Phillip Fry
(Billy West) is a 25-year-old pizza delivery boy whose life is going nowhere.
When he accidentally freezes himself on December 31, 1999, he
wakes up 1,000 years in the future and has a chance to make a
fresh start. He goes to work for the Planet Express Corporation,
a futuristic delivery service that transports packages to all
five quadrants of the universe. His companions include the
delivery ship's captain, Leela (Katey Sagal), a beautiful one-eyed female
alien who kicks some serious butt, and Bender (John DiMaggio), a
robot with very human flaws. Thanks to
IMDB.
CRITIQUE
Futurama is a really funny show, and if you haven't yet watched
some of it then it's time for you to go out and do so.
This fourth and
last set of Futurama features 18 episodes, and most of them are
solid. The scripts are well written and
focus on the various characters by telling funny and imaginative
stories, and it’s no news
that the animation looks excellent. There are maybe two or three weak
episodes, but they don't distract from the overall enjoyment of this
set. The voice actors perform at the top of the game, for example John
DiMaggio lends his voice to Bender and changes the pitch
of his voice in the episode Bend Her because Bender undergoes a
sex change in order to succeed at the Robot Olympics’ bending
competition.
Disc 1: Kif Gets
Knocked Up a Notch; Leela's Homeworld; Love and Rocket; Less Than
Hero; A Taste of Freedom
Disc 2: Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV; Jurassic Bark;
Crimes of the Hot; Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles; The Why of Fry
Disc 3: Where No Fan Has Gone Before; The Sting; Bend Her;
Obsoletely Fabulous
Disc 4: The Farnsworth Parabox; Three Hundred Big Boys; Spanish
Fry; The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
THE VIDEO
Fox presents Futurama in its original 1.33:1 fullscreen format.
Colors are bright and well-saturated, very good quality. Detail looks good and
sharpness is fine. The animation looks very nice, and there are
less errors with the video as from the previous sets; granted,
they're very minor. Overall, this presentation looks pretty good.
THE AUDIO
Fox presents Futurama in English
Dolby Stereo and
Spanish, as well as
English and Spanish subtitles. All dialogue is clear and easy to
understand. The front channels do all of the work basically, but
positional audio and channel separation give the presentation a
little boost. Sound effects sound loud and clear, as does the
show's music. There is nothing to complain about really, so
therefore this is an overall very nice audio presentation.
THE EXTRAS
There is audio commentary on all
18 episodes. The main
participants are creator/producer Matt Groening and producer
David X. Cohen. Other participants vary from episode to episode
and include assorted directors, writers, and artists, as well as
voice actors Billy West and John DiMaggio. The commentaries for
this set are a little more lively and funnier than the previous
ones, because the participants make the effort, and the first
track acknowledges that. There's some good jokes, inside
information, and so on.
Next are
deleted scenes for many of the 18 episodes. A lot of them
are pretty short, but they're fun to watch. It's certainly good
to have them, and too see what was cut.
The extras are
spread across all four discs, and they include foreign
language clips (Love and a Rocket in four languages),
storyboards (Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch), an
animatic,
eleven 3D models (check out the rendering of the 3D
animation from rough draft to final form), drawing lessons
(how to draw the Professor and Bender), character pencil
tests (for five characters), and a stills gallery.
The DVD’s menus are interactive with music and
newly-recorded dialogue, plus each disc has a different (and
amusing) menu design. Each
episode gets its own menu, and the special features can only be
accessed through one of these menus and not directly from the
main menu. Each episode runs approximately 22 minutes
and
is organized into five chapters.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Fans
should definitely complete their Futurama collection with this
set. The majority episodes are consistently funny, and the
commentaries are surprisingly good, and therefore it comes highly
recommended
