Thoughts on 6ACV25 - Overclockwise - SPOILERS!

[Reply #280 on:]

I hate to say it, but I agree with flesheatingbull in this instance...

Also, I'm already starting to think that Overclockwise could be the most overrated episode ever. It has too many weaknesses to be truly 10/10 status in my view, but apparently I'm in the minority in my thinking. Stupid war videogame, forced Leela relationship lines, off voice acting. It doesn't cut it for a perfect score. Bender was very good and wasn't the let-down for once though...

[Reply #281 on:]

Yeah, I don't think it deserves a 10 either.  It had a very grand scope, too grand for 22 minutes.  For me to give it a 10 it would have had to be a two-part episode.  That would have been a first for Futurama, but it would have made this episode better.  Just the overclocking Bender arc was enough for its own episode by itself!  I mean c'mon, you've got Cubert and Hubert facing a hanging sentence, Leela gone, Bender off in la la land and Planet Express going under - leaving Fry alone and at his lowest point since 1999.  How can you ask for a better setup for a cliffhanger ending than that?  All of those arcs could have then been resolved less rushed and more thoroughly in the second part.  Seems obvious to me.

[Reply #282 on:]

If done properly, Overclockwise would have made a brilliant 5th movie.

[Reply #283 on:]

Second.

[Reply #284 on:]

They could have been resolved less rushed if they'd had more time. But, they didn't have that time, and I think they did about as well as they possibly could given the time they had. They did well enough so that the ep didn't feel like it had the pacing problems that earlier 6B eps like Ghost in the Machines did. That's why I gave it a 10, because I think it's the best episode it could have been.

Doesn't mean I don't think it would have been better as a movie, though.

[Reply #285 on:]

If done properly, Overclockwise would have made a brilliant 5th movie.

40-minute extended episode or two parter? Big yes. That would've been fantastic. The Fry/Leela plot and the Bender plot needed much more care and attention than they could be given in a 20-minute window, and allowing them to spread it out and build it would've been awesome (but please, no more courtroom shenanagins).

Hour long special, maybe.

Movie? Not so much. It would've felt like a cheap gimmick to release it seperately. A ploy to make us buy more DVDs.

[Reply #286 on:]

Two stand-alone episodes would have been fine. There wasn't really much reason to put what could have been 2 big stories into one other than they might not have known when they did it there would be a Season 7. Probably too late to jettison a weaker Season 6 show as well.

[Reply #287 on:]

If done properly, Overclockwise would have made a brilliant 5th movie.

40-minute extended episode or two parter? Big yes. That would've been fantastic. The Fry/Leela plot and the Bender plot needed much more care and attention than they could be given in a 20-minute window, and allowing them to spread it out and build it would've been awesome (but please, no more courtroom shenanagins).

Hour long special, maybe.

Movie? Not so much. It would've felt like a cheap gimmick to release it seperately. A ploy to make us buy more DVDs.

Would it have worked?

I think I would have preferred an Overclockwise movie to the Bender's Big Game movie ...

[Reply #288 on:]

Two stand-alone episodes would have been fine. There wasn't really much reason to put what could have been 2 big stories into one other than they might not have known when they did it there would be a Season 7. Probably too late to jettison a weaker Season 6 show as well.

I liked having them together, it worked well in creating an epic feel in my opinion. That said, I would have liked it to have been a long, forty-minute finale. Or maybe, if done properly, two episodes with a week between ("to be continued!").

[Reply #289 on:]

   It has too many weaknesses to be truly 10/10 status in my view, but apparently I'm in the minority in my thinking.

Only just. 46% of us didn't give it 10 out of 10.

[Reply #290 on:]

I think I would have preferred an Overclockwise movie to the Bender's Big Game movie ...

First of all, do you mean 'Bender's Big Score' or 'Bender's Game'?

And if you mean 'Bender's Big Score', then shut up. Right now. It was the best movie out of the 4.

Movie? Not so much. It would've felt like a cheap gimmick to release it seperately. A ploy to make us buy more DVDs.

Meh, as long as it's Futurama I'll buy it.

[Reply #291 on:]

And if you mean 'Bender's Big Score', then shut up. Right now. It was the best movie out of the 4.

