FOX Sunday Night

[James Harvey]

Here ar emy thoughts on tonight's FOX line-up:

Futurama - pre-empted by Football. I gotta wait until 11pm to watch it on a FOX WEST channel. Thanks football.

King of the Hill - Hilarious. One of the best episodes I've seen, and it was nice to see the spotlight on Dale. The whole "Mr. Big" plan that Hank played on Dale was just perfect. I thought it was hilarious that Dale couldn't tell it was Hank when Hank slightly deepened his voice. Plus the scene where Bill says "He's horny" was the best gag in the episode. Another winner.

Simpsons - Well...it was weird, but predictable. Once Waylon mentions that his fathjer died and Homer had a repressed memory, it was easy to put two and two togethor. Yes - his constant screaming does get annoying rathar quickly. There is one or two funny moments, but overall just another mediocre episode. But - better than the abomination that was the last season.

Any those are my thoughts on tonight's FOX animation.

[The Mad Hatter]

Futurama: Um, it sucked. It wasn't worth seeing at all. Nope. ......Augh! I'm sorry guys, I have to admit that it was a pretty fun episode. Lots of great Zoidberg moments, some great CGI fight sequences (they really spent a lot of time on this ep), and a rather disturbing revalation about Fry...

KotH: Oh yeah, this was a good 'un. Lots of prime Dale freak-outs, plus some great lines from the rest of the cast, too. "And horny." Basic, but hilarious.

Simpsons: Er. This one ought to drive the continuity fetishists nuts. It wasn't really that funny, but at least it tried to be touching. Overall, it was better than some of the crap from the last two seasons, though.

Hey! New Avatars!

[Calhoun07]

Somebody please tell me how Bender got back to present time...I nodded off at the end of the show.

KOTH, Damn, I missed the first 15 minutes cuz I fell asleep then I didn't know what was going on. I wound up getting up to make something to eat to keep me awake.

The Simpsons...well, I watched it for the first time in a long time. And it wasn't too bad. Certainly not as unbearable as last season's episodes. Was this one of the ones made with the team that came over from Futurama?

[DR. BELCH]

SPOILER SPACE
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After he fell out of the ship, the crew couldn't risk going back for Bender's head. But Fry, in a rather uncharacteristic moment of genius, realized that likely he was still there in Roswell in their time. So they went back and dug his head up. They asked him how he was after being buried for a millennium; he said he was fine until they came along and disturbed him. Sure, he's a robot and they live darn near forever compared to humans, but how did he live without beer for a thousand years?
This one explains a lot about Fry's...well...unique way of thinking. Inbreeding, you know....

[Calhoun07]

Hmmm...that's just like Time's Arrow from Star Trek the Next Generation, where we learn all this time Data's head was actually a relic from the late 1800's.

And the inbreeding...I figured they were just gonna make his grandmother already pregnant and it would have been a totally different family scandal. I expected her to be hearing from her doctor during that phone call. Leave to the the Futurama writers to go all Springer on us!

[Craig Marinaro]

Futurama wasn't bad, wasn't bad...certainly gets points for daring, anyhow. I actually saw the bizarre "Back to the Future meets Oedipus Rex, one generation removed" twist coming up some time before it actually occured, but I didn't figure they'd actually do it. While their intentions are admirable for trying to push the envelope (and it casts a very interesting new light on Fry's character), I think the setup might have been handled a bit better--for one thing, the "grandmother" should've been given a bit of depth, which would've made it much more interesting. The scenes of her the morning after knitting and such were both unrealistic and not particularly effective.

The period stuff was nice. Just the image of the sleek WWII-style aircraft shooting after the clunky Planet Express Ship provided some gorgeous scenes. Some good comic relief from Leela & Farnsworth ("That's good news!") and Zoidberg ("Are you coming on to me?"). Loved the subtle bit where Enus flips the calendar over to the muscle-man shot, and Phillip Fry firmly switches back to the glam-girl--after all, the presumed Granddad's gotta be straight for Phil to ever come around.

