The Future Just Keeps Getting Better! (Futurama - Season 2 (DVD))

Member Name: angeelu

Product:	Futurama - Season 2 (DVD)
Date:	20/10/04 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny if you enjoy a sarcastic sense of humour, Plenty of episodes within the boxset, Can watch over again

Disadvantages: Quite expensive, Can't get the DVD to play all episodes consecutively without having to go back to the menu, Special features not the type of thing you'll watch over again

For those less familiar with the series, Futurama is a cartoon set in the future. Created by Matt Groening (the creator of The Simpsons), Futurama centres around the fact that one particular character, Philip J Fry (notice the same middle 'name' as Homer?) was accidentally cryogenically frozen on New Year's Eve 1999 when he fell into the freezing unit whilst delivering a pizza. He was awoken 1000 years later in New New York City to find that many things had changed in the last 1000 years. He now works for Planet Express, again as a delivery boy, which just happens to be owned by his great-great-great...great-great nephew, generally referred to as 'Professor' though his name is Hubert J Farnsworth. His best friend is an alcoholic robot called Bender who also works for the company, and his other co-workers include Leela (human looking but with only one large eye, her species is unknown - Fry has a crush on Leela), Dr Zoidberg (a Decopodian, he's lobster coloured with claws for hands, and an indesribable looking mouth! He's also a (very incompetent) physician), Amy (a human, though her nationality is Martian), and Hermes (a Jamaican man who helps with the running of Planet Express).

There are other regular characters that pop up within the series, but to mention them all would turn into a review of Futurama in general rather than the Series 2 boxset.

The Series 2 Boxset
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Now the scene has been set you're probably wanting to know whether this boxset is actually any good?

Boxset packaging
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The boxset consists of 4 DVD's, 3 of which have 5 episodes on, and the fourth which has 4 episodes on, giving all 19 episodes from Series 2 in total. The discs are packaged in regular DVD boxes and each box has different artwork on its cover. The front covers of each box, when positioned in a row alongside each other create one long picture! Similarly, when the boxes are all positioned upright alongside each other the artwork on the spines of the DVD boxes also create a picture. Not particularly a reason for you to rush out and buy them, but still, a nice feature. The four DVD's are packaged inside a cardboard casing, which is like a box with one of the sides taken out. Again, there's artwork all over this box. The boxset packaging is then finished off with a plastic sleve that fits over the box - this sleeve's artwork has a clear panel in the centre that looks like a window, so when positioned over the cardboard box it seems as though the artwork on the boxset is the scene outside the window.

Top marks for the interesting packaging!

Navigation
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Each disc in the box set starts with a short cartoon scene that takes you to a home menu where you can select which episode on the disc you'd like to watch. Once you've selected your episode you're taken to a new menu screen which this time gives you the options to either play the episode, change the language, select a scene, see the special features or go back to the home menu.

The navigation is easy, however I would like to see the addition of an option on the home menu just to play through all the episodes. As it is, if you select the first episode and play it, at the end of that episode you're taken back to the menu screen for that episode. You then have to go back to the home menu and select the next episode to watch. Not a big deal really, but when you're in the mood to watch the whole DVD it can get annoying that you have to navigate to each episode in turn.

The Episodes
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(If you're not really interested in a brief breakdown of each episode you should perhaps skim over this part).

Disc One:
1. I Second That Emotion - Bender flushes Leela's pet Nibbler down the toilet resulting in a perilous journey through a mutant infested sewer system to save him.
2. Brannigan, Begin Again - Zapp Brannigan joins the Planet Express crew and inspires Fry and Bender to mutiny against Leela.
3. A Head In The Polls - The price of titanium sky-rockets, so Bender hocks his body and lives the good life, until Richard Nixon's head uses Bender's body to stage a political comeback.
4. Xmas Story - A murderous robotic Santa targets Fry and Leela.
5. Why Must I Be a Crustacean In Love? - Dr Zoidberg runs amok during his peoples mating season.

Disc Two:
6. The Lesser of Two Evils - Bender's double joins the crew on a mission to deliver a valuable tiara to the Miss Universe pageant.
7. Put Your Head on My Shoulders - Fry's head is surgically attached to Amy's body, causing a bit of a nightmare on Valentine's day!
8. Raging Bender - Bender's popularity soars when he becomes a pro-wrestler, but he's not prepared to purposely lose a fight when he's asked.
9. A Bicyclops Built For Two - Leela finally finds another member of her own species, but he's a complete jerk - should she fall for him and continue her species or leave him knowing her species will probably die out?
10. A Clone of My Own - The Professor creates a clone to become his successor.