Incorrect. ITWGY was better. BBS suffered from too much bendercentricity and too much alien nudity to be objectively considered the best. Plus, the writing was somewhat clunkier compared to the smooth original-run feeling of the final movie. I could go on, but I'll spare you the longpost. This time.

[Reply #292 on:]

The build up and excitement to ITWGY was amazing, but I think I love BBS so much because as I've said before, it's what made me the huge Futurama fan I am today. Plus, it involves Applied Cryogenics.

[Reply #293 on:]

Another reason why it isn't the best then.

[Reply #294 on:]

I enjoy the callbacks to Applied Cryogenics and the night Fry got frozen.

[Reply #295 on:]

That wasn't my point.

[Reply #296 on:]

Then fuck you.

[Reply #297 on:]

Danny, you're welcome with your opinion, but quit being a jerk while delivering it.

[Reply #298 on:]

Danny, you're welcome with your opinion, but quit being a jerk while delivering it.

When was I a jerk? Oh so I get called a jerk for saying 'shut up' but tnuk can tell people to shut the fuck up and no one cares?

[Reply #299 on:]

Shut the fuck up, Danny. No-one cares.

[Reply #300 on:]

When was I a jerk?

This:

Then fuck you.

Oh so I get called a jerk for saying 'shut up'

When did anyone call you a jerk for saying that?

[Reply #301 on:]

Not only do I think that Bender's Big Score is easily the best movie of the 4, but I think that Into the Wild Green Yonder is easily the worst.

[Reply #302 on:]

I find it hard to rate the movies apart from putting Bender's Game firmly at the bottom. Anyways, that's not really for this thread. In regards to Overclockwise being a movie, no I don't think that would be a good idea. I could see the humour being spread too thinly and the whole thing dragging much like most of the movies often did. A two part episode though, yes maybe that would work. I don't know why the writers seem so against that idea. It seems like a perfect format to utilize sporadically given the shows concepts and themes allowing ambitious ideas to breathe...

[Reply #303 on:]

If done properly, Overclockwise would have made a brilliant 5th movie.

YES. That would've been awesome.

[Reply #304 on:]

Aki, I don't see how this:

Then fuck you.

is an opinion. Bend-err said that BBS was a bad movie because it was what got me liking Futurama. He was being a jerk. I defended myself.

Yeah, I'm a real jerk.

[Reply #305 on:]

And you drag every thread into off topic spam again.

[Reply #306 on:]

Well you started it. I was talking about BBS, then you said:

Another reason why it isn't the best then.

[Reply #307 on:]

And BBS is the same as Overclockwise, how?

[Reply #308 on:]

Maybe if you read the discussion and see how it progresses...

[Reply #309 on:]

I think I would have preferred an Overclockwise movie to the Bender's Big Game movie ...

First of all, do you mean 'Bender's Big Score' or 'Bender's Game'?

Yes.

Okay, really ... I meant Bender's Game, the D&D movie.

Movie? Not so much. It would've felt like a cheap gimmick to release it seperately. A ploy to make us buy more DVDs.

Meh, as long as it's Futurama I'll buy it.

That answers my question: Yes, you would have bought it.

Aki, I don't see how this:

Then fuck you.

is an opinion.

It isn't. It's a command.

[Reply #310 on:]

Rewatched this episode for the Random Order Test: I still love it a bunch. I actually think it's more effective when viewed apart from the rest of 6B, though I can't exactly explain why. Maybe it's because I can look at the Fry/Leela stuff with less annoyance about their on-again/off-again stuff throughout the season, and more genuine emotional investment in these two characters who I've always cared about. If that makes any sense...which it probably doesn't.

Anyway. The same stuff that didn't sit too well for me the first time (mainly Fry's offhanded desire to kill himself, which seems like a lame contrivance to me) still bugged me this time, but I don't know--I sat through most of the episode with a smile on my face, simply happy to be seeing the characters interacting in down-to-earth and endearing ways (chiefly Fry and Leela, but there are also some nice Farnsworth/Cubert interactions, and I really love Bender throughout). I also think this is the best use of Mom since the original run, and it was nice to see a lot of the peripheral characters getting some screen time.

