Futurama News - No spoilers outside spoiler tags!

[#360 :]

Agreed, i_c. I felt a bit letdown, watching new Futurama on my tiny computer screen (I actually have this notion that I'll respond to the episodes themselves differently when I watch them on TV, simply because the device has changed), but I was jonesing something fierce. At least now we'll only have a week to wait between episodes, as opposed to months upon months; watching leaked footage will be a bit pointless...for those of us in the States, at least.

[#361 :]

I'm very happy that there will likely not be screeners sent out in advance for upcoming episodes. I don't like the feeling of having the episodes out there until it's supposed to air... It's good for addicts and internationals, but yeah...

As both an addict and an international, I hope that there are ways to get ahold of the new episodes at roughly the same time as the USAliens.

[#362 :]

Tommorow will be pretty cool.

[#363 :]

I'm very happy that there will likely not be screeners sent out in advance for upcoming episodes. I don't like the feeling of having the episodes out there until it's supposed to air... It's good for addicts and internationals, but yeah...

As both an addict and an international, I hope that there are ways to get ahold of the new episodes at roughly the same time as the USAliens.

Maybe 30 minutes to an hour afterward, I wouldn't be surprised if there were torrents about.

[#364 :]

That will make this nerd very happy.

[#365 :]

I would say, "Test it out this week! See if there's torrents after the episodes air!" But, uh... it seems like we'll test it out next week...

I know at longest it takes an episode 3 hours to get on most torrent sites. It depends on popularity of the show a lot of the time. Something like Futurama, I'd guess less time. Either way, given time zones and such, there should definitely be a good torrent by your morning.

[#366 :]

I'm very happy that there will likely not be screeners sent out in advance for upcoming episodes. I don't like the feeling of having the episodes out there until it's supposed to air... It's good for addicts and internationals, but yeah...

As both an addict and an international, I hope that there are ways to get ahold of the new episodes at roughly the same time as the USAliens.

Maybe 30 minutes to an hour afterward, I wouldn't be surprised if there were torrents about.

Generally speaking, encoding something to HD (if you are looking for that) takes about half an hour (same length of the video, in fact) on a general piece of hardware to get it to a decent distributable size.  Then you have to consider getting it uploaded and out to people.  It generally takes an hour to two before it is in the wild as they say.

[#367 :]

Heheh. "In the wild". I can just imagine writers and TV producers hunting wild episodes of TV shows like bushrangers.

[#368 :]

Stever Irwin here, and I've just spotted an elusive creature indeed. It's the wild Three Hundred Big Boys. Quite a lovely creature it is! One of the fastest of the pack. Look at those markings on it's underbelly! So much going on there! And those fangs. It's got a bite! Let's go in...


GOTCHA!

[#369 :]

Great interview here with David X.  There is one minor spoiler I can think of where he talks about one of the 2011 episodes, but it is very, very minor.  Otherwise, it's very informational about the production of the show, and confirms a few returning writers (including Stuart Burns).  He's also pretty candid about the four DVD movies, and talks about where they fit as a "season" of the show.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/david-x-cohen,42482/

[#370 :]

I believe that the episode he's referencing is the Fry licking heads one.

It was a very good interview, gets me excited for the new run. Interesting to hear that he's a little bit more of an apologist about the movies than you'd expect, basically saying, "I understand why you might not like them, and it's the same problems I had with them. But, come on, they were awesome!" Also like that his comment that grounded the sci-fi world of Futurama was "So if you don’t believe the time machine, you can still believe that Fry is sad that he misses his dog, or whatever." So sad, so true.


Also, that interview made me realize what was wrong with Bender's Game: every other movie had Nixon in it, and BG didn't!

[#371 :]

About the BBS ruining Jurassic Bark thing: I never thought of it as ruining Jurassic Bark. In fact, I always thought it was nice to see what was like for Fry to go back and spend time with Seymour and his family and such. I was never sitting there going "Oh my god! That's what really happened?! Jurassic Bark is no longer sad for me! I hate you, writers!!!" I never thought it made any difference to how sad Jurassic Bark or Luck of The Fryrish. But maybe I'm the only one.

[#372 :]

http://tv.ign.com/articles/110/1101431p1.html

New character profiles

[#373 :]

About the BBS ruining Jurassic Bark thing: I never thought of it as ruining Jurassic Bark. In fact, I always thought it was nice to see what was like for Fry to go back and spend time with Seymour and his family and such. I was never sitting there going "Oh my god! That's what really happened?! Jurassic Bark is no longer sad for me! I hate you, writers!!!" I never thought it made any difference to how sad Jurassic Bark or Luck of The Fryrish. But maybe I'm the only one.

Never made a difference to me either. Those episodes still make me sad, but as you said, the movies are a good way to view the other way that things happened. I just think of them as completely seperate.

[#374 :]

New interview with David X Cohen that practically seems to be pasted together from other interviews, we've heard it all so many times already:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/23/futurama.return/?fbid=aVDbbgqLQAT

There's one interesting titbit:

The plot of The Prisoner of Benda involves the characters swapping minds.

[#375 :]

Damn, I was just gonna post that!

[#376 :]

Swapping minds? Whoa, sci-fi!

Seriously, though, that sounds awesome.

[#377 :]

I cannot wait!

[#378 :]

Damn, that sounds like it's going to be good. By then they should have fallen back into epicness as well.

Woo!

[#379 :]

MSN TV has more episodes listed. Given that they've been right so far, I'm leaning towards believing these.


6ACV08: That Darn Katz
Earth is invaded by a race of intelligent cats.

6ACV09: A Clockwork Origin
The theory of evolution is put to the test on a planet inhabited by robots.

6ACV10: A Prisoner of Benda
A revolutionary invention allows the crew members to exchange minds.

