Future Of Futurama

[Reply #40 on:]

Stop it you two! You're making Scratchy cry!

[Reply #41 on:]

And don't call him Shirley!

[Reply #42 on:]

If you wish to make a prediction on the outcome of something, making guesses about how something will be in order for the outcome to arrive is needed.

A useful prediction with any measurable degree of probability requires at least some solid and usable information to work from. We have none. Yet.
Might just as well suggest that the new seasons are going to be a scene-for-scene recreation of Moonlighting. It's just as legitimate.

[Reply #43 on:]

If you wish to make a prediction on the outcome of something, making guesses about how something will be in order for the outcome to arrive is needed.

A useful prediction with any measurable degree of probability requires at least some solid and usable information to work from. We have none. Yet.

We have plenty, actually.  Let me break it down for you.

A. At least two episodes will contain more coarse language than what was usually allowed and/or permitted on Fox or network channels in general.  If nothing else, more coarse than the show used to be.
B. Production budget is smaller.
C. Now this may be a bit more subjective, but several members involved with the production have noted that the new season is 'by far the funniest' Futurama so far.

Now, let's think of these three for a moment.

A. If that is true, could Futurama be more appealed by the nature of South Park?  South Park certainly is coarse and famous for it.  Or infamous if you will.  Could this be a trend building up?
B. With a smaller budget (and indeed a shorter time frame), things could be rushed, animation may go down, the writers may make quick twists and turns.  This could potentially lower the quality.  But, that being said, some shows do a lot better with fewer writers.  Take Red Dwarf for example.
C. It largely depends on what the people involved consider funny.  But if it is the funniest yet (and assuming they are right), is it because Futurama originally had all this potential or did they move towards new styles of comedy, e.g. Family Guy or South Park?

And that's just some of the details we know, we know a bit about the plots coming up.

[Reply #44 on:]

Here's some other details we know:

1) David X. Cohen is vehemently passionate about Futurama, almost to the point of being its number 1 fan. He even bluntly contradicted his own lord and master, Matt Groening, on the subject of a possible reboot. This man loves his baby, loves its canon, and won't let anything stuff it up.

2) You're talking about a show littered with jokes that literally require a calculator to decipher. Come on. The kind of change you're suggesting would be a quantum shift.

3) Half the writers are actually mathematicians and science types; fully-fledged genius-level. How low-brow do you honestly expect these people to go?

4) It's not your standard cartoon. It's not South Park. It's not Family Guy. It's not even The Simpsons. This is a show with massive attention to detail in terms of continuity and story arcs that have run the entire length of the series. Unless an entirely new team of writers and producers with no prior knowledge of the show somehow take over, then that's not going to change. They haven't, so it won't.

Now, as for yours:

A: So? Coarse language by yank standards is "goddamn". Besides which, good. I welcome it. We know these writers. And about South Park - it's among the finest and most hilarious pieces of satire on television. I still don't see how some "coarse" (hah!) language is going to fundamentally change the whole show.

B: You answered your own point. Smaller budget often means less reliance upon whizz-bang spectacle and more focus on good writing. Some of the most profoundly well-written and timeless films and TV shows were made on a shoestring.

C: The "people involved" are the people who know Futurama. So what they consider funny is what's funny by the standards of the people who have been making Futurama up to this point. If these people had wanted to make Family Guy or South Park, then they already would have for the previous seasons. I don't understand the assumption that they have become entirely different people. And again - there's David X.

[Reply #45 on:]

Oh, don't look at me, I am not worried.  I am merely considering whether Comedy Central and/or Fox is willing to purchase another season after this one have begun.

Other people are apparently worried, I don't see why.  I am one of the more confident people.

[Reply #46 on:]

I'm not really worried either. But great things can either become greater, stay great, or plummet to the ground. It is a lot easier to plummet to the ground. Of course I don't expect it to, but at least if we worry about it it means the people who make the show have more initiative to make it the best performance of their lives. The best performance of their lives? The best performance of their lives!

Or we can just not think about it, display no interest in whether or not the show stays one of our favourites. Maybe they'll assume we don't care and move on to something else; give up on it and become lawyers.

 

[Reply #47 on:]

I'm not worried either for the show, just don't want to state that I think it will be amazing and then find that somehow, somewhere along the line, they've screwed up and lost the ability to realise what's funny, and what made the show so good in the first place. As far as I can tell, it's happened with The Simpsons, so at the end of the day, it could well happen with Futurama as well - not that I think it would. As coldangel pointed out - one of the key aspects of this show is the attention to detail and the continuity of the show, so if they can keep that going, I'm sure they can remember what made it funny originally; they can just expand on it. Instead of changing it completely.

