Slashdot Mirror
Futurama Cancelled (Again)
eldavojohn writes "Bad news everybody. According to Entertainment Weekly, Futurama has been cancelled (again). The renewal of Futurama back onto television was met with great fanfare but sadly it appears that Futurama's luck has run out for a second time. The second half of season 7 will air from June 19th to September 4th and that will be it."
Wait. there will be no more 'Good news everyone!'
Facts are useless, they can be used to prove anything.
The newer episodes just haven't had that same flare the older ones did.
A couple of them even felt forced.
Better end a series on a decent note than to drag it on forever (Simpsons, Family Guy, etc)
Put you money where your mouth is.
Honestly not a bad run for any show. Can't see a reason to complain.
Don't bring a show back unless you can do it at similar quality as before. Family Guy is a great example of the right way to do it. Futurama is the wrong, sad, terrible way.
expandfairuse.org
10 hours of Hypnotoad: http://bit.ly/13O13rl
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
Team Slashdot - Members:#1 Run Time:#1 Points:#1 Results:#1
Maybe folks can petition asking Netflix to pick it up?
Or... we can just let the show die and make room for new ideas and shows. I loved Futurama, but it's OK for shows to end, even good shows. It's better to die out than to see a show that drag on way too long.
Let the show die. The direct-to-video movies were by and large second rate, and the new season, while it had some high points, just didn't have the charm of the old seasons.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Doesn't matter if they've been slipping. Throw in enough lame geek in-jokes and the fanbois will beat a golden path to your door.
Right now, all the online content providers are looking to content creators to get brand lock-in.
Who's gonna bring Futurama back from the dead again?
Amazon?
Hulu?
Google?
Netflix?
It's inevitable.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's the perfect time and subject for an experiment I have been considering. I think that broadcast networks are no longer needed or perhaps simply not quite so necessary. If Groening were to keep a team of enthusiast artists and the original voice actors, I would be willing to bet people would subscribe to Futurama online paying micro payments or simply not worry about that and they can sell ad space on their own streaming host server. The point being that the internet has enabled much. And publishing and continuing a favorite TV series is probably a good thing to try.
It's too late for "Firefly" (or is it?) but maybe