Rent Futurama: Series 8 (2013)

Futurama: Series 8 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The final thirteen episodes of Futurama are clearly waning in cunning concepts for episodes but I must admit the show ends on a rather positive note. After the previous two series, I was delightfully surprised to discover that the majority of these episodes are actually rather good. There’s a handful of decent episodes but also a small number of some of the must-watch best episodes of the series by far.

There’s also plenty of uniquely clever episodes in terms of playing with sci-fi elements. "2-D Blacktop" features Farnsworth becoming a street racer and inadvertently slamming his crew into the flattened second dimension. "Forty Percent Leadbelly" has some fun with 3-D printers while also ribbing some Star Trek plots. "Calculon 2.0" also has some decent continuity for continuing on with a killed-off character. However, there are mainly three episodes of this season that stand out the best.

First, we have another anthology episode but this is probably my favorite of the series considering the highly specific target. In "Saturday Morning Fun Pit", Richard Nixon attempts to enjoy Saturday morning cartoon but finds that parent groups complain too much about the content. It’s a decent framework for the parodies of Scooby Doo, Strawberry Shortcake, and GI Joe. Each segment has its own charm of insightful satire; Bendy Boo perfectly replicates the cheap and duplicated animation, Purpleberries highlights the blatant commercialism in 1980s cartoons, and GI Zapp is a hilarious homage to how the GI Joe movie edited out the death of Duke (“Oh no, he’s d-[SLEEPING]”).

Second, there’s the episode "Game of Tones", which starts as little more than a parody of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then becomes something far more heartfelt. A mysterious series of tones threatens Earth and the planet struggles to find a way to communicate. Fry believes he may have heard such a tone in the past and in order to find it again, Fry is hooked up to technology that will allow him to relive his past through dreams. While in the dream, however, Fry finds himself connecting so well with his mother that he doesn’t want to leave and recreate the event that sent him into the future. Having helped out Earth, however, Nibbler finds a way to grant Fry the chance to interact with his mother’s dreams in the past, giving him a chance to say everything he wanted to before he left. It’s such a tender ending that it rivals even “Jurassic Bark”.

Finally, there’s the last episode of the entire series, "Meanwhile". In this episode, Fry finds himself wanting to make his relationship with Leela more complete and finds that Farnsworth’s 10-second time machine is a great way to improve his chances and also avert any major injuries. However, Fry misuses the device and a series of gory accidents lead to Fry and Leela trapping themselves in a frozen point of time. They use this time to spend the rest of their lives together, exploring the world all by themselves. Though the episode wraps up in a way where more seasons could continue, it’s a very pleasing way to end the series in a way that is both meaningful and touching.

Honestly, these three episodes make the set worth it. There are a lot of ho-hum retread episodes present of Bender once more becoming a folk singer and an E.T. parody. But some of these episodes contain the hallmarks of what made Futurama so great in the first place and why fans kept coming back to the show, demanding its revival.