" If you could change ONE thing in Futurama, what would you change?"

[Reply #240 on:]

One of things I would like to change about Futurama is every now and then whenever something bad happens to Leela, Fry seems to benefit from it.   Such as in Neutopia he got promoted to being a pilot and Leela got demoted to being a stewardess.   And it happened in the comics too.   Like say, Leela gets snatched and locked away somewhere and Fry and Bender have to go find her.   Although Fry is oblivious to it, it almost seems as though he's sort of glad it happened to her.  Because Leela is always bossing around Fry.  

Fry and Leela should both be treated as equals.  For the most part they are.  But it seems that every now and then, the writers seem to favor Fry over Leela sometimes.  Not all the time.   Maybe some writers feel that Leela needs to get her comeuppance every now and then, and they want to please all fans.  Even the ones who hate Leela.   It's like the writers sometimes are in love with Fry and want Fry and Bender to have an adventure while she's stuck someplace.

If something bad happens to Leela, she should get into trouble and endure it along with someone else.  Like Fry and Bender, Zoidberg, or the Professor.  
Better to get in trouble with your friends, than get in trouble by yourself.  


Just for the record, I never hated Fry.  Just don't like how he gets treated better than Leela sometimes.  LATGS is the obvious example.

[Reply #241 on:]

One of things I would like to change about Futurama is every now and then whenever something bad happens to Leela, Fry seems to benefit from it.   Such as in Neutopia he got promoted to being a pilot and Leela got demoted to being a stewardess.   And it happened in the comics too.   Like say, Leela gets snatched and locked away somewhere and Fry and Bender have to go find her.   Although Fry is oblivious to it, it almost seems as though he's sort of glad it happened to her.  Because Leela is always bossing around Fry. 

Fry and Leela should both be treated as equals.  For the most part they are.  But it seems that every now and then, the writers seem to favor Fry over Leela sometimes.  Not all the time.   Maybe some writers feel that Leela needs to get her comeuppance every now and then, and they want to please all fans.  Even the ones who hate Leela.   It's like the writers sometimes are in love with Fry and want Fry and Bender to have an adventure while she's stuck someplace.

If something bad happens to Leela, she should get into trouble and endure it along with someone else.  Like Fry and Bender, Zoidberg, or the Professor.   
Better to get in trouble with your friends, than get in trouble by yourself. 


Just for the record, I never hated Fry.  Just don't like how he gets treated better than Leela sometimes.  LATGS is the obvious example.

Fry gets alot of flak too though. Seems to be the butt for most of Bender's abuse, consistently rejected(in the original run) by Leela and other women. Always getting himself in trouble, sometimes unfairly too like when he was sentenced to the robot asylum.

Leela is the butt for alot of jokes because it maximises opportunity for her role as a mopey voice of reason, much like Lisa off simpsons. What seperates her from other punching bags such as Meg Griffin or Squidward is that she often escapes her problems eventually and it seems she will go on to live happily with Fry.

[Reply #242 on:]

Just for the record, I never hated Fry.  Just don't like how he gets treated better than Leela sometimes.

What?! Fry is constantly put down, abused, made-fun-of, tortured, hurt, degraded, etc. I mean, it's hilarious, but he has it way worse than Leela.

[Reply #243 on:]

More continuing story lines. They often made too much of a deal of something just for things to go back to normal at the end. Would be nice to see things continue for a while. Can't think of any examples just now though!

[Reply #244 on:]

They often made too much of a deal of something just for things to go back to normal at the end.

Mars in "A Farewell to Arms". We never got an explanation for how it was put back.

We also never got an explanation for how Roberto was resurrected in "Stench and Stenchibility".

[Reply #245 on:]

Mars deserved an explanation for coming back. Like a News Report or something.

Roberto, I don't think he needed an explanation that badly. For all we know, he could have had a secret backup unit nobody knew about.

[Reply #246 on:]

Roberto, I don't think he needed an explanation that badly. For all we know, he could have had a secret backup unit nobody knew about.

That could be the logical explanation for how Roberto somehow returned.

[Reply #247 on:]

Honestly, Roberto's return was the most disappointing part of that episode for me.

I would've changed it to be the mugger from "Less Than Hero".

Roberto's character has really become quite over played. It's now nothing more than "Look how crazy this guy is!"

[Reply #248 on:]

I would have liked to have seen more of the brain slugs.

[Reply #249 on:]

Agreed on Roberto. I LOVED him in Insane in the Mainframe and found every subsequent appearance less and less funny. If a character only has one joke, then only use them for one damn joke.

Mars deserved an explanation for coming back. Like a News Report or something.

Yeah, even just one line about how it didn't crash into the sun but was instead thrown into a different orbit. Bam. Done. Let's go home.

