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SpaceGoldfish fromWazn
Urban Legend
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« #213 : 07-16-2011 17:38 »
« : 07-16-2011 17:41 by SpaceGoldfishfromWazn »
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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.
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UnrealLegend
Space Pope
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« #216 : 12-27-2011 06:55 »
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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. |
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Gorky
Space Pope
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« #231 : 12-31-2011 22:33 »
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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). |
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