Futurama – Volume 8: Blu-ray Review
Pizza boy Philip J. Fry is accidentally cryogenically frozen and awakens 1,000 years later in the 31st century. With no way back, he lands a job at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery service, and tries to make sense of his new life with his co-worker friends: his 160-year old boss; a beautiful, Cyclopian mutant; a human-sized crustacean; a Rastafarian bureaucrat; a rich, spoiled intern and an alcoholic, sociopathic robot.
In this final volume of one of the most beloved geek cartoons ever we are given 13 episodes to close out one of the funniest animated shows ever. With a running time of almost 5 hours there are plenty of laughs to be had and idiocy to bear witness to. Although this group of episodes is non-linear the main focus through it is the relationship between Fry and Leela. They have built towards it the entire series and by the final episode you see them take it to the next level: Marriage. The first half of episodes were good but not entirely great, it’s the second half where I experienced some of the best episodes of the entire series. You expect them to end in the usual humorous manner but instead they take a more serious and emotionally turn that completely caught me off guard in the greatest way possible. Two episodes in particular that I can think of were “Game Of Tones” and “Meanwhile” (which is also the final episode). By the end of those specific episodes you can almost guarantee to get a slight bit choked up. I for one hope that this isn’t the end for the show that I consider an overachieving underdog but if it is it ended so perfectly and with so much grace where many other shows on TV don’t. This volume had it’s goods and bads but it really was pretty solid and a great end to a such a fantastic show.
Special Features:
Full-Length Audio Commentary On All 13 Episodes
Bonus Animator Commentary On “Game Of Tones”
Precious Trimmings: A Compendium Of Deleted Scenes – 16 minutes worth of deleted scenes that are actually really funny.
Futurama University: An In-Depth Three-Part Exploration Of The Animation Process At Rough Draft Studios, Inc. – A fantastic behind the scenes feature that shows everything that goes into making the show. Seeing the animation process was so interesting and eye opening.
Inside Futurama: The Writers’ Room Of Tomorrow – Another interesting feature that shows just how much work (and fun) goes into writing the show.
Futurama Volume 8 is available December 10th on Blu-ray and DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
