Why I Love Futurama - a Review of Season 4 DVD

If Matt Groening created an animated series about the value of family ties with The Simpsons, then I submit that its sister show, Futurama, is a perfect bookend that explores the equally important ties of friendship. Strip away the sci-fi theme and it's readily apparent: There's Philip J. Fry, a dim, displaced schlub from the 21st Century who is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the 30th Century to find his family and the world he knew completely vanish. Among other weird and wacky personages, he befriends a one-eyed mutant with purple hair (Leela), a churlish, egotistical robot with a fondness for pick pocketing (Bender), and a lobster with decidedly Jewish mannerisms (a hilarious Billy West as Dr. Zoidberg). Rounding out the core cast is Hermes, a Rastafarian accountant and self professed bureaucrat, the wrinkly Professor Farnsworth, and Amy Wong, a vain and shallow trust fund baby whose parents own half of Mars - literally.

The erstwhile Fox series now in syndication on Comedy Central, is every bit a worthy successor to Groening's much lauded (and deservedly so) Simpsons. From its eye popping visuals to the clever writing, there was nothing Futurama didn't plumb for a laugh. In the episode titled "Bender Should Not be Allowed on TV", the infamous "No Wire Hangers" scene from Mommie Dearest is cleverly parodied when a doting stage mother robot discovers her robot son is concealing computer wires inside his frame. "What's this", she questions as she whips her son with his own cords, "how many times have I told you? NO... HANGING... WIRES!". This is one of numerous pop culture drive-bys Futurama can exact in just one episode. This also illustrates how the futuristic backdrop perfectly sets the random sight gags and pop cult references in bold relief, making them even funnier and more glaring - it's not only an inspired concept, but a winning formula.


The DVD set of Volume 4 marks the last season of Futurama, and it's chock full of classic episodes. The continuity begins to gel while the zany adventures keep on coming. "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" reunites the characters from the original Star Trek series, including a side-splitting cameo from Jonathan Frakes. "The Farnsworth Parabox" is rife with parallel universe chicanery, while "Love and Rocket" finds Bender wooing a codependent and insecure Planet Express ship (voiced by Sigourney Weaver). It's a Valentine's Day send-up of Kubrick proportions and it wouldn't be half as funny if the human foibles weren't so accurately portrayed in such unlikely characters as a cigar chomping robot and an oversized space vessel.


To own Volume 4 (and its past volumes) just for its screwball humor would be incentive enough, but Futurama won me over for other reasons too. Episodes like "The Sting" and "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings" reveal the glimmers of heart just beneath its cynical sci fi exterior. "The Sting" is as funny and complex as cartoon plots go, but it doesn't amount to a hill of beans if it didn't succeed in deepening the bond that Leela and Fry share. And in "Jurassic Bark", Fry discovers the fossilized remains of his old pet, Seymour. At the episode's closing, the final moments pack an emotional double whammy: a heartbreaking fast forward montage that uncovers the pooch's sad fate, while revealing without a hint of irony or sarcasm the steadfast loyalty and devotion of a beloved pet.

As for the DVD set proper, Volume 4 offers full length audio commentary for all the episodes. There are also deleted scenes, as well as some storyboards, still galleries and an international clip of one of the episodes. While I'll never begrudge such a plethora of special features, these extras are just window dressing for a great animated series that needs none.


I only mentioned a few of the 18 episodes that the DVD package offers, but each installment in Volume 4 suggests a series hitting its creative stride. Whether you want to appreciate the whacked out world Groening and cohort David X. Cohen create (it's got public suicide booths and mutants living in the sewers, for starters), or you just want to laugh at the goofball antics of the Planet Express crew, every episode will satisfy the Sci Fi geek in you. It's a shame that Fox had to cancel it prematurely, but as swan songs go, this final volume shatters the glass.