Also liked the jab at FOX's Did We Land on the Moon? and Alien Autopsy specials. Good stuff. I missed the very opening (came in as Fry was using the microwave), so I'm not entirely sure what the crew was trying to do before the accident. And the very ending with Bender seemed rather anticlimactic. But, a minor gripe.

There weren't as many genuine belly laughs and / or quotables as the usual Futurama episode, but it ranks up there plotwise. I wouldn't call it an instant classic as I would many episodes of this series, but it's solid entertainment.

-C
Here's hoping we get more than thirteen episodes this year.....

[Calhoun07]

They were trying to view a supernova, which reacted with the microwave and sent them back in time.

[James Harvey]

Tonights Simpsons does really screw with the continuity a bit. According to the new episode, Homer already knew Moe and all of them as a kid. Is there any previous reference to this? I'm pretty sure on Homer and Barney were friends in high school, and he met Carl and Lenny at the plant. At least we got to see him at work (sorta) again. And this episode is still by the old Mike Scully crew. I don't think we'll see the FUTURAMA team on the show until mid-season.

FUTURAMA...awesome as usual.

[Trent Lane]

Missed Futurama and KOTH (thank you, work!!!), but I've got them on tape so I'll view them later. Simpsons was actually pretty good. The train track thing kinda reminded me of "Stand By Me", pretty fuuny singing Mr. Sandman. Marge's obseesion of Burly, or Chad Sexington, was pretty good also. And the Smithers thing was good, as most jokes on Smithers are....

And I know it's not animation, but Malcolm in the Middle was great! The whole scene where Hal comes in to kiss the boys goodnight was priceless!...

[DR. BELCH]

The title is a reference to The Wonder Years, the eighties-era sitcom set in the sixties starring Fred Savage.
The plot, however, is (as fhero notes) partially borrowed from Stand By Me, Rob Reiner's first directoral effort, which was a adapted from an early Stephen King novellete. That had me laughing, actually--the boys walking along the railroad tracks, the bullies (played by a young Fat Tony and two young goons) in the woods, and the dead body. Though I'm sorry they didn't show Homer covered by leeches when he dived into the mudhole.
Continuity problem--the nuclear power plant didn't go online until Homer was in college, some six or seven years later (if he's 12 here). Also, was this before or after Moe played the lost Little Rascal?
Two Johnny Carson refs for the price of one--Moe imtates Johnny briefly while choking on the memory tea, and the hypnotist does the famous "Carnac" bit. Nice also to see how they weave the secondary story into the main one with the Burly towels (a takeoff on Brawny and its lumberjack logo).
Watch for the bit with Prof. Frink being hypnotized--a definite nod to Jerry Lewis!
Sort of odd--I want to say Oedipal, but it's not quite that--that Smithers secretly lusts after Burns if he actually raised young Waylon. "That made him gay, right?" my brother asked after the revelation about the Amazons and how it affected Smithers was brought to light.

Note on Futurama that the shack Fry takes Ennis to looks like Abe Simpson's in "Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy". Yes, I thought Ennis' girl would already be pregnant...and the grandma jokes at the end were a wee bit on the hamhanded side. "Hmm...smells like blue." "One deviled egg." [Zoidberg gobbling it after it hits the floor] "The same deviled egg." "The President of the United States choking on my gas bladder...what an honor." Plus Leela graphically illustrates her frustration with outdated female domestic stereotypes in the appliance dealership.

King of the Hill illustrated that Dale may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but if there's one thing he knows, it's how to bugger with the mind of a bigger paranoid idiot than he. Note Hank's deep voice sounds a little like Butt-Head--Judge gets back to his MTV roots here. And thankfully no psycho Peggy. "There's only one man I take a bullet for...and he's home cooking my dinner."

[Karkull]

So what happened exactly? Fry had sex with his grandmother? If he did, that is a classic illustration of the "Grandfather paradox" that shows up again and again in time travel stories. Wow!

