Ragnarfan's Blog

6.24 Cold Warriors

Normally, I wouldn’t comment on the opening message presented in the Futurama title sequence (which changes every week, in case you hadn’t noticed after a decade), but it happens to be one of the funnier gags – perhaps even the funniest – in the episode.

Now, that’s not to say the gag is particularly funny (it is funny, but not that funny), it’s just that Cold Warriors is rather bereft of laughs in comparison to its brothers and sisters this season. The opening, “We’re following you, but not on Twitter” is never really matched in this Fry-centric, flashback-heavy tale.

It’s odd that we would be confronted with another “past” episode so soon after last week’s excellent Tip Of The Zoidberg. It’s slightly frustrating, too, as the previous instalment fulfills the need for both story and laughs, whereas Cold Warriors does neither. Comparisons have to made, though I am loathe to do so (preferring to rate an episode on its own merits), with the other Fry episodes (and both utterly perfect), Luck Of The Fryish and the award-winning Jurassic Bark.

Phillip J has managed to bring back the common cold back to New New York, leading to Planet Express being quarantined and then the whole city (in a scene reminiscent of Springfield being domed in The Simpsons Movie), and his past seems to be the only way to uncover a cure.

The flashbacks concentrate on Fry and his father Yancy, where we find the younger versions of the future delivery boy being treated somewhat harshly, and we also discover that he has a scientist nemesis at school (like Farnsworth and Wernstrom). Fry has entered Nerd Search 1988 with his experiment: his hamster, whom he has infected with the common cold to see if the sun’s rays can eliminate the disease.

It’s a tightly packed tale, following the footsteps very closely of the previous flashback stories, and it is wonderful to see Fry’s family life again. The added Back To The Future gag, with a certain Barack Obama working in his pizza parlour is a a treat, but the episode doesn’t work when compared to the episodes it so obviously apes.

Cold Warriors might not be a very good Futurama episode (it’s not), but it’s a testament to the show that even its lesser offerings are still worth watching, and capable of raising a laugh or two along the way. That’s more than you can say about most of the output on television these days.

Rating : 6/10

source:denofgeek.com
by:Cameron K McEwan

6.21 Mobius Dick

Are the writers of Futurama running out of ideas? I mean a second appearance in as many weeks for Tom Baker’s Doctor Who? C’mon guys, how about some Davison or Tennant action? Also, last week’s episode saw a flying London bus, a la Planet of the Dead (one of the Doctor Who 2009 specials), and now a space whale! (Not unlike last year’s Who, story The Beast Below.)

I merely jest, of course, but it’s interesting to note the similarities between the two shows, as we are presented with another sort of time travel tale. I say ‘sort of’, as we get some delightful flashbacks to the Professor’s first crew (some fifty years ago) featuring Candy (a beautiful blonde), a robot called Lifter and the personality-less Captain Lando Tucker (who concludes every sentence with, “… or die trying!”).

Completing the original Planet Express line-up is everyone’s favourite lobster, Zoidberg. Though, in this time, the gang refer to him as “Johnny”, and he sports a rather amusing Fonze-esque hair-do. Not only that, Johnny is well loved by all the crew (the cause of much quizicality from the modern crew, who find it hard to swallow that the crustacean had friends).

Farnsworth believes the ship and former crew to have vanished in the Bermuda Tetrohedon and, within seconds of mentioning it, sends Leela and Co. on a journey bypassing that very area of space to pick up a monument for his lost crew. Of course, you can see what’s coming…

Leela ends up forging through that very space and finds a graveyard for ships. The more geekily eagled-eyed will have a wild time spotting various space craft from 2001: A Space Odyssey, an Electric Light Orchestra album cover and there’s even Oceanic Flight 815 (from television’s Lost).

References ahoy! Obviously, the main reference is Moby Dick and the enemy here comes in the form of a giant killer space whale who can travel interdimensionally, and guzzles whatever he (or she) can in its way. And it’s in the belly of the beast where some familiar faces appear.

It’s another cracking Futurama story and, perhaps more importantly, the gags are plentiful too: from Zoidberg’s changing hairstyle to the visual nod to Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s closing moments.

A stout re-telling of an old story, with “futuristic” touches.

Rating : 8/10

source:denofgeek
by:Cameron K McEwan

6.20 All the Presidents’ Heads

Criminy, blimey, knickers and bollocks? Isn’t anyone thinking of the children anymore? These are just some of the foul words you’ll hear but, hold on. It’s just another time travel-based episode from Futurama!

During a raucous party at Fry’s other place of work (the Head Museum, featuring a supreme collection of Head In A Jars), Professor Farnsworth discovers a new form of time travel after Zoidberg drinks some jar ruice of a former president.

This first trip takes the Lobster Man back to meet Andy Warhol, whilst Fry takes it on himself to lick another president’s head (not drink the jar juice, I note) and finds himself in the prohibition era. These journeys are due to the powdered opal within the liquid, but their effects don’t last long.

The Professor hatches a plan to mend the wrongdoings of his ancestor, David Farnsworth. This means loading up on the opal and licking the head of the “father of our country”, George Washington, and travelling back to a time when the Brits were in control (cue the use of the phrase “British bastards!”) and the letter “s” was printed as an “f” (cue numerous “fhit” gags).

There’s much fun to be had witnessing Farnsworth, Leela, Fry and Bender back in time, though the laughs may not be as hearty, as the story takes centre stage in a very pleasing way.

Knowingly, the gang are well aware of the paradoxical difficulties involved in time-based shenanigans, leading the Professor to tell Fry he’s really “screwed the granny” when his relative makes another time boo-boo (a reference to the wonderful 2001 episode, Roswell That Ends Well). This leads to America, as we currently know and ‘love’ her, to become more anglicised.

The final third of the episode does feature some terrific British gags, complete with accents (Fry, however, isn’t quite up to this task), typically British words (“scuffed kippers”) and references. Along with a neat Monty Python-esque animation, we’re presented with numerous delicious Doctor Who nods, including the more obvious use of the TARDIS (with Fourth Doctor), but the more keen-eyed will have noticed an Amelia Pond Head In A Jar (there’s even Torchwood’s Owen Harper).

As a side note, and a terrifically pedantic one at that, the door noises in the new British America are still the Star Trek door swooshes. Surely a TARDIS groan and wheeze would have been more appropriate?

Time travel has been a rich source for Futurama, and again, doesn’t fail to entertain. And there’s some actual history in there for those not familiar with the likes of Paul Revere. One hopes this is not the end of their travels in the fourth dimension.

Rating : 8/10

source:denofgeek.com
by:Cameron K McEwan