beginning of, due to poor planning and ****ing Fox football games.

I loved Zoidberg's lawyer, he was great. Glad they got to kill at least one more generation of the Waterfall clan before the show ended :D but being a polygamist I guess there would have plenty more Waterfall children out in the world. The idea must have been to make it an annual thing, just like every season there was supposed to be an anthology of Interest, every season they'd kill of a member of the Waterfall family.

But my favorite line was actually-

Fry: oooh, oooh I'm having one of those things... a headache with pictures!
Leela: An Idea?

[JTurner954]

Monday's episode: I completely forgot that Hermes had a son. The "Awesome Express" idea was ok while Bender pregnant was great. Overall grade: B-

Tuesday's episode: There are some episodes where a revelation annoys me so much that a repeated viewing would bother me even more (evil Santa, the incest with Frye, the ingredient(s) of Slurm). This episode with Kip didn't bother me in this way since the laughs just continued while learning about Kip's culture when males give birth (Leela didn't know and neither did we so we learned along the way and it was a fun trip). Everyone was good here (even Zap Branigan) and I hope future episodes are this good. Overall grade: A

Wednesday's episode: A fun episode with Frye, Leela, and Bender as super heroes. I dug the theme song and the Batman homage (of course), but I wasn't into the sidestory with Leela's parents (which started to get sappy aka one of Futurama's weaknesses). Luckily it didn't go too far into this and it was still enjoyable to watch.

Overall grade: B

Bonus Grade for making me forget about Kid Notorious and thus gave me the ability to laugh again: A+

Thursday's episode: Here is another case of an episode that start out really good and goes downhill once a main story is introduced. The Freedom Day celebration was funny and all (YAY), but I didn't like Zoidberg eating the flag(BOO). There were some good moments in the episode (the Klingon embassy, Zoidberg's lawyer, Nixon) but I just wasn't into seeing a war over this. Zoidberg should be treated better in general anyway.

Overall grade: B-

Keep up the good work, Futurama.

[ClockStomper]

A taste of Freedom: D- "The worst show ever"

Oh, if you only knew what was coming...a whole slew of unfunny Bender episodes and the REAL worst episode ever "300 wingwangs".

I liked this one, it had quite a few funny bits, but nothing really to great. At least they remembered no member of Zoidburgs race has parents, but I wonder why he felt like such a loser for being a virgin, since there were a lot of elderly people in his race.

I think these last 2 seasons have been inferior to the first two, but with a few really good episodes here and there. Not really a lot of laugh out loud moments. But last night's episode had one:

Old Man Waterfall, the man with 8 wives, in reaction to a pro polygymist verdict: "Wait until I tell my husband!"

Anyone notice TuPac's head was a member of the supreme court?

[David Lucas]

Anyone notice TuPac's head was a member of the supreme court?

Snoop Doggy Dogg.

[Exatron]

'A Taste of Freedom" is a rather odd episode. Most of its humor comes from numerous small jokes rather than big ones. I also seem to recall that the anti-flag burning movement, silly as it is, saw a surge in popularity in 2000, so it's reasonably close to when an early 4ACV episode first entered production. At the very least, it made for a nice jab at the mindless 'patriotism' that sprung up in late 2001.

So, what does the shroud of Turin taste like?