To bad I won't see it for a few months.

[Lonestarr]

Futurama - I missed part of it, but I caught on to what happened pretty quick. The scenes when Zoidberg were being operated on were hilarious. The scene with Fry and his grandmother was surreal on so many levels (no matter how attractive she is, that is just plain wrong, and the 'granny' stuff came out of nowhere). I was worried about Bender at the end, but that was a great wrap-up.

King of the Hill - That Dale truly needs psychiatric help. Still, that was a good and funny episode. I happened to recognize Gary Busey's voice as Mad Dog.

Simpsons - First off, the ad for this ep (a good one) is not only one of the worst for a "Simpsons" ep, but it gets my vote for one of the worst ads in the history of the Fox network (it's neck-and-neck with a promo for the "Futurama" ep that featured Pamela Anderson). Though he was wasted, Paul Newman had perhaps the best line, which I won't spoil for you.

[Calhoun07]

My interpretation of the scene where Fry discovers that was really his grandmother he woke up next to is when he saw her doing those granny type things, he was using his imagination to see her in a different light. I might be wrong, I don't know what the Futurama writers intended, but I think when he looked back at her, he couldn't see the sexy girl he fell in lust with anymore, but saw instead all the things about her that reminded him of his grandmother, and the animation devices used to illlustrate this were exaggerations used to get the point across.

[The Mad Hatter]

I love how Futurama is playing around with sci-fi conventions... time travel in this case. Everyone goes to ludicrous lengths to try to avoid altering the future (such as Fry inadvertantly causing more harm to Ennis when trying to save him). Me, I got a huge laugh when, after Fry messes up big time and becomes his own grandfather, everyone just says "screw it" and starts blasting the base to bits.

[Calhoun07]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
I love how Futurama is playing around with sci-fi conventions... time travel in this case. Everyone goes to ludicrous lengths to try to avoid altering the future (such as Fry inadvertantly causing more harm to Ennis when trying to save him). Me, I got a huge laugh when, after Fry messes up big time and becomes his own grandfather, everyone just says "screw it" and starts blasting the base to bits.

You know, I was really expecting more repercussions because of their free for all shoot out on the base. I thought that would propell American in weapons research dramatically, and maybe as a result lead to a future war or something dramatically changing the future world of Futurama. But they seemed to return to everything as it was before! Even a small thing being changed would have been cool.

[James Harvey]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
I love how Futurama is playing around with sci-fi conventions... time travel in this case. Everyone goes to ludicrous lengths to try to avoid altering the future (such as Fry inadvertantly causing more harm to Ennis when trying to save him). Me, I got a huge laugh when, after Fry messes up big time and becomes his own grandfather, everyone just says "screw it" and starts blasting the base to bits.

That was a nice touch A nice play on that late, great Simpsons Halloween ep. Well, it looks like they were supposed to go all out and destroy everything. And I was surprised at this story, too. I would have never thought they were responsible for the ROSWELL controversy...

[Karkull]

I hate FOX! Damn it, that episode sounds so cool!

[Craig Marinaro]

You know, I was really expecting more repercussions because of their free for all shoot out on the base.

Nah, because they were running on the theory that history is prewritten before it happens--any effects time travel has had are already factored in. I.e., Fry in 1999 would have heard of the Roswell controversy, without realizing that he would go on (er, go back) to help cause it. It's all relative. And yeah, Farnsworth's "screw it" line got a huge laugh out of me too.

As far as the "morning after" scene, where the gal suddenly starts acting Granny-ish--I could buy it as a figment of Fry's poor taxed brain, except that Farnsworth brings it to Fry's attention by saying something along the lines of, "Look!" indicating that the others could see it, too.

Unsolicited fanboy aside: David X. Cohen was quoted as saying he hates time-travel plots, and had hoped to avoid them. But this one was so juicy, he had to do it (coming up with the supernova gimmick to make it "really hard," so it wouldn't become a regular part of the show).

-C