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| TV,
Richard Young,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F5
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It's got a long way to go before it beats The Simpson's reign of nearly 10 years, but four weeks in and Sky One's latest animated acquisition Futurama is shaping up very nicely indeed thankyou Mr. Groening. Our Matt's representation of the perfect dysfunctional American family is one mighty comedy yardstick for sure, but started life as a barely funny little cartoon with ropey animation and under-developed characters. By contrast, Futurama's first steps are slick and well executed with good scripts and fantastic animation. Obviously budget constraints are less of a problem this time round, although one hopes the desire to impress visually won't detract from substance MR. LUCAS.
Sky-One's scheduling of placing it next to the hilarious Family Guy, has meant these first few episodes haven't seemed as full-on funny as they could have been. This weeks outing however, delivers big time. Deviant robot Bender is nominated to deliver a package to a planet inhabited entirely by human-hating robots. He is kidnapped, so hapless hero Fry and crewmate Leela disguise themselves with tin cans and eggboxes in order to rescue him. Cue many "them and us" robot gags and nerdy computer in-jokes, including a computerised high court judge (looking distinctly like an old Mac Classic), who crashes while passing sentence, and a drive-in movie theatre showing a film where a young robot couple are alone in the woods being terrorised by a "human" who is obviously just a robot wearing a scary flesh mask.
To take The Simpsons' style of humour and blast it into a universe where literally anything can happen bodes well for Futurama's longevity. Here's to another ten years of fun.
Sky One Thursday 22.00 BST
Fox Sunday 20.00 ET/PT
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