And svip, for mentioning Red Dwarf - I must say that I love you.

In a purely "I don't actually know you but you said something that makes me happy" way. I adore Red Dwarf

[Reply #48 on:]

Hopefully the Futurama folks have been paying more attention to shows like "Two and a Half Men", which is actually funny, rather than South Park or Seth MacFarlane assembly line junk (What happened to you Seth? You used to be cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG6dQjDwJfU ).

Can even draw parallels between John Cryer's Alan Harper character and Fry.

[Reply #49 on:]

 Smaller budget often means less reliance upon whizz-bang spectacle and more focus on good writing. Some of the most profoundly well-written and timeless films and TV shows were made on a shoestring.

Granting that your strategic use of the qualifier "often" renders the rest of your observation nearly meaningless (historically speaking, for example, dice have "often" come up snakeyes ten times in a row), it (the observation) is still profoundly misguided.  Forced to guess whether the smaller writing budget will improve or lower the writing quality, one would be foolish not to expect the latter.

[Reply #50 on:]

I think Two and a Half Men is pretty stupid.  It is en par with Family Guy, though a little bit better; I might actually watch an episode.  But I would never make an effort of watching a new episode of Two and a Half Men.  It's too much of a sitcom.

[Reply #51 on:]

Granting that your strategic use of the qualifier "often"

=more often than not, idiot.

[Reply #52 on:]

I didn't say that it was smart just funny. Curious as to what else in American TV a Denmarkian would find amusing, or even find for that matter?

[Reply #53 on:]

Granting that your strategic use of the qualifier "often"

=more often than not, idiot.

Oh. In that case, I'd characterize your use of "often" not as strategic, but merely as absurdly wrongheaded. I can be convinced otherwise, however, if you'd be kind enough carefully to enumerate all cases in which a lowered budget has led to more focus on good writing and less on whizz-bang spectacle, and all cases in which it has not.  At the risk of belaboring a point for your benefit, "more often than not" would mean the first number is bigger than the second.

[Reply #54 on:]

Not really wrongheaded or absurd. no.

And all? What am I, Google? No way. But I'll give a few of my own favourites from memory.

The X-Files - early seasons considered far superior to later seasons in terms of dramatic narrative and mood. These were the seasons when the show was a culty little production just scraping by. Success brought a bigger budget and the whole thing turned into ridiculous overblown garbage.

Firefly had a small budget, especially considering the setting. Enough said there.

Neon Genesis Evangelion  - totally minuscule budget requiring old animations to be reused constantly and entire scenes taking place with no movement - effective writing was required to make up for it, and it's now one of the most iconic and beloved animations ever. Also noteworthy is just about every other Japanese animation until recent times when they've finally started investing serious money into them.

Farscape insane for what they did, 1.5 million an episode, whereas Friends, with no special effects, went for 12.

Carnivàle, they were really stretching it with a huge cast and full period setting, but it was a masterpiece.

There's also Lexx, and Red Dwarf.

South Park naturally cost next to nothing.

And let's not forget Star Trek, The Original Series. Shoestring. Non-existent special effects - and they could really only afford the Enterprise model so other ships were represented by amorphous glowing blobs. Relied on the competency of good writers and actors because there was nothing else to work with. Became a cultural giant. The Next Generation was also fairly cheap in the fist few seasons.

There's also The Flintstones and Rocky & Bullwinkle. Cheap as chips.

Furthermore, both The Simpsons, and Family Guy are considered to have been at their best in terms of humour and creative prowess in their earlier seasons when the budget was lower.


With Futurama, you've got the same writers and the same voice cast. So what's left that a budget cut could effect? Some of the animation, possibly. Possibly there'd be less fancy 3D bits. Don't really care. More likely the bigger budget draw lay in celebrity guests. They're pricey. So fewer ridiculously unlikely encounters with random celebrity heads in jars. I can only say good. That, to me, has always felt like the weakest element of the show - really forced and unnecessary. Take away the "OMG a famous person LOL! element, and you have more time for development of the main characters. Take away the shiny 3D CGI bits and you have to spend more time on story. These are only half-hour shows, after all. Every second counts.

[Reply #55 on:]

there is a robotic lela and fry on the loose...

