Thoughts on 6ACV20 - Neutopia - SPOILERS

[Reply #200 on:]

Eh, I would put these jokes above the puking goat...

Fair point...

Of course as i said that was just my personal review, certain jokes and certain scripts will allways amuse some people and will not amuse others...  Futurama goal is to entertain everyone, not just me.. so if i dont find fun in some jokes but other people do for me its job done , good news overall..

Oh yes, I agree with you there. I didn't find Neutopia to be all that good either, ranking pretty far down on my list, just pointing out that there have been other far worse jokes.

[Reply #201 on:]

Haha I like Danny's style and I understood what he meant when he said what he said. Your humor isn't lost on me.

Yes! Thank you. I like you Whatawut. You deserved the only SoA I have ever given out.

: ) And I wear that badge of honor proudly!

[Reply #202 on:]

Of course as i said that was just my personal review, certain jokes and certain scripts will allways amuse some people and will not amuse others...  Futurama goal is to entertain everyone, not just me.. so if i dont find fun in some jokes but other people do for me its job done , good news overall..

Excellent point. As long as you don't expect others to start agreeing with you, as some other posters do.

[Reply #203 on:]

Aki, just drop it.  It is clear that Danny is either trolling or just being as stupid as he probably is.  He somehow believes that 'français' is spelt with a capital F in French and calls it 'perfection'.

I'm so sorry you had to read that, Danny.

That post was totally uncalled for.

Anyway, back to "Neutopia". I thought it was funny how Leela mentioned the fans are perverts.

[Reply #204 on:]

I'm so sorry you had to read that, Danny.

You don't have to apologise Unmentionable, but thank you anyway.

[Reply #205 on:]

No erect nipple on the Farrah Farnsworth pic in the closing credits? Shame.

[Reply #206 on:]

Other than the drawings he did of Marge for the popular men's magazine, I don't recall seeing that particular detail in any of Mr. Groening's works.

I enjoyed Neutopia but there was so much material in it that the whole thing looked time compressed.  It really needed an hour.  Also, the not-so-witty retorts could have been more subtle.  Still, a good episode.

[Reply #207 on:]

I don't expect to start seeing leela and amy's nipples poking through their clothes or anything, but the gag pic of Mrs. Farnsworth was a parody of the infamous farrah fawcett poster. The nipple was the whole point of that poster, so I'm slightly disappointed. I find it hard to imagine Comedy Central's censors would've objected, so I assume it was a deliberate call.

[Reply #208 on:]

I don't expect to start seeing leela and amy's nipples poking through their clothes or anything, but the gag pic of Mrs. Farnsworth was a parody of the infamous farrah fawcett poster. The nipple was the whole point of that poster, so I'm slightly disappointed.

I thought so many people bought that poster because they liked her personality.

[Reply #209 on:]

Weird Al bought it because it was on eBay. Along with some Pez dispensers and a toaster.

[Reply #210 on:]

liked it, but wish that the sex changes happened more earlier in the show and episode was about them adjusting to the changes.  Great to see an episode about Hermes and Labarbara relationships since it hasn't been done.  Bender as Coilette again.

[Reply #211 on:]

I think it's the weakest so far of season 6.5. Sure, it was amusing, but the pacing was way off. It felt like they were constantly jumping around, with ridiculous things happening way too quickly with lazy explanation.
Right at the end: "Oh, hai guies! I'm here from spaec the swap ur gendres back!!!1"
Other than Scruffy's hilarious appearance at the end, the ending was pretty bad.

[Reply #212 on:]

For some reason, I enjoy the epic Inception / action noise when the Borax Kid's meteor comes out of the sky.

[Reply #213 on:]

Well Neutopia is my favorite episode of the new broadcast season.   It has pacing issues, but for me at least, it is the only one so far that doesn't suffer from what I refer to as the Dreaded 17 Minutes (which is when I watch the episode, wait for it to get funny or for the plot to develop, and when it finally starts getting interesting, I see the show has been running for 17/18 minutes and so will be over in 2.)

Things I liked:
Since a lot of animated sitcoms neglect their female characters (or worse, phase out or kill off their few entertaining females, like South Park does), it was nice to see funny female characters that need more screentime brought out, like LeBarbera, Hattie, Petunia and Dr Cahill.

The animation was gorgeous this episode.  As an illustration student who often uses crystal formations and minerals in his artwork, the mineral planet was a visual treat for me.