6ACV11: Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences
After a bungles Earth invasion, alien leader Lrrr faces a midlife crisis.

6ACV12: The Mutants Are Revolting
Leela leads an army of underground mutants in a rebellion against the surface people.

[#380 :]

Does anyone else think "That Darn Katz!" sounds a little stupid? I'm assuming the description doesn't do the episode itself much justice.

[#381 :]

I think 6ACV11 is supposed to say "After a bungled Earth invasion"

Gorky: Its probably an in joke being one of the animation producer's names is Claudia Katz

[#382 :]

The name is based on the movie "That Darn Cat!" And, if I remember correctly, Moe is voicing their leader, which should be interesting. The use of "katz" makes me think they're Nazi cats though...


And I think it's only coincidence with Claudia Katz.

[#383 :]

I just mean that the idea of earth being invaded by intelligent cats seems a bit...corny. Or something. Then again, earth being attacked by flying brains seems like a bit of a stretch--and yet "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" is one of my favorite episodes. Execution is everything, don'tcha know?

[#384 :]

So you're mad about reusing plot skeletons, but you don't question "a planet inhabited by robots"?

[#385 :]

These all sound good. I just hope that they're not like IDGDL.

[#386 :]

So you're mad about reusing plot skeletons, but you don't question "a planet inhabited by robots"?

Hey, I'm not mad. Why the hell do you think I'm mad? These bulging neck veins are the result of a preexisting condition, you jerkwad.

Seriously, though: it's possible that the robot planet could be Chapek 9...though I kind of doubt it. The point I'm trying to make is that intelligent cats invading earth doesn't seem like the funniest concept to me--but neither did flying brains invading earth. And yet the brain episode was really great, so what's to say the cat episode won't be equally good? I'm reserving judgement, I guess.

[#387 :]

Let's just hope their Nazi cats. Everybody can laugh at that! It's the combination of the time-tested funniest things ever!

And I'm feeling like it could be a return to Chapek 9, but I just don't know if they'd return to that episode. It's a fairly good episode, one of the betters of Season 1, in my opinion, but not the best of the best on which to do a follow-up.


And, although I know it's In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela, I'm leaning towards just acronyming it as IDGDL. It feels more natural.

Also, more good news everyone: Firefox thinks Leela is a real word now. Huzzah!

[#388 :]

Cats invading sounds good to me. I know my cat already considers me his slave.

[#389 :]

And, although I know it's In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela, I'm leaning towards just acronyming it as IDGDL. It feels more natural.

Isn't the song spelled "Inna Gadda Da Vida"?  That would make it IGDL.  Not that it matters in the least one way or the other.

[#390 :]

The song's title is "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and the episode's title is "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
And here's that song's single cover (spoilered for size):

[#391 :]

Sorry for the double post, but unrelated topic:
If you hadn't noticed all the articles on all these websites, a lot of them are the same AP article. I found one that was a little different from New York Times. It includes little snips from Billy, Katey, and John on themselves and their characters. I had known a few things, mostly the character voice backgrounds, but hadn't known that Billy and Katey weren't the first choices.

Additionally, I loved this bit:

West: Matt [Groening] came to our table reading the other day. He was in France, and he wanted to announce to the room that in France, Zoidberg is hailed, like the cartoon Jerry Lewis.

Who knew?! I had always loved Zoidy more than Bender, but I didn't know he was considered the break-out character some places! He's always been more of a Milhouse to me than a Bart. Any Frenchies out there who can confirm this?

[#392 :]

I love the idea of intelligent cats invading Earth. But then, I'm always up for a nice little alien invasion episode. And the plot should be quite nice and simple which is good inbetween lots of the more complex plots.
Edit: Thinking about it, I only love the idea if the cats aren't humanoid like Fluffers, the owner of Dave Spiegel. I'll find it a lot funnier if they just look like normal cats.

Also, if anybody would be kind enough to upload that video to somewhere international users can view it, I'd be very grateful.
This is annoyingly, going to become a weekly thing, isn't it?

[#393 :]

I think this will be the best summer I've had in a long time. And ya, I'm looking forward to the cat episode, sounds like fun.

[#394 :]

News about the number of viewers from Twitter: Eric Rogers says he's been told by an inside source at Comedy Central that they reckon there were 2.9million viewers for the episodes. Obviously they're very happy with those numbers. Keep it up and they should definitely order more!

[#395 :]

So what exactly is considered good ratings by cable standards?  Is 2.9 million off the charts?  Middle of the pack?

[#396 :]

He said they were pretty good for cable, I have no idea myself though. If we knew how many South Park gets, that would be a good indication.

EDIT: According to wiki, South Park averages 3million viewers an episode with the latest season premiere having 3.8million. So I'd say nearly 3million is pretty good.

[#397 :]

Picking random South Park articles on Wikipedia and reading their reception section, it seems that a South Park episode enjoys between 3 and 3.5 million viewers per episode.  And this is a show they have been on the air for a while, known by many and pretty much going strong.  So 2.9 million is pretty damn close to what they would expect of a regular episode of one of their shows, I say.  I'll consider this number to rise, however.

[#398 :]

Let us remember, though, that South Park airs during the fall/spring, which are the two highest viewed seasons for television. And it's been at home at the Wednesday night time slot for years now. Getting 2.9 million on a summer premiere night is fantastic. Around now, network shows only pull around 4 million viewers. 2.9 is definitely fantastic news.

[#399 :]

Hey, I'm not mad. Why the hell do you think I'm mad? These bulging neck veins are the result of a preexisting condition, you jerkwad.

Seriously, though: it's possible that the robot planet could be Chapek 9...though I kind of doubt it.

I´ve understood it that robots will be sent there specifically for the experiment.