Futurama Volume Six

Futurama Volume Six

                I often wonder why The Simpsons has gone on for so many seasons on Fox, yet a show like Futurama, which has all the same elements, was cancelled after a mere four seasons.    I also wonder if it wasn’t the plan once upon a time for The Simpsons to quietly bow out of their timeslot and let Futurama take over, as The Simpsons sort of ran out of ideas and Futurama seemed to be, well, the future.

                Regardless, this is our second set of episodes from Comedy Central whilst Fox is putting out I don’t even know what animated shows.    In one episode, Bender has to go into witness protection and when he is found (or so they think it is him) he says his name is Billy West, which Fry appropriately scoffs at. 

                My other favorite episode is the last one, “Reincarnation”, in which the stories of various Futurama plots are told in three separate tales, each in a different style.   The first is old black and white, from the Steamboat Willie era of Mickey Mouse, which is okay but not my favorite.   The second is my favorite as it is told in eight bit and even pays tribute to certain Atari games I love such as Dig Dug and Adventure.    The third tale is done in a traditional American anime form, which is funny at best.

                In the future (Ahhh, the future of Futurama, the universe is exploding on itself!!) I wouldn’t mind seeing a Robot Chicken tribute to Futurama somehow, using all the finely crafted Futurama toys out there.   That’s just my suggestion.

                Volume Six is great though.   After seeing Volume Five and now this, I just wonder why they ever got canceled in the first place.  Such a quality show.

Dead Like Me: The Complete Series (including that movie thing)

Dead Like Me: The Complete Series (including that movie thing)

                The first season of this show is great.   It sort of jumps the shark when Rebecca Gayhart gets written off after the first few episodes and replaced with a blonde.   Plus, creator Bryan Fuller left so it went in possibly a different direction.  Who knows.   Regardless, for the first two seasons this is a really funny show about death and that’s a rare thing in the world of television.

                The movie however- which was done later on to possibly wrap up the series- really made me mad.   There was always this constant struggle where George couldn’t talk to people from her past, and now all of a sudden the rules no longer apply.   What happened to her opening her mouth and her mother hearing only gibberish?   I guess it’s okay to talk to her sister now if it means that the movie will be better than the actual show.  Oh, and I cannot forget the actress who played Daisy and how she wasn’t the same as the show.   Why bring back a character and not the same actor?   I don’t care if the actress was doing a different movie—write her out of the script and replace her with Daisy’s sister Maisy, an idea which wouldn’t have probably come out as bad as what happened here.

                In short, these episodes from the first two seasons are well worth watching, but do yourself a favor and skip the movie.   It will save you the time that I somehow wasted.

MODERN FAMILY Season One

Modern Family: Season One

                The focus of Modern Family are three intertwined families, which I take more as a sign of how different families can be in this day and age more so than (hopefully) the fact that we as a society can no longer have a sitcom based on a single family because it would not hold our attention in this ADHDTV world.

                One family is the supposed normal family with a mother, father, two daughters and a son.   Another family is a gay couple with an adopted daughter.    The last family is the father of someone from the other two families, his new wife (who is the lesser Selma Hayek) and then his stepson.    This character- Manny- is probably the most redeeming part of this show.   He is this ten year old kid who is probably smarter than everyone else combined and he knows it.   He is closer to the age range of the first family I described kids, but he is their uncle and the brother of their mother (who was Happy Gilmore’s love interest in the movie of the same name)

                I like this show- I find it amusing- and I feel that with the multi-character cast that they have going, it could go on for a long time.    Then again, the same could be said for Arrested Development and we all know how that turned out.

Sports Night The Complete Series Boxed Set

                The first season of Sports Night is brilliant, there is no denying that.   It’s funny, somewhat suspenseful in terms of events happening and, well, it just all around makes for good television.   While people might complain about the stroke of Isaac as being a cheap ploy for ratings, it did fit in with reality so I think it just so happened to work perfectly fine.   My only real complaint with the first season was the laugh track, but they did eventually get rid of it and, well, it’s hard to be an older show and not have a laugh track.

                My problem with this show comes in the second (and final) season, which oddly did not include show killer Ted McGinley (who was in the first season only as Gordon).    It seemed like the show lacked direction with the characters, such as they didn’t know what to do with Jeremy and Natalie so they split them up to date other people and create new storylines.   Talk about jumping the shark.    They also brought in new characters galore, while having the running theme toward the end of the season being whether or not they’d be bought out and dropped by CSC.  

                In some ways I’m glad Sports Night ended after two seasons because the way the second season was headed, a third season could have been disastrous.   Really, you should stop watching this show after the first season if you want to maintain any sort of respect for it.  Sure, the second season has its funny moments, but it also has an episode where Dana goes to dinner and comes back without wearing any underwear.   (Trust me, it’s more disturbing/”Why am I watching this?” than it is sexy) 

                From here, Aaron Sorkin went on to “The West Wing” and then eventually “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (which I loved, but I’ve never seen “The West Wing”), while Peter Krause went on to “Six Feet Under” and Josh Charles… Well, who knows what happened to Josh Charles.   Sometimes I wish they’d make a sequel to “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” with Josh Charles and Christina Applegate as the parents leaving their kids with a babysitter.   A cameo visit from Uncle Kenny would get me to watch for sure.   Hey, maybe the parents could be going to Uncle Zach’s funeral.  (Too cold/ too cold)

                I watched Sports Night when it was on originally and again later when it was on Comedy Central in reruns, but this is my first time seeing it since it was released on DVD.   It’s not quite as great as I remember it being, but nowadays nothing seems to be.