I loved the airplane idea and the gender swapping plotlines.

Fry in his underwear.  (Hey, considering the horrific artwork I've seen on google of Amy and Leela, no one gets to judge me!)

Petunia.  Petunia is one of my favorite characters, and this episode was her at her finest.  I think her using the oxygen mask to pour booze in was hilarious, probably my favorite moment of the episode.  Petunia alone probably brought the episode up to an eight, when I would have given it a 7.5 or a 7 if it wasn't for her antics.


Now for what I disliked.  I am thinking maybe maybe an 8 was too generous, and maybe a 7 was more accurate (6.5 if you took out Petunia).

I liked seeing previous characters, but a lot of them didn't get enough screentime.  What's the point in bringing back characters like the Professor's fat girlfriend, if she doesn't get a speaking?  There were too many silent or near silent cameos in this episode.  Also, I hope Amana doesn't go the way of Washbucket (gets a small role, and is never heard from again except for a cameo here and there.  I hope she becomes a female Scruffy in that she appears and speaks from time to time.)

The pacing in this episode was quite bad, not as bad as the Dreaded 17, but still quite bad.  Each of the 3 segments could have easily been their own episode, and all the better for it.   While they flowed together quite well as a chain of events, it would have been better as a made for TV movie and each act was expanded into a full 20 minutes, or became their own episode.

The sudden misogyny.  I can see Professor or Hermes being sexist jerks, Bender being sexist?  Don't ask stupid questions.  Zoidberg is a kiss ass, so his makes sense too.  But Fry?  Fry is probably the sweetest character on the show, so I hate episodes that suddenly turn him into a male chauvinist jerk so the girls have an excuse to be angry at him. (Like how he goes from trying to save Amy and Leela on Amazonia, to cackling and sneering at the Amazonian culture in the same episode.)  

A lot of the male female jokes worked, but there were quite a lot of pointless ones too.  The guys saying no to directions felt funny, but the girls suddenly seeing a mirage of a clearance sale didn't.  (Though I thought while that joke was stupid, it set up Lebarbera's "Now we gon die without so much as a factory sale clutch purse to show for it!" which I thought redeemed it.)

Also the characters refusing to work together.   I mean most of the characters are best friends and two are supposedly a couple two are married, (again supposedly), two of them are the most kindhearted characters on the show (Amy and Fry) so I can't imagine them letting eachother die horribly to satisfy some stupid bet.  Really the only nice character here seems to be Dr Cahill who helps Hattie walk down the hill.  Nice to see not everyone is holding the Complete Jerkass Ball.

So yeah, a solid, not steller episode, which is all the more frustrating because it had the ingredients to be one of the best episodes ever.   Or maybe even 2 or 3, if each plotline was seperated and allowed to grow into three episodes, rather then clumping them together and diluting them as a result.

[Reply #214 on:]

I give it a 9, especially because of the photoshoot and frys "lucky shoe" lmao not amazing but solid a lot of ppl didnt get all the jokes though

[Reply #215 on:]

Seeing this one as its intended order of no. 7 didn't make me dislike it as much...with that opening however it feels out of place stuck in the middle of a batch of 6B episodes...I up my original rating of (*checks*) 1/10 ( boy was I pissed) to 7/10. It was still fraught with cliche, though. The only one this season that deserves a 1 is YLL. No I am wrong, it deserves a -1...million.

[Reply #216 on:]

Herp. This one was worse than I remember, and I was critical from the day it aired.

What I liked:
-Zoidberg loading the uzi. I never noticed that on my first viewing.
-Hattie kicking Bender. I think she's quickly becoming one of my favourite characters.  
-Bender tugging the plane/ship with his teeth. It looks so funny.  
-It's pretty amusing seeing everyone with their genders backwards.
-The Professor had some pretty great lines.
-Seeing Zapp flirt with Fry was splendid.  