[Reply #250 on:]

Cubert would be less of an annoying brat and more the guy that points out plot holes, like he was initially.

[Reply #251 on:]

Change episode Attack of The Killer App and have it be an evil Fry clone who does embarrassing app videos of everyone!  Like Fry could go take a shower before they leave for the APP store and it's really Farnsworth's cloning machine.  Fry gets knocked out by gas and an evil Fry clone pretends to be Fry and does APP videos of Leela's Susan Boil, pushing Bender into the goat vomit pool, films Hermes smoking weed, films Amy kissing someone else at a party, and Zoidberg slipping on a banana peel.

Get rid of LATGS and replace it with an episode where Bender and Hermes go on another adventure together.   

[Reply #252 on:]

I would also favor a change. Yet, mine is a tad more low key:
Fry plans to delete the "Susan Boil" video. Unfortunately, he uploads it by accident (preferably by not just hitting accidently the wrong button, but some outer event causing that mistake). Of course, with his bet against Bender standing, his claim it was an accident does not sound very credible.

[Reply #253 on:]

I would scrap the Susan Boil plot-point entirely and replace it with something that's not completely lame and retarded.

[Reply #254 on:]

I would scrap the Susan Boil plot-point entirely and replace it with something that's not completely lame and retarded.

Second. One Hundred Trillion Percent Second.
That Damn Boil ruined the whole episode for me....ugh, I hate even thinking about that Sick Mucus....

Considering both the Sick Boil and the Eyephone have never been seen or mentioned since the episode, I assume they aren't Cannon. Yes, I know they technically are, since they were in an official episode, but I reject them anyways.

[Reply #255 on:]

Haha, it's probably why I hold that episode in an even lower regard than I do the Holiday Spectacular or Saturday Morning Fun Pit. At least those can be shrugged off with an "Oh well, they're non-canon."

[Reply #256 on:]

The Susan Boil plot actually made sense.

On the internet, stupid/retarded things are often the ones catching the most hits.
The youtube duel "The biggest pimple explosion ever" vs "The best Shakespeare recitation ever" will probably not be won by the recitation.

Fry's vid HAD to be gross/ridiculous to adress this aspect.

[Reply #257 on:]

No, I get that aspect of it, but at the end of the day, it's still fucking retarded and doesn't belong in the Futurama universe. A show set in the year 3000 doesn't need to be doing satire on YouTube and iPhones. I would really just prefer it if that episode never existed, to be honest.

[Reply #258 on:]

No, I get that aspect of it, but at the end of the day, it's still fucking retarded and doesn't belong in the Futurama universe. A show set in the year 3000 doesn't need to be doing satire on YouTube and iPhones. I would really just prefer it if that episode never existed, to be honest.

I understand not liking Susan Boil, but I actually really enjoyed Attack Of The Killer App.

[Reply #259 on:]

Without the awful Susanism, AOTKA would be a semi-solid 6/10 from me. For the most part, I find it to be reasonably funny.

[Reply #260 on:]

No, I get that aspect of it, but at the end of the day, it's still fucking retarded and doesn't belong in the Futurama universe. A show set in the year 3000 doesn't need to be doing satire on YouTube and iPhones. I would really just prefer it if that episode never existed, to be honest.

I consider that two different aspects:

a) Futurama follows the formula "Technology has changed, society has changed...yet, people remain the same idiots". Gross things favorably grabbing people's attention is a typical human behaviour, and therefore a subject to be ridiculed in Futurama.
b) Futurama's early run did not get too close to the present. E.g. "I dated a robot"obviously represented  illegal downloading/piracy. Yet, the "celeb robots" were a completely different turn on the subject. While e.g. AOTKA basically put twitter nearly unchanged in the Futurama universe.

To cut a long story short:
- The grossness of Susuan Boil and the human attraction to gross things did fit rather well into the Futurama universe.
- It was the present day technology because of which the episode did not work too well.

[Reply #261 on:]

Without the awful Susanism, AOTKA would be a semi-solid 6/10 from me. For the most part, I find it to be reasonably funny.

With Susanism, It's a 5/10 from me.
Without her, though, it would've been a 7/10.

I may be being a little hard on the episode, but like others said, there's just too many references to modern day technology and gross-out jokes for me to really enjoy AOTKA. It's probabaly one of my very least favorite episodes.

[Reply #262 on:]

I wouldn't say it's the grossness in episode that bothers me and technology represented could have worked with more subtle references.

AOTKA's tone was different, it's basically enjoyable, average episode except that it's not in the end and failed with the plot. I did find the goat funny and I liked the end, which summed up this exceptional episode.

[Reply #263 on:]

Change one thing in futurama? Change its ending to 2025. hmhm.