Disc Three:
11. How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back - Hermes grows dispondent when he misses an opportunity for promotion.
12. The Deep South - The crew discover the lost city of Atlanta where Fry falls for a mermaid.
13. Bender Gets Made - Bender joins the Robot Mafia.
14. Mother's Day - Mom unleashes a hoard of robots to destroy earth, and only the Professor can stop them.
15. The Problem With Popplers - Powerful alien beings threaten to destroy the Planet Express crew after they mistake their offspring for tasty snacks.

Disc Four:
16. Anthology of Interest I - The Professor's 'What If' machine simulates Bender, Leela and Fry's wishes.
17. War is the H-Word - Fry and Bender join the Earth Army and end up facing off against an army of aliens.
18. The Honking - Bender inherits a spooky castle from an uncle but finds himself being pursued by a terrifying driverless car.
19. The Cryonic Woman - Fry's ex-girlfriend from 1999 unthaws in the year 3000 but when she doesn't fit in, Fry and her journey another 1000 years into the future.

The Extras
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Each of the DVD's contains extras in the Special Features section of each disc. Extras include:

Audio Commentary ~ on each disc, which you select through the language selection - these show the episode but with commentary by the people responsible for the episode, these are quite interesting as they give you information about how the episode was developed and what it was based on, as well as some of their critiques of the episodes and additional info. You'll probably only watch these once, if at all, unless you're in an anorak mood!

Animatics ~ on Disc one - these are scenes of the cartoon that are still in rough format - the animation uses the sketches prepared before each animation cell is coloured and finished off - these are fairly interesting to see, but not the kind of thing you'll watch more than once unless you're really into that kind of thing.

Deleted scenes ~ a differing number of these appear on each disc - these only tend to be a few seconds long, but a quite good to view once you've seen the episode they relate to.

Storyboards ~ on disc two - have a look at the actual storyboard for one of the episodes on the disc. This is really interesting to see how the cartoon is formed, and if you're into animation you'll probably end up taking quite a close look at this. If you're not into animation, you're bound to have a peek at this once.

Still Gallery ~ on disc four - just pictures really, these are sketches of characters and objects in the episodes. They're good to have a look at if you're into sketching / animation / drawing your own characters, but otherwise you'll not really be all that interested.

Alien Alphaet ~ on disc four - I'm maybe missing something here. It's just a picture of a futuristic looking laptop with the alien alphabet on it. Perhaps useful if you happen to need to write a letter to an alien?

Although not mentioned within the boxset there is an Easter Egg, although it's nothing all that special (an Easter Egg is a hidden feature on a DVD). On each DVD you can access a High School photo of one of the creators of Futurama - each is accessible from a particular episode within the disc. If you want more info go to http://www.tv-timewarp.co.uk/dvd_easter_eggs/Futur amaS2R2.htm

The Verdict
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Chances are you'll only buy this if you're a fan of Futurama, however even if you've only ever seen a couple of episodes and don't really consider yourself the kind of fan that would go out and buy a whole box set of episodes I'd still really recommend it to you. In my opinion, this box set is an improvement on the first boxset (of the first series) as the first series mainly concentrated on introducing and developing the characters. I think that this series is funnier than the first, and the episodes are ones which you can watch over again (whereas watching say, episode one, where you see Fry getting frozen and reawakening in the future, loses its appeal when you've seen it a few times).

The humour within Futurama is fairly sarcastic and although there are plenty of kids who undoubtedly like it I think much of the humour is aimed at a more adult audience. Futurama is often compared to The Simpsons, for obvious reasons, but I'd consider Futurama to be more 'grown up'.

The Season 2 Boxset is available from Amazon for £32.79 (rrp £39.99), which I would consider to be quite expensive. You can pick it up at bargain price from Ebay, or look out for it when HMV have one of their sales on as it's often much cheaper then.

Definitely worth buying if:
* You're a fan of Futurama
* You've seen any of the episodes of Futurama and enjoyed them
* You like cartoons with a more adult sense of humour

One to avoid if:
* You don't like Futurama
* You don't like cartoons
* You don't have a sarcastic sense of humour!

In my opinion, wothy of 5 stars *****

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