Monsters of Television

“What do cats need with that much yarn and cobalt?”

After two very strong episodes (well, one very strong episode in “The Late Philip J. Fry” and the last few minutes of “Lethal Inspection” added the necessary punch to ramp up an otherwise decent episode), it would appear that Futurama had requisitioned its groove back. As a result, so much rested on “The Darn Katz!” to deliver on the momentum of the last two episodes.

While the episode doesn’t have the poignancy the previous two episodes had, “The Darn Katz” does deliver on the laughs and continues the season’s excellent, outside the box pairings that end up generating much of the humor that isn’t generated by jokes about cats and academia, two things near and dear to my heart. Read more »

“Since when is the internet about robbing people of their privacy?”

Twitter. Facebook. iPhones. Technology today is so much about instantly being able to buy something, see something, hear something, tell your friends about it, have companies look at what you’re saying and tailor specific ads relative to your interests. There are those who believe these things are steering us down a doomsday 1984-like path of destruction (myself included). “Attack of the Killer App” gave us a glimpse of what that not too far off time may look like, with a little more humor of course.

The latest Mom product, the eyePhone, has just been released and everyone at Planet Express tosses their old phones away and rushes to the store. This is the beginning of a style of joke the rest of the episode employs that I am dubbing “Apple-knocking”. Apple-knocking is a very common  joke used by many and people (even Apple users themselves, the ones with senses of humor anyway) love it when it’s done well. Futurama did it well.

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“Party, Bender! Party for your life!”

Returning from a long hiatus is quite the double edged sword. Fans will praise a show’s comeback and yet are often quick to doubt that it can return to any semblance of its former glory. Family Guy (as tired as it is now) was able to rise the successful phoenix from the ashes of cancellation. The Boondocks has been able to do the same for the most part after its 2 year disappearance.

Futurama was canceled in 2003, but thanks to the resuscitation machine that is Adult Swim and a number of direct to DVD movies it hardly feels like it went anywhere. Now with its return on Comedy Central with a brand new slew of episodes, can Futurama continue the trend and reclaim (and maintain) its position as one of the greatest animated shows in TV history? My answer is…

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