[Reply #264 on:]

The more I think about it, the more I wish the writers actually went ahead with the whole "backwards time-travelling guy" story they abandoned. Apparently the main reason they gave up on it was that it wasn't very funny... But honestly, would anyone have really cared? If Futurama put out an episode that was very sci-fi heavy, based around a really incredible idea that I don't think anyone's ever done before (at least, not quite like this, anyway)? I mean, the show's basic dialogue structure still would've allowed for jokes, even if the story itself wasn't particularly humourous. I'd easily take a mind-blowing sci-fi episode that was a little lacking in laughs over any of the joke-packed episodes that largely fell flat. Fuck, Reincarnation is the only triptych episode from the CC run that I really felt deserved to have been made. The rest ranged from "I could take it or leave it" to "how the fuck did this idea ever make it past the pitch?" I'd gladly swap out any one of them and replace it with a genuinely intriguing idea that was actually well-thought-out.

[Reply #265 on:]

I largely agree. They could've just adapted the script to be funnier as opposed to ditching it entirely.

[Reply #266 on:]

I wouldn't have killed off Slurms McKenzie, and maybe had him join planet express at the end of Season 1.

[Reply #267 on:]

I wouldn't have killed off Slurms McKenzie, and maybe had him join planet express at the end of Season 1.

I couldn't see him in the crew but as a recurring character - yes.

[Reply #268 on:]

If we're counting the comics, they brought him back anyway.




...we're not counting the comics.

[Reply #269 on:]

If I could change one thing, I'd ban the episodes "Neutopia", and "All The Presidents Heads".

Hated both of those episodes. I used to really hate Yo Leela Leela, but in reality, it's just an episode I don't really care for. It's like a 5/10 kind of grade. Just didn't care for it. Still don't, and could definitely go without it.

[Reply #270 on:]

I enjoy Neutopia, I still don't understand the hatred for it. It's an average, infrequently funny episode. All the President's Heads was absolute balls, though. Not to mention it fucked up Futurama's perfect run of great time travel episodes.

I would add Attack of the Killer Ap to that list. And would've completely rewritten the first act of Tip of the Zoidberg.

[Reply #271 on:]

I wish episodes such as In-A-Gadda-De-Leela and Propisiton Infinity were never even written, as they both have unessessary low-brow Family Guy-esque jokes that try too hard to be controversal.

Iin fact, I think almost all of the 6A episodes should've either been re-written or just plain rejected, other than ReBirth, Lethal Inspection, The Late Phillip J. Fry, Prisoner of Benda, Lrreconcilable Ndndifferences, and the Mutants are Revolting.

I personally liked Neutopia, mainly because it was pretty funny. Sure, the story wasn't formatted well, but the jokes in this one make up for it.

[Reply #272 on:]

Proposition Infinity was average for me. I didn't think it was anything too special, but I didn't actively hate it. I kind of like the fact that it built on the taboo of robosexuality, which had already been established, and the reveal about the Professor was pretty neat, considering. It'd never wind up in my favourite episodes list, but I don't despise it enough to erase its existence entirely.

If I had my way, I'd have given the last two seasons 24 episodes each (two runs of twelve), scrapped Attack of the Killer Ap and the Holiday special from season 6, Naturama and Fun Pit from season 7... All the President's Heads and Tip of the Zoidberg almost made it onto that list, but I still think they're redeemable with some heavy re-writing.

[Reply #273 on:]

What's up with all the Naturama hate? It did exactly what it set out to do: a fun little parody of nature documentaries. Unlike SMFP, the characters all feel like themselves so I can't really complain about it too much (although it's not one of my favourites).

[Reply #274 on:]

It was fine for what it was (though, I don't really care for nature documentaries, so it didn't really have much appeal to me), it just didn't need to be a Futurama episode. I'd say they're the weakest episodes of season 7 (note the fact that the other mentions I gave were all season 6 episodes - I think 7 was much better overall).

[Reply #275 on:]

Naturama just wasn't anything but three simple stories, it was nothing special and not particularly funny. I didn't like the idea of characters being different animals and it could have been much better without the actual characters (and with more realistic animals),
in which case:

it just didn't need to be a Futurama episode.

[Reply #276 on:]

All three stories were focused entirely on mating rituals, too. There is so much more to nature documentaries.

[Reply #277 on:]

Naturama was just, so so boring. Probably the worst episode ever. I know it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of episode, but I thought this was really bad, and I could have done without it.

The Fish segment was decent, but the rest just sucked so much.

[Reply #278 on:]

That segments earns points just for "I'm a salmon," which I absolutely loved.

[Reply #279 on:]

I personally think the show could've benifited from much more full-frontal nudity. Am I the only one who thinks that?