The new season draws to a close...

[archonix]

With Futurama's current season about to end it seems now is a good time to speculate about what the future holds for the intrepid crew of Planet Express and pontificate on the state of the show now. As things stand it was confirmed in March that Comedy Central would renew Futurama for another season, but is it worth it? Has the show jumped the shark? Has it gained quality? Is the heart still there? Will Zapp ever get an episode about his adventures in space? And is it just my TV, or are Leela's boots black now?

[Stretch_Dude]

The heart is definitely still there. From "Benderama" on, the entire season's been as solid as the show's ever been.

[Gulliver63]

I really liked this season...it just seemed like that they went to some wierd places for their humor last year. Benderama rocked, but so did several other episodes. I'm ready to bear with it another season...

[c_nordlander]

I was close to despairing of this show after the last season (even if some of it was OK, I can't think straight away of any episode that I cared about enough to rewatch), but this season has done the impossible (?) and brought the show back to at least nearly the quality it had before cancellation. Episodes like "Benderama" and "Cold Warriors" are up there with some of the best. (I also really enjoyed "Ghost in the Machines", mainly because it had an emotional quality I haven't seen since "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings". So did "Cold Warriors", in fact.) Some episodes were low on jokes, but there's been very little I outright disliked. *cough*Neutopia*cough*

If this is a trend, the next season will be just as good as the old ones.

[missy_misery]

I thought this half of the season was all right, though not as vibrantly interesting to me as the first half. I really liked several episodes, though: "Ghost in the Machine", "Cold War" and "Overclockwise" were all excellent.

[El-Man]

It's definitely still got it. Granted I've only seen four eps of the new season (we're a bit behind, but at least 6B is screening faster than 6A), but what I've read online is only encouraging me more.

[c_nordlander]

Might as well list my best and worst episodes of the season here:

Worst: "Neutopia". Nothing but immature humour and fanservice (not one but *two* montages that seemed intended solely for the male audience to masturbate to), and it wasn't even well plotted (and in the end, they were saved by... let's say

Spoiler

The Borax Kid).

I honestly want to be fair here and point out the good jokes it had, but I can't remember any. I guess at least the genderswitched character designs were cool (except for Leela). Fortunately, it turned out to be more of a holdover from Season Six than a sign of things to come. My score: D

Best: "Benderama". It wasn't the deepest episode of all time, and took a while to get into its stride, but once the nanotech plot started, it was gold. Nice to see the show remembering that it's science fiction comedy, not soft porn. Bender's laziness felt a tiny bit exaggerated, and it had a couple of bad jokes, but other than that it was hilarious, well plotted, and visually exciting. It also boasts one of the funniest Scary Door segments of the show's entire run. My score: A+

I had no problem choosing my worst episode of the season, whereas choosing the best one required some thinking. In short, this season has been far, *far* better than Season Six, where I can barely pick one episode I'd like to see again. Let's hope they keep up the good work!

[missy_misery]

Favorite: Ghost in the Machines and Cold Warriors. Even though I had a problem with some of the technical logic in Cold Warriors, it had a lot of emotional truth to it and some wonderful moments of humor, and Ghost in the Machines was the best showing we've had in quite awhile for the Bender and Fry friendship - it also made me laugh consistently.

Honorable mentions: Yo Leela Leela, Benderama

Least Favorite: Neutopia. I get what they were trying to accomplish with this one but it fell far short of the mark. Easy jokes plus convoluted plotlines plus utter, random, unfunny pointlessness = worst episode of the half-season.

Honerable Mention: All the President's Heads

[c_nordlander]

Oh yes, I love "Ghost in the Machines". Coming right after "Benderama", too, it cemented that this was going to be a good season.

I thought it was funny that right after "Neutopia" stated that all women have a genetic imperative to care about shopping and topical 21st century soap operas, "Law and Oracle" brought in a female police chief who was more macho than most men. Made me wonder if that was the writers trying to apologise for the gender stereotypes of the former episode. It probably wasn't intentional, but it's a bit of a coincidence...

[missy_misery]

I think "Law and Oracle" went right in the opposite direction: "Women with stereotypicaly masculine jobs must act in sterotypicaly masculine ways!"

[c_nordlander]

I'd have come to that conclusion if we'd seen other policewomen officers (hat-tip to "Hot Fuzz") acting like that, but as far as I can tell, the Chief was just a very quirky individual. You may well be right, of course.

Plus, there's Colleen, who wasn't stereotypically masculine. Though I don't know if the writers still remember that movie. I certainly try not to.

[archonix]

The whole point of Mannahan was that she was a huge spoof of Lt Callahan from Police Academy. Look at it that way, it becomes a lot funnier, though you have to have seen all the police academy movies she was in. ALL of them.

[missy_misery]

...I should've guessed she was a bit of a Police Accademy reference; it's been a century since I've seen any of them, too. I'd love to give the writers the benefit of the doubt on that one but, well, Neutopia. And yet on the other hand, you had some great anti-stereotyping in Yo Leela Leela. *SHRUGS!* In short, it was a mixed bag of a season for me; I liked the first half better than the latter half, but there were a bunch of stand-out episodes too.