|
|
Details Futurama (Season One) (R2)
4 Hours 48 Minutes
|
|
|
|
Details Futurama (Season One) (R2)
4 Hours 48 Minutes
|
|
|
Cast | |
| Billy West | Philip J. Fry, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Doctor Zoidberg and Captain Zapp Brannigan |
| John Di Maggio | Bender Bending Rodriguez |
| Katey Sagal | Captain Taronga Leela |
| Lauren Tom | Amy Wong |
| Phil LaMarr | Hermes Conrad |
| Maurice LaMarche | Kif Kroker |
| James Arnold Taylor | Walla |
|
Synopsis |
|
Fry is a pizza delivery boy who gets frozen for 1,000 years, awaking in the year 3,000 to a strange new world.
|
| Fry is not the happiest of people. He hates his job as a pizza delivery boy and he's just been stood up by his girlfriend on new years eve. His boss asks him to do one more delivery before going home so off he pedals on his bicycle with a pizza for 'I C Weiner'. With yet another fake delivery he breaks open a beer and helps himself to some pizza, unfortunately at the moment the year 2000 arrives he falls off his chair and into a cryogenic freezer. |
| Awaking 1,000 later the world has changed a great deal. His family, his girlfriend and friends are all gone. He couldn't be..... happier. He is welcomed to the future and sent to meet his job assignment officer, Leela a one eyed alien, and he is far from happy with his assigned job - a delivery boy. He also learns that he still has a relative, an extremely old Professor Farmsworth, who runs an intergalactic delivery business in between inventing rather bizarre items which serve no purpose what-so-ever. |
| With his pizza delivery bicycle replaced by a spaceship, an alcoholic robot as a best friend and a hot one-eyed chick to crave after, the 31st century is going to be a great place to be. So begins Fry's journey around the universe delivering parcels (eventually) to all manner of strange planets and alien races. If only the earth wasn't full of such clumsy and eccentric people it would be Eden! |
| Since the series was written the same Matt Groening who created the Simpsons this review is bound to make references to his previous creations, and this is the first of many. Rather than spending a few episodes slowly introducing the cast we are quickly thrown into the storyline and introduced to the wonderful new characters that make up this wacky series. |
|
Season One Episode Guide |
||
|
| Unlike the first season of the Simpsons, Futurama had a big enough budget for a decent set of animations from the off. This also means that the quality of the print is far superior to that of the Simpsons and it really shines through on the DVD. The colours are rich and images well defined with not a hint of colour bleeding, artifacting or outlining. This is really animation at its best. |
|
Unfortunately, the sound quality is a bit of a let down. Although the programme was originally created for television broadcasts the producers of the series could have done a bit of forward thinking and provided a decent Dolby Digital soundtrack. Never the less, what we have here is reasonable enough with clear and precise dialogue with the annoyingly jingly musical score well presented. |
|
Season One Sleeve Artwork |
||
  
|
|
The extras are a bit of a mixed bag. Although the audio commentaries on each episode are interesting enough they can only be selected from the special features menu. This becomes a little annoying when you can't switch between the main soundtrack and the commentary by pressing the 'Audio' button. Again, the storyboard is interesting but the text is so small it is virtually unreadable and thus pretty much useless. The extras span over the three discs with a brief featurette on the making of the series on the third disc. |
| Another annoying 'feature' are the galleries. You are told that you can use the 'forward' and 'reverse' keys to view the gallery. However, pressing the reverse button failed to do anything and the only way to revisit an image was to go from the menu again. I don't know whether this is just a problem with my player or a bug in the navigation system. |
| As with the Twentieth Century Fox's Simpsons and X-Files the box-set artwork is excellent. Rather than using the foldout paper cases that have a tendency to fall apart after a few viewings, the discs are presented in their own plastic cases. Although the outer casing is still paper with a plastic over sleeve that will no doubt fall apart, mine is already showing suspicious signs of falling apart and I've only had it a little over 24 hours. The plastic sleeve is a very bad idea and I hope Fox don't use it again with their other box-set titles. |
|
Whilst the later episodes of the Simpsons have become extremely stale with the writers looking like they've run out of ideas, Futurama is a like a breathe of fresh air. The writers could have just rehashed the jokes from the Simpsons but they are all new and extremely funny, so much so that I rate it even higher than the Simpsons. Don't get me wrong, the Simpsons was good, but it has had its day. The only downside to this wonderful set is the rather haphazard layout of the menus. It all looks a little rushed. |
|
Things get even better for this box-set when you realise that good old blighty has it on DVD before the Americans. And if you don't like this fact then you can bite my shiny metal ass (Sorry, this review wouldn't be complete without a classic line from Bender). Yay for us! Futurama is the new king, long may it continue. |
| Extras - Disc One |
|
| Extras - Disc Two |
|
| Extras - Disc Three |
|
| Reviewed by: Simon |
DD |
 |