And that ending is still so sweet and wonderful, so that's a plus.

10/10, yet again.

[Reply #311 on:]

I haven't watched this episode since it first aired, but I keep thinking of this and laughing:

Fry: [happy] I knew he cared about us!

Hermes: You said you knew he didn't care about us!

Fry: [sad] Leave me alone.

[Reply #312 on:]

Fry, buying a barrel to go over Niagra Falls...and bouncing back into the caves behind the Falls is classic..

Bender has the legacy of Tesla in him...(in a Computer/Electronic kind of way).

[Reply #313 on:]

Rewatched the final three minutes of this epsiode to see if I still loved them. I do. I get that they're sappy as hell, but I can't help myself.

[Reply #314 on:]

Re-watched this last night and to be honest this is one of the only eps I've ever seen which I liked less on repeat viewing. Perhaps it didn't help having watched Amazon Women in the Mood and Bird-bot of Ice-catraz only a couple of days before which I think are much better...

The relationship stuff made me cringe even more this time because I knew it was coming. Some of Leela's lines were awful and not natural at all. If anything I found those lines more out of character than what people are ragging on her for in being out of character in Möbius Dick. What about her character in Overclockwise? Is that perfectly fine and acceptable? Those lines along with her actions don't seem very natural for Leela, but somehow they can be totally forgiven can they?...

For me the episode wasn't even worth watching until after that boring World War videogame start. I don’t know about everyone else but I liked Futurama videogames when they actually went into the internet to play them, for example in A Bicyclops Built for Two. That was so much better than this boring videogame segment. A Bicyclops Built for Two actually made watching others play videogames fun! Not an easy task but it was amazing and totally Futurama style to me. Why couldn't they have gone back into the internet?...

Oh yeah, because then it wouldn't have set up the plot device properly, so we have to sacrifice the first couple of minutes of the ep with a boring segment of them playing a videogame on the couch in order to do that. Ok, how about we make it fun with an interesting videogame then? Nope, let's just have a boring cliché World War videogame. It’s ok though because there’s a joke in the title screen which makes it ok to pass off this lame un-futuristic tripe in which the whole theme is based on the past even though this show is about the freaking future!...

Retro nods in videogames are great, but this is a nod based on real past historic events, events which happened even in our past, which is not what I watch Futurama for! Once again they just forget about the history from the thousand years between now and the future and give us this lame videogame which could have been played by Bart and Milhouse in The Simpsons (not that it would have even been good on there either)...

So now we get that out of the way, the plot is set up, and it's quite a nice twist with Mom and her sons, but that's all trodden on shortly by the Leela relationship lines which sound like they’re taken from a bad fan-fiction. Where is the humanity? This doesn’t feel real, and as the Robot Devil pointed out; characters shouldn’t just announce how they feel! This makes me feel angry! There wasn’t even any built up, it was just hit straight out of nowhere which made it stick out even more. Simply terrible execution...

Once we move past that and get back to the Bender overcloking stuff things actually get interesting and feel a bit more like Futurama again. Cubert has some great one liners too. Unfortunately after Cubert and the Professor get arrested yet again things go downhill. Leela decides to leave just like that, which once more is so out of character and so nonchalantly written. It's like she just leaves on a whim and to hell with Fry, fuck all of the other past episodes, fuck that Planet Express is going out of business, fuck trying to save it, lets just go and think about our self here...

Nice one Leela, but of course we can forgive you for this apparent out of character moment even though we can't forgive your out of character moments in Möbius Dick which are actually integral to driving the plot in even though in Möbius Dick these out of character moments are driving a Sci-fi plot rather than dancing alongside it and never crossing its path. Instead it’s ok having nothing to do with Sci-fi events and just being shoehorned in like a bad soap opera for the mere convenience of creating the outcome the writers wanted to portray...

On a side note; another thing I don’t like is Nibbler talking to the rest of the Planet Express crew so casually. I much preferred Nibbler being the dumb cute alien to them, when really we the audience knew better. That was great, but now that dynamic is lost. Oh and let’s not forget that Nibbler who Leela apparently cares so much about, enough so that she’ll even go to the trouble of getting Fry take care of him in The Why of Fry is just left behind without a single thought...