What I didn't like:
-The way all the men were suddenly so sexist. It wouldn't be surprising to see Bender or the Professor like that, but it seems so unnatural for Fry and Zoidberg.
-The gender cliches were so bloody stupid. Wow, women like clearance sales, and men like fart jokes? That's soooo funny...  
-Why the hell is everyone so willing to let everyone of the opposite sex burn to death? Honestly, this infuriates me. I guess Leela isn't that important to Fry after all...
-LaBarbara's Xbox joke. I didn't mind it originally, but since Overclockwise aired, it seems slightly stupid there being both an "Xbox" and an "Xcube".
-They tried to fit way too much content in the episode. The swapped gender concept had so much potential, yet that plot was over before it even began. Too much time was spent leading up to everything, and there was too many lame gender-jokes in between.
-Like I've said before, the rock alien is such lazy writing. Rather than make cool stuff happen by using some sort of scientific justification (like what the writers usually do), they just give the rock alien superpowers that can teleport people and change their sex. Seriously? This has to be the laziest thing the show has ever done. The ending was so terrible I think it gave me cancer.

This episode is bad. Real bad. I don't understand how anyone can like an episode with such broken pacing and lazy writing. 3/10.

[Reply #217 on:]

Rating Neutopia lower than Yo Leela Leela?!

You and I are enemies now.

[Reply #218 on:]

I'm all for opinions, but I have to agree with DannyJC13 here, it wasn't perfect, but no way was it worse than Yo Leela Leela! Gender clichés aren't the most original idea for jokes, but at least it fits the show more than a childrens TV show. At least Neutopia actually had some funny moments and felt more like Futurama...

Good point about the "Xbox" and "Xcube" thing though. I say that the mistake lies with Overclockwise. The earlier episodes establish what is correct, and the later episodes should stick to it without contradiction...

[Reply #219 on:]

Rating Neutopia lower than Yo Leela Leela?!

You and I are enemies now.

I wasn't going to say it, but you read my mind Danny. Way to go man!

[Reply #220 on:]

I almost feel ashamed rating Yo Leela Leela higher than this... but at least that episode wasn't a total mess when it comes to structure and writing.

Both episodes had some funny moments, but neither are really any good.

Honestly, I feel that humor isn't the most important thing when writing an episode. Even the episodes that are generally considered "bad" such as The Cryonic Woman and That's Lobstertainment have some pretty funny moments. What makes episodes stick out as bad to me is out-of-characterness and poor writing. Neutopia has both of those, whereas Yo Leela Leela only has one.

[Reply #221 on:]

I agree completely with UnrealLegend. Neutopia was bad. Bad writing, bad pacing, bad jokes, okay premise but terrible execution. I haven't seen it since it aired and don't want to rewatch it because I was feeling embarrassed for the show after I first saw it. I remember liking the PlanAm scene but not much else.

Everyone was so out of character. Everyone was like a caricature of themselves with their gender-based characteristics amplified. It felt wrong.

[Reply #222 on:]

That's how I felt on my initial rating of this too, how all the women and men had the same personality per their grouping for an entire episode. And like I said...it was all so cliche.

However, YLL was terrible. The main plot was not at all science fictiony (aside from that last five minutes there in the end, which did not make up for that at all...), Leela was errr...unpleasant to watch, and the rest of the characters were just filler. The problem with this episode is that there was no B or C storyline, it was pretty much the Leela Kid's Show for a half hour. I just...did not enjoy it at all.

There wasn't much extra storylines in Neutopia either, I'll admit, it was really a lesser of two evils situation for me. Both ideas were poorly executed IMO.

[Reply #223 on:]

This is one of those episodes that opinions flying from every direction! I enjoyed it, probably because it appealed to my Family Guy-ish humor with the photo shoot.

[Reply #224 on:]

I would probably rate "Yo Leela Leela" higher than this episode, but I hold the very unpopular opinion of enjoying both of them quite a bit. They're both solid 7/10s, I think.

Anyway: Say what you will about this episode, but I just listened to its commentary and it was easily the most insightful (in terms of production-related details and anecdotes) and hysterical track on disc one. So that ought to at least be worth something.

[Reply #225 on:]

It's one of the few commentaries I haven't listened to yet. I might start soon.

[Reply #226 on:]

I gave this episode a 8/10. I loved it when their genders changed and when they had to make a girl photo calendar!

[Reply #227 on:]

I would probably rate "Yo Leela Leela" higher than this episode

Good.

but I hold the very unpopular opinion of enjoying both of them quite a bit.

Mmmm, atypical disagreement time. YLL is okay I guess, this one is just dumb. I wouldn't mind listening to the commentary, though.

[Reply #228 on:]

The commentary is pretty good. It reveals the name of Farnsworth's girlfriend, and there's some pretty funny discussions.

