I Should Like
Futurama
Why should I like it?
A fish-out-of-water sci-fi comedy, it's basically The Simpsons meets The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a combination of my two favourite humour franchises of the twentieth century.
Why don't I like it?
It's really just too goofy. While the Simpsons and the Hitchhiker's Guide usually had a societal commentary just beneath their surreal surfaces, Futurama always comes across as just a bunch of silliness. There's nothing wrong with that (hello, Family Guy) but it's just not what you would expect given its pedigree and following. And although I know it is a favourite of the geek community, it always seems like it's more broadly focussed. It's less a clever spoof of sci-fi than a broad spoof of what normal people think sci-fi consists of.
And then there's Fry. I've never really liked the dumb-protagonist kind of comedy, but it particularly doesn't work when you have a silly guy in a silly world; Fry seems more at home in the future than he does in his home time. But speaking of silliness, it's always interesting how many characters in the Simpsons aren't that funny (quick, think of a funny line from Marge.) That show seems to understand the value of The Straight Man. In Futurama, all the characters act as clowns, with no one to bounce off of.
You think you know a guy ....
ReplyDeleteMy biggest complaint with the show was it's over-reliance on heads in jars, that for some reason the future was obsessed with celebrities from 1000 years ago. And I can only overlook the constant Al Gore appearances because a) they were almost always funny and b) Tristan Gore was hot.
The biggest reason I watch (besides having at least one laugh-out-loud moment every episode) is that I went to high school with one of the directors, and I have to support my Hollywood connections in case I ever write a screenplay.