Wasn’t Nibbler meant to be Leela’s beloved pet? I thought Leela was meant to love Nibbler in that special way a person loves their pet? Apparently not enough to give a flying fuck about when she just upped and left though. I guess it’s a little harder to portray now that Nibbler speaks to everyone though. What a stupid thing to do to that character, I wish they’d have never done that. Anyways, it’s not as if Fry and Nibbler are that important are they? Oh wait...

So what now? Oh yeah, Fry the main character of the show tries to commit suicide. Just great, we’ve just written Leela completely out of character and insured that she comes off as a heartless bitch, and now we decide to move onto Fry and write him out of character by having him try to commit suicide. Good plan! Having your main character in a show try to kill themselves is unforgivable, it simply shouldn’t happen if we’re meant to care about these characters and take them seriously. I mean it’s the most convenient way to drive the plot though, right? So the audience will buy it, right?...

It’s ok though because we’ll drop the most established conventional way to commit suicide in the future, that’s right, forget the Suicide Booth. The barrel thing will do the trick, which lets face it was pretty lame, but I guess Fry must have got bored of Suicide Booths or something? Maybe he had no money? It’s anyone’s guess… Oh no, that's right, it wouldn't have driven the plot had he gone to a Suicide Booth, so for convenience he had to go somewhere else in order for him to meet Bender again, so we'll just conveniently make him commit suicide there. More great writing guys...

Once he meets Bender again and we’re still trying to get that bad taste out of our mouths from the main character in the show having just attempted to kill himself, strangely then we have perhaps the highlight of the episode. In my mind the greatest scene and certainly one which is more than welcome after what had lead up to it. If only things could have been written better in the lead up to this accidental meeting...

A point worth noting is that once again this episodes highlight is Sci-fi based, so you have to wonder had they written the Fry/Leela plot points using Sci-fi elements then maybe things would have intertwined and flowed much better. Credit where credit is due though, the stuff inside Bender’s head was great and really helps save this episode from the slippery downward slope it was starting to roll down, in a barrel...

Then we have the overly long dragged out court scene. I was so pleased to see Judge Whitey again as I love his character, but then again he was ruined by his terribly off voice acting. It sounded so strained like a try-hard attempt to sound how he used to which failed miserably. His voice wasn’t the only strained and off sounding voice either though because something wasn’t quite right about Randy’s voice earlier on in the episode...

There were some good lines in the court, but overall it dragged on a bit too long for my liking. Bender coming back and being the court was great though, in fact everything Bender did after getting overclocked was brilliant and saved this episode big-time...

Speaking of the courtroom I noticed Vyolet in the panel, and this is something else which has bugged me since The Mutants Are Revolting happened. I don’t like how they changed the mutants/surface dwellers dynamic. It was always clool knowing that those mutants were always down there in the sewers, it almost added an extra layer to the shows depth. You didn’t even have to see them in most eps, you just knew they were down there like another civilisation underground adding to the rich tapestry of the Futurama universe. Now they’re just casually accepted on the surface, the dynamic has changed and that feeling is lost, and I don’t like it...

The court scenes finally draw to a close, so what next then? Ok, well Leela conveniently comes back again like a bird on its belly, nah she just walks in, no big deal, we’ll just buy it and accept it. A couple more badly written lines, a random apparent job which she did to fill the void and there we go, back to normal again...

Then they top the episode off with an over-the-top cutesy smushy ending with barf inducing cringe worthy facial expressions. At least Cold Warriors got it right when it came to adding a subtle touch of shippyness at the end. That was perfect in that respect, just a small nod to the Fry/Leela relationship dynamic, but nothing jarring or over the top. Oh yeah but somehow Overclockwise is somehow perfect despite the huge number or catastrophic flaws throughout...

It was pointed out to me by Inquisitor Hein that the shippy stuff in this episode didn’t have a Sci-fi twist unlike past episodes which often did. All shippyness was kept separate in this ep which could have been another one of the reasons it seemed more forced and disjointed. Each shippy moment should have had a Sci-fi twist in order to help set it up. Had Sci-fi moments occurred they may have helped justify the otherwise seemingly random and very out of character moments...

Then you have the fact they tried to cram too much into this episode, which again could have led to things feeling more forced and less natural, but when you look at the sheer amount of time wasted within this episode with the videogame at the beginning and the overly long dragged out court scene you have to start wondering if they could have executed this whole thing much better?...

If only they’d have spent their time more wisely and made a naturally more coherent flowing episode with Sci-fi elements which twist the plot points together, then it might have been memorable way for the right reasons. The shippyness should have been adding the human touch to Sci-fi elements, not just being shoehorned into the plot because it could have been the last canon ep they made and they just had to just get it in there...

Somehow all of these issues have been excused by so many, not even one point deducted for the many flaws within this episode. Instead a large percentage perfect tens which shocks me considering the amount of poor writing involved. I’m thinking I actually might have overrated this when I gave it a 7/10 ...

[Reply #315 on:]

Otis... Made a.... Long post...?!

Otis, what are your thoughts on the video game part taking the mick out of Kinect?

[Reply #316 on:]

...

In regards to your edit about the video game part taking the mick out of Kinect, not funny. Kinect is a thousand years old...

[Reply #317 on:]

Danny read a long post?

And I don't know, Otis. I agree with some of your points (particularly regarding Fry trying to kill himself), but some of your gripes seem along the lines of "This isn't old Futurama, so therefore it is bad." I understand why you disliked the episode, but I think picking on things like the mutants now living on the surface and the writers introducing a new way to play video games is kind of futile. Futurama, like most TV shows, is bound to progress over time. New technologies come along; story arcs take turns or are otherwise resolved.

And I'm not arguing with you as far as the Fry/Leela stuff goes: it's a little melodramatic and a little soapy, and I get that that's not everybody's cup of tea. But I don't think Leela was being bitchy (I think we discussed this earlier in the thread), and I don't fault her for leaving Fry in the middle of the episode. It's abrupt from a storytelling point of view, perhaps, but I can totally understand where Leela is coming from as a character. So that makes it okay for me. Then again, I have low standards...

[Reply #318 on:]

Otis, I think you raise some good points. I strongly agree with you that Leela leaving Nibbler like that, rather dismissively, was very out of character. Most notably was that it was his remark "Nibbler on the Roof" that gave her the "kick in the pants" she needed to start her new life.

Also, I think someone mentioned here on this thread how Leela kissed Fry on the forehead like he was her brother, not her lover/boyfriend. Yeah, that part really sucked for me. I mean, as the ending showed, she was missing him, so why couldn't we have some tongue action! Or something more sensual than a peck on the forehead, as would be exchanged between a girlfriend and boyfriend, even if one was breaking up with the other?

I have to repeat what I've already said earlier when I first reviewed this episode: Leela's decision to leave did not make her unsympathetic to me. Perhaps because I'm a woman in her late 30's, who knows what it's like to be in a relationship that's going nowhere, and knows what it's like to feel like there's something better out there. I could totally relate, even though I think the manner in which she left could have been handled better.

Maybe because I've re-watched this episode too many times in a short amount of time, but it hasn't grown on me each time. So, I might be re-thinking my original rating, but I still really like it.

[Reply #319 on:]

I'm a bit late for the random order test but here it is. This is the first time I wathed this episode by the way..
 
I loved how Cubert was used in the beginning of the episode he was smart and not annoying however I did start to hate him a bit more if the prison plot lasted any longer I would hate this episode so much! But well done to Ken Keeler  for evening all the plots together really well.

I loved how they dealt with the Fry Leela relationship and I was crying when she left Fry because of the music, Billy West and of course Katey Sagal's acting .The joke at the end was just superb with Bender turning the page at a sour note. It's nice to see a cartoon actually make expressions into words in-staid of one person turning to another going "So it does work out."

I felt like the Bender plot needed a bit more stuff in it but it was pretty good.(Yes I have nothing else to say)

 
And again like most TV shows these days I felt like the episode didn't get enough screen time to make this episode 10/10 it had good jokes and as always great acting.

7.5/10

Wow this is the biggest reveiw I ever wrote!