[Reply #229 on:]

What's her name?!

*edit*

Never mind, saw it in the other thread.

[Reply #230 on:]

I gave this episode a 8/10. I loved it when their genders changed and when they had to make a girl photo calendar!

Yeah, that was the best part of the episode (IMO). I wish that they had stretched that part out longer, by cutting the lead-in, or by making this a 2-part episode.

[Reply #231 on:]

Mmmm, atypical disagreement time. YLL is okay I guess, this one is just dumb.

That's fair. I'll admit to finding certain parts of "Neutopia" cringe-worthy (most of the pop culture references--and there are a lot of them--feel particularly forced; the battle-of-the-sexes stuff is occasionally lazy and uninspired; character design-wise, the third act is a moral abomination). The pacing is shoddy, and I think the episode tries to accomplish too much plot-wise (though DXC discusses this somewhat in the episode's commentary. He says that the writers figured they'd never really explore gender in the show again, so they might as well go all-out. That may not be a particularly compelling justification, but it certainly explains a lot).

I recognize this isn't the best the show has to offer; I understand this episode has flaws. I just think that, in terms of jokes-per-minute, this episode is spot-on, and totally comparable to the original run. Yes, several of the jokes fall flat (these jokes are almost exclusively of the aforementioned pop-culture/gender-differences variety)--but a number of them make me laugh out loud. Most everything in act one, the Rock Alien's offhanded abuse of the humans (making them drink arsenic, consigning them to burst into flames), Leela forgetting that Amana is a refrigerator, LaBarbara having to get up in the middle of the night to play Xbox--I find all these things at least chuckle-worthy.

I also enjoy seeing Hermes and LaBarbara's relationship examined; the show doesn't do a masterful job of exploring their characters or anything, but it's a nice change of pace to see a quasi-romantic story use characters besides Fry and Leela as its focal point.

All that said, I do think "Yo Leela Leela" is a much better episode. It may not be as uproariously funny to me, but it's certainly more consistently humorous. The pacing's also much better, and I find the plot-turns less cringe-worthy (even if I don't love where the episode goes, I don't find it embarrassing in any way).

[Reply #232 on:]

Okay, I've just managed to pinpoint another reason why the very thought of this episode makes me want to puke. It lacks any real climax. It just... ends. There's hardly any buildup or anything. I truly want to find more reason to like this episode, but I just can't.

[Reply #233 on:]

Awful episode. Complete shit. If you liked this episode you're either 10 years old or a retard or both.

2/10

[Reply #234 on:]

Awful episode. Complete shit. If you liked this episode you're either 10 years old or a retard or both.

2/10

All your opinions suck!

[Reply #235 on:]

Awful episode. Complete shit. If you liked this episode you're either 10 years old or a retard or both.

2/10

All your opinions suck!

Hang on, she's actually right here! Although the insulting generalisations aren't necessary, she is correct about this episode being an awful pile of poop.

[Reply #236 on:]

My first post here, so be gentle.... I watched a rerun of this episode last night that had been recorded sometime in the past week. We immediately noticed that several scenes had been modified from the original. For example, the scene in which Amy, Leela and Labarbra are first posing for the calendar the original has Leela wearing a space helmet and blue suspenders with no shirt on underneath. The modified version has Leela's skin now colored blue, giving the impression that she is wearing a top with an open front. The female professors pose for the calendar is changed so that a large fan covers his flapping breasts. There are a couple other instances where things have been toned down a bit. The whole thing strikes me as a bit odd that Comedy Central would see the need to modify a show they have already OK'd. (FWIW, this is definitely not one of my favorite episodes.)

[Reply #237 on:]

That's interesting. I was watching 6B with some of my friends a few days ago, and their reactions to that scene with the Professor were quite hilarious.

Anyway, it does seem kind of strange to censor it. Maybe they got a lot of complaints from angry parents after the original airing?

[Reply #238 on:]

I'm surprised Zapp gave Fry the once over given that in War is the H Word, he still found himself mysteriously attracted to Lee Lemon.

Overall I thought this episode was fairly funny. As some others have noted, it was nice to have some of the relationship focus shifted to Hermes and LaBarbara. I'm a fan of LaBarbara so I liked having her take up as leader of the women as opposed to the usual female leadership from Leela.

[Reply #239 on:]

Only episode I've ever hated. Just didn't do it for me.