[Reply #56 on:]

I have a feeling it will only be the 26 episodes that they have in the pipes now. Do not get me wrong, I would love to see more if they remain entertaining, but I think this is all we are going to get out of it.

[Reply #57 on:]

Did you see the ratings?  When you have, come back to this post.

Now maybe you should edit your post, hm?

[Reply #58 on:]

I don't know how many viewers that the average new CC show has, but since it's a cable channel, it's probably only a few million. Futurama's ratings were 2.9 and 2.7 million for the two new episodes, which seems like par or better.

If anyone has the viewership numbers for other CC shows, I'd appreciate a comparison (but I know South Park's average ratings for new episodes is about 4 million).

My point is that Futurama has an established audience that is probably as large or larger than the average CC show, so I'm confident that Futurama's return will be a success for CC, and they'll renew it. What concerns me is when.

Hopefully CC renews for at least one more production season no later than the end of "Season 7". (BTW, what is the "official" season number we're referring to this new season as? Because it's designated "Season 6" on the download sites, Season 6 on CGEF and Wikipedia, but Season 7 on TV.com, and I think it's simply referred to as "the new season of Futurama" on CC. My preference is for the production seasons.) It seems to take the Futurama staff about a year to complete a full season, which is why I don't want CC to wait until next year to decide to order additional seasons of Futurama.

Regarding the long term future of the show, I could see Futurama enjoying a long life on CC, just like South Park. Speaking of South Park, we were discussing in another thread the ideal Wednesday night schedule of new South Park at 10 PM, new Futurama at 10:30 PM, and then new Daily Show and Colbert Report. That would be awesome! I think that schedule would ensure that Futurama lasts for years!

[Reply #59 on:]

I dunno, what about Comedy Central's own press release which states that these are FANTASTIC ratings:

GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE!
"FUTURAMA" BLASTS OFF ON COMEDY CENTRAL WITH RECORD RATINGS

6th Season Premiere Of "Futurama" Draws 2.9 Million Total Viewers And Was Most-Watched And Highest-Rated Show In All Of Television Thursday Night Among Young Men

Season Premiere Leads COMEDY CENTRAL To Its Highest-Rated Night Of The Year And Best Thursday Prime Ever Among Young Men


NEW YORK, June 28, 2010 -- The Emmy® Award-winning animated sci-fi comedy "Futurama," resurrected by COMEDY CENTRAL, made an out-of-this-world return and, with 2.9 million total viewers, became the highest-rated and most-watched season premiere for an animated series on cable with the exception of "South Park."

Airing its first original episode in almost seven years, the sixth season premiere of "Futurama" titled "Rebirth" (Thursday, 10:00-10:30 p.m.) averaged a 2.0 HH rating, 1.9 Adults 18-49 rating, 4.5 Men 18-24 rating and 3.5 Men 18-34 rating, finishing the night as the most-watched and highest-rated show in all of television for Thursday Prime among M18-24 and M18-34, as well as the highest-rated show in all of television among Adults 18-49 (tie).

With 2.9 million total viewers tuning in to watch the next chapter in the lives of Leela, Fry and Bender, the premiere powered COMEDY CENTRAL to its highest-rated and most-watched night of 2010 among total viewers (1.7 million total viewers) and A18-49 (1.1 rating) and the highest-rated and most-watched Thursday night in the network's history among M18-24 (2.4 rating) and M18-34 (1.9 rating).

The second of two all-new, back-to-back premiere episodes of "Futurama" (Thursday, 10:30 p.m.-11:00 p.m.), averaged a 2.1 HH rating, 1.7 A18-49 rating, 4.2 M18-24 rating, 3.2 M18-34 rating and 2.8 million total viewers to rank as the #2 program of the night in all of television among M18-34 and M18-24, and the #1 cable show in its timeslot with A18-49 (tie), M18-34 and M18-24.

Encore presentations of the season premiere of "Futurama" air Sunday at 12:00 a.m., Monday at 12:30 a.m., Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. and Thursday at 9:30 p.m. (all times ET/PT).

"Futurama" follows the life of Philip J. Fry (Billy West), a pizza delivery boy who accidentally stumbles into a freezer on December 31, 1999 and wakes up a thousand years later. In his future home of New New York City, Fry goes to work for the Planet Express Intergalactic delivery company, where he befriends Bender (John DiMaggio), a booze-fueled robot, and sets his romantic sights on Leela (Katey Sagal), a sexy cyclops who enjoys beating him up.

