Review of Futurama

Futurama (1999– )
10/10
Thanks, Mr. Groening!
19 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This marvelous animation, from the creator of my all time favourite motion picture, The Simpsons, uses a subtle integration of cgi graphics with a more flashy version of Groenings style of animation to produce half hours of non stop gags (quite intelligent in some cases) and fun adventure. The pop culture references so great in The Simpsons only go farther and wider here in this story of Fry, a pizza delivery boy sent through suspended animation to the year 3000 from the year 1999.

Phillip J. Fry, better known simply as 'Fry', was a pizza delivery boy in the late nineties. The first episode deals with his being frozen in a cryogenic capsule for a thousand years, in the background through the window we see the changing of New York, which has become New New York, and remains the central setting for the series after this episode. Fry soon meets Turanga Leela, a one eyed girl who believes she is an alien, who was raised at an orphanage. (we later find out she is in fact a mutant and her parents live underground) Fry runs from Leela after being assigned work as a delivery boy (for he wished for a fresh start) and meets Bender the robot, who is programmed to bend, and has a selfish and indulgent persona, enjoying cigars and alcohol (incidentally the fuel of all robots). Leela then turns to Fry's side and the three find Fry's only living relative, Professor Farnsworth, who employs them in his delivery company, Planet Express. Other members of the crew are Zoidberg, a alien lobster like creature, and Amy Wong, a wealthy martian, as well as Scruffy the janitor (often ignored despite caring for the company deeply) and a Jamaican businessman who is good at financial operations. The series generally follows adventures on different planets, or Earth, involving a variety of recurring characters like Zapp Brannigan, who admires Leela, and many 'heads', famous personalities in the form of heads inside glass containers filled with fluid, such as Richard Nixon. The series' style shares much with The Simpsons, but is cleaner animated and uses cgi for spacecraft and other objects to some degree. Also of note is the colour of skin, pink rather than Simpsons yellow.

The characters are great, and the humour and dialogue are very worthy of the corner box's schedule. If you only allowed programs of this quality on the TV guide would be almost empty. This series is very amusing and enjoyable, and is almost as good as The Simpsons for entertainment. The characters have interesting personalities and the plots are, considering it's setting, quite extraordinary. Quite an enjoyable show.

So, all in all, thanks Matt Groening for another brilliant series, and may there be more episodes!
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