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Svip
Administrator
DOOP Secretary
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There are two kinds of confusing. Necessary confusing and unnecessary confusing. This was necessary confusing and worked great for this episode.
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DannyJC13
DOOP Secretary
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When the Professor is scanning Fry, Amy and Hermes' lifeless bodies, he uses the same device from 'The Late Philip J. Fry' that detects if there is any life in the Universe.
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Dorsal Axe
Bending Unit
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« Reply #47 on: 07-05-2012 23:05 »
« Last Edit on: 07-05-2012 23:30 »
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This is a weird episode. I kinda liked how Fry, Amy and Hermes weren't really part of the episode, since it left us with a rather interesting grouping of the Professor, Leela, Bender and Zoidberg.
Calculon dying was a strange, strange scene. It kept cutting back to him, as if to reinforce "Yes, he's actually dead", and there was no real payoff at the end. I'm guessing it's the start of his larger story arc this season.
I liked the episode, although it seemed to have less gags than usual. I think it's one that merits repeat viewing to truly get my head around it.
Also, is it me or did Hermes' voice seem really off this episode?
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DannyJC13
DOOP Secretary
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Maybe he was getting an ego boner.
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Inquisitor Hein
Liquid Emperor
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(Just took a quick glance at the last scene).
Looking at his own photo might have caused some kind of "feedback".
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cyber_turnip
Urban Legend
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Well, it's by far and away my favourite of season 7 so far, but that speaks volumes about how badly season 7 is fairing in my opinion.
The episode worked on a humour level. It had some nice basic sci-fi comedy concepts floating around in the first act and some great gags here and there but the story was just half-baked. I sort of knew what they were to trying to get at, but so much of it didn't really work. I think Spacey hit the nail on the head when she said it felt like a 1st draft.
I mean, the life-force was handled like magic instead of science, which annoyed me, even if they did sort of lampshade it. And the plot wasn't the strongest in the world.
That said, the plot has the best ending so far this season (which is only because the last 3 endings have been so poor). I'm really worried about this season as all 4 episodes, so far, have been quite weak in my opinion. And the next 2 weeks' episodes look like they're going to be poor, too. But pretty much every episode from then on sounds like classic-material, so hopefully this is just the shakey front-of-the-season like season 6 had and soon we'll be waltzing around in "The Late Philip J. Fry"s.
5/10 by Futurama's standards, 8/10 by overall TV standards.
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SuperiorKnowledge
Delivery Boy
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I loved that little, like, hand-holding moment the two of them had when they were so moved by Calculon's performance--and their immediate self-disgust; that was the only moment during this episode where I laughed out loud (which probably says more about my tastes than it does about the quality of the jokes, but whatever). I also loved that moment because I've been a shipper of that for a long time. I had a huge fangirl moment over that. XD I thought this episode was really good. I would have to agree that the third act was rushed all though I still thought it was good. I also thought this episode had some pretty good lines. My favorite being this exchange: Leela: Like the noble buffalo. Farnsworth: It's nothing like a buffalo! I'm not sure why but that line had me in hysterics. I didn't really mind the pop culture references because they were pretty mellow and didn't get out of hand like in AOTKA. I loved Calculon's performance. I've seen that monologue preformed a fair amount of times before but this is the first time it made me tear up. All in all, I thought this episode was really good. 9/10
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Spacedal11
Space Pope
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Gorky is right, Bender's and Zoidberg's reaction to the co-workers being deflated made sense, based on both's inhumanity or lack of understanding of it. At least Farnsworth was worried, and appropriately.
'Killing them off' allowed the writers to put a more unusual array of main characters together to solve the issue. It did not bother me in the slightest. I looked over the popular culture references, because it was a short montage and it lead us appropriately to the important aspect of the plot. So yeah, a weak act 2, but other than that, decent episode.
And yeah, I liked the science-fiction aspect of the episode. And above all, the plot was appropriately silly.
Also, while I agree with futurefreak's issue about 'the concept of being dead' to mean something, I do accept it for the purpose of this episode, because there was a solution to this problem. They had not died naturally, so to speak. And there was a way to save them.
I agree with everything you've said here. It is kind of odd how Leela wasn't upset that any of them got deflated (Fry especially) but it didn't bother me. I don't know the flow of the episode worked and they weren't technically dead. As for the growing disdain of mutilating the characters, for me it has worked so far in Futurama. Tip of the Zoidberg, I thought it was funny, because this isn't a gory show and as a horror fan I guess I do find gore to be funny. Farewell to Arms was a bizarrely sweet ending, but I can also understand that the different gravities would have ripped off Fry and Leela's arms, so again didn't bother me. Family Guy loves to go straight to gorey violence to replace humor (American Dad too but it works better there) and that can get incredibly annoying fast. I personally haven't found fault with it in Futurama. They might do something that I do get annoyed with. I understand too that the violence as a humor idea ruins the reality and makes things less dramatic. But Classic Futurama used violence in the past for jokes and that didn't seem to bother anyone. They can still have something violent happen and have it be serious (like Calculon's death) but also do something else violent and have it be funny. Also I loved Calculon's Romeo and Juliet monologue, it was beautifully done. And I giggled at the Will.I.am Shakespeare joke. And once again the ending is rushed, that has been a problem since last season. The consistently abrupt endings. That is getting annoying, but I still say this episode to me was like Classic Futurama and I liked it a lot. I hope Langdon returns.
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HandsomeInvader
Crustacean
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Dan Vebber is back as Co-Executive Producer. Of course, he penned this [first draft of an] episode, so I don't know if it's coincidence, or if he was absent from the first three episodes of this season for another reason.
Anyway, bring on "Calculon 2.0"! -- I will be interested to see if there are references to his passing before next season.
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koldstare64
Delivery Boy
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I didn't like this episode as much as the first 3. It had something... off. While the plot was relatively original, it didn't make much sense. Many random facts, odd explanations, strange exploding fungus...
There was one joke in particular that irked me, where Leela said, "Just like stomping puppies!" She'd never say that. Nibbler? All those animal books she reads? It'd be one thing if she said owls - because they're pests in the future - but puppies? That's just lazy.
In my opinion, the writers need to spend more time making sure one liners like those actually stay in character of the person who says it.
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Svip
Administrator
DOOP Secretary
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Was there any explanation for why the egofungus exploded? That thing is supposed to be able to absorb an entire world worth of life force.
I thought it was obvious, since it was looking at the picture.
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transgender nerd under canada
DOOP Ubersecretary
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Was there any explanation for why the egofungus exploded? That thing is supposed to be able to absorb an entire world worth of life force.
Positive feedback loop. It was unable to absorb an infinite amount of attention and life-force, therefore went kablooie.
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