Thursday, August 18, 2016

Review: "The Cyber House Rules" (Season 3, Episode 9)

 
"You're better than normal. You're abnormal! If you ask me, you shouldn't care about what other people think!" "You're right. I'll start by not caring what you think!" - Fry and Leela, defying the Star Trek dynamic of "captain going to first officer for advice."
Airdate: April 1st, 2001

Written By: Lewis Morton

Plot: The Orphanarium is having a reunion of a class of it's former... orphans. Leela, having had a less than pleasant experience there, but goes - Fry encourages her to rub her success in. It doesn't work too well. There, however, she encounters Dr. Adlai Atkins, a plastic surgeon who offers to give her a prosthetic eye. Despite Fry's objections, Leela agrees to the surgery, and strikes up a romance with the doctor.

Meanwhile, Bender finds out from the operator of the Orphanarium that the government offers $100 a month for every orphan adopted. Bender decides to clear house to make a solid $1200 a month. Unfortunately, he has to actually raise the children, which is a fairly costly measure.

Review

You ever go into something thinking that it is going to be a bunch of subpar, mediocre, or downright bad, then you watch it, and it's actually pretty good? Well, that's pretty much my thought process when I began to review "The Cyber House Rules". It's not an episode I watch that often, so I was focusing on the "Be Yourself" trope - a trope that is "tried and true", to put it kindly. What I instead got was a pretty hilarious take on that message, and also an episode that focused on everybody's favorite starship captain...

...Leela.

(Sorry, Zapper.)

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Review: "That's Lobstertainment" (Season 3, Episode 8)


"I've only been here a day, and already, I'm a Hollywood phony!" - Zoidberg. Ah, the power of Los Angeles
Airdate: February 25th, 2001

Written By: Patric M. Verrone.

Plot: Booed off of the stage at a comedy club, Zoidberg is depressed. Apparently, his uncle used to be a comic legend back in the days of "silent holofilms". He writes to one Harold Zoid to get some tips for the trade. Unfortunately, Harold Zoid is destitute, a has-been. He promises to help Zoidberg become a centerpiece of drama if Zoidberg can fund his drama project, The Magnificent Three. With that, Bender goes over to Calculon, and in exchange for a small investment, guarantees him an Oscar for his performance.

It goes poorly.

Review:

Well, shortly after watching one of Futurama's best episodes, we get a look at what many consider one of the original run's weakest episodes. Netting a 61% on GotFuturama.com, the only "original" episodes cited as worse are "The Cryonic Woman" (which I've already mentioned I dislike) and "A Leela Of Her Own" (which I'll get to later.) The question here is, does "That Lobstertainment" deserve it's bad reputation? Or is it a diamond in the rough?

Monday, August 8, 2016

Morbotron Debuts, and Suddenly, You Have Time To Waste!

Source is this post's topic of discussion.
"Good news, everyone! Several years ago, I tried to log onto AOL, and it just went through! Yippee!" - Farnsworth, "A Bicyclops Built For Two".
Who knew when Futurama premiered that there would be a website dedicated entirely to Futurama framegrabs?

Well, now, there is one.

From the makers of Simpsons framegrab repository frinkiac.com comes morbotron.com. Available? All seven seasons, including the movies. From the worst of Futurama to the best of Futurama, they have it all. You can even .gif and meme the show, damn it!

(Unfortunately, there's something about the Blogger interface that makes .gifs come off a bit, well, unfinished.)

And for those interested, here are the technical details about it's sister site.

Enjoy, fellow Meatbags!

(Oh, and on an unrelated note, my "That's Lobstertainment" review should be up within the next week or so.)