"Futurama," created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen, is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television, with multi-Emmy® Award-winning Rough Draft Studios, Inc. contributing the animation.

20th Century Fox Television, a division of News Corp., is a leading supplier of entertainment content domestically and around the world.

COMEDY CENTRAL, the only all-comedy network, currently is seen in more than 98 million homes nationwide. COMEDY CENTRAL is owned by, and is a registered trademark of, Comedy Partners, a wholly-owned division of Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks. COMEDY CENTRAL's Internet address is www.comedycentral.com. For up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs visit Press Central, COMEDY CENTRAL's press Web site, at www.comedycentral.com/press.

MTV Networks, a division of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), is one of the world's leading creators of entertainment content, with brands that engage and connect diverse audiences across television, online, mobile, games, virtual worlds and consumer products. The company's portfolio spans more than 150 television channels and 400 digital media properties worldwide, and includes MTV, VH1, CMT, Logo, Harmonix, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr., TeenNick, AddictingGames, Neopets, COMEDY CENTRAL, SPIKE, TV Land, Atom, GameTrailers and Xfire.

It's on gotfuturama.com, it's all over Google News (search for 'futurama').

[Reply #60 on:]

That's great news Svip, but I'd still appreciate other CC shows ratings to compare it to.

The Emmy® Award-winning animated sci-fi comedy "Futurama," resurrected by COMEDY CENTRAL, made an out-of-this-world return and, with 2.9 million total viewers, became the highest-rated and most-watched season premiere for an animated series on cable with the exception of "South Park."

The "animated series" qualifier leads me to believe that other CC shows have better ratings, and I'm curious what those shows are. The Daily Show and Colbert Report?

If those 2.9 & 2.7 million viewers mean the Futurama is one of the most watched shows on CC, then the show's future looks bright, and it will certainly be renewed. I just hope there isn't much drop off this week -- which usually happens after a series/season premiere.

I wonder if a lot of people didn't know about Futurama's return, because most of my non-Futurama-fan friends didn't know about it until I told them. If that's the case, hopefully more "casual" viewers will begin watching it, and the number of viewers will grow.

I just wish they'd air the new epiosdes here in Canada, so we Canadian fans could contribute to the show's viewership. More viewers should influence CC's decision to renew Futurama for more seasons as soon as possible.

[Reply #61 on:]

I wonder if a lot of people didn't know about Futurama's return, because most of my non-Futurama-fan friends didn't know about it until I told them. If that's the case, hopefully more "casual" viewers will begin watching it, and the number of viewers will grow.

I can only speak for those of us in the states, but Comedy Central promoted the hell out of the show here. Promos during every hour of programming, banner ads at the bottom of the screen, and a lot of sneak-peaks and other promotional material on the website. Those ratings would tend to indicate that a lot of people knew about the return of the show, and if word-of-mouth spreads--and when you combine that with CC's continued promotion of Futurama--I'd expect the ratings to stay where they are at least, and improve at best.

[Reply #62 on:]

My thought is, as long as Comedy Central doesn't pull a boneheaded Fox programming screwup like on Futurama's initial run (you may remember, Futurama kept getting moved around into different time slots), then the audience will find it & the ratings will be good or better. 

[Reply #63 on:]

Glad to hear of good ratings, because good ratings equals more Futurama! Hopefully a renewal will happen if this continues, which I see no reason why it wouldn't...

[Reply #64 on:]

My thought is, as long as Comedy Central doesn't pull a boneheaded Fox programming screwup like on Futurama's initial run (you may remember, Futurama kept getting moved around into different time slots), then the audience will find it & the ratings will be good or better.  

It's hard to remember back that far, but I recall that after airing the series premiere at 8:30 PM on Sunday after The Simpsons, Futurama was moved to sometime on Tuesday. But that was always FOX's plan. I didn't agree with it, because the 8:30 PM Sunday timeslot was perfect, and the one that Futuram deserved. I can't remember if FOX moved Futurama again during Season 1.

It was sometime during Season 2 or 3 that it was condemned to Sunday at 7:00 PM.

[Reply #65 on:]

http://theinfosphere.org/I,_Roommate#Reception

[Reply #66 on:]

Ok, perhaps I'm greedy - does anyone know if there is a chance there will be a season 7?  I just love the show and really loved "The Late Phillip J Fry" episode so I hope it just keeps going!

[Reply #67 on:]

nobody knows yet. the creators have said they are basically waiting for a call from comedy central or fox. (or, they said that like 3 months ago).

the ratings for the show have been pretty good (around 2 million viewers an episode, which is quite good for a cable show), so that gives up hope.

[Reply #68 on:]

http://www.peelified.com/index.php?topic=18881.msg1125135#msg1125135

There are 26 episodes. 12 will be in Season 6, the remaining 14 would be Season 7 if Comedy Central picks them up, which is probable at this point. At least, that's what I think.

[Reply #69 on:]

well, we're actually in broadcast season 7 right now, since the original run's 4 production seasons were butchered into 5 broadcast seasons, then the 4 movies count as broadcast season 6 (even though that makes no sense).

to just avoid all this confusion, yes, there are more episodes coming next year, since they are making them as we speak. this year and next years episodes together count as production season 6. if your asking about production season 7, there has been no word on it yet, and if it did come, it wouldn't air till 2012. neither comedy central or fox have ordered more episodes.

[Reply #70 on:]

To clarify, Smarty, Comedy Central has already picked up those remaining episodes.  They ordered the whole 26 to begin with, and that's why that many were made.  It's, as vonboy said, a matter of episodes AFTER those.  We don't know if any will be ordered yet.

Also, one of those 14 will air this holiday season (as it's a holiday episode) as a "special" show.  The other 13 will air next summer as a "season."

[Reply #71 on:]

Look at this....

According to David X. Cohen, the 100th episode may serve as a season finale, depending on Comedy Central.

Uh Oh. =S

[Reply #72 on:]

Nah, it will serve as a season finale.  We are all well aware of that.  Which makes sense, because the next episode after that won't air until December.

[Reply #73 on:]

It is impossible to tell right now, of course I hope it wil be many more seasons if they keep the quality up. I wouldn't want it to become another Simpsons. I used to be a large Simpsons fan but they should have stopped many seasons ago (at least 6 or so).

I would also be curious if they will show Futurama anywhere outside the US. I know it probably doesn't influence any decisions on whether it will be picked up again but it would be great for Futurama to go more international.

[Reply #74 on:]

Of course there's going to be another season of Futurama.  I don't know why some are doubtful.  If the 100th episode is going to be a season finale, that's a sure sign that a new season is coming. 

[Reply #75 on:]

We're talking about production seasons, we already know that there's a further 14 episodes to follow the 100th episode.

[Reply #76 on:]

Stolen from Billy's West's site:

Billy said this:

When the numbers are big, everything's sunglasses and ice cream.
But when the numbers go down,so does the show for the most part.
The shows have been getting great numbers every week.I'm not gloating,I'm
very grateful for what the audience does by watching us.
BTW,thanks to the 2 million people that watched "The Late Philip J.Fry" last
night! We hail you!

------------------

Thank you.Everybody at the show is sooo happy how things are turning out
and the network's over the moon with the great ratings.
It's really great play on the team that's winning.Thanks to the fans!

---------------------

I'm VERY happy with the episodes! And so is everyone on staff.
I read the criticisms,some comments I can understand but some
comments are from out where the busses don't run.Somebody was
complaining to the tune of," OH,suddenly Futurama's going to start
parodying everything?
Why???"
Meanwhile we parodied so many things in the first 3 or 4 episodes that
I'm trying to remember how much was parodied.
"Willie Wonka" "Titanic" "Star Trek"
God,I know there's more.

[Reply #77 on:]

Well that's great. I can't see him posting that and them not getting renewed.

[Reply #78 on:]

I know it's impossible to know for sure, but we can probably figure it out based on Futurama's ratings compared to Comedy Central's other show's ratings.
It looks like Futurama has had a pretty consistent nielson rating of 1.9 to 2 million for must of it's return. It doesn't seem to be increasing or decreasing anytime soon.
Are those ratings strong enough to warrant the production of another season?
Also, do you think they will announce whether or not another season is being produced after this broadcast season, or after next year's broadcast season? It makes more sense to put more episodes into production sooner

[Reply #79 on:]

If you wish to make a prediction on the outcome of something, making guesses about how something will be in order for the outcome to arrive is needed.

A useful prediction with any measurable degree of probability requires at least some solid and usable information to work from. We have none. Yet.
Might just as well suggest that the new seasons are going to be a scene-for-scene recreation of Moonlighting. It's just as legitimate.

Actually, all events in space-time are set in stone.  So things that never happened or will have happened are 0% as legitimate as things which will have always occurred.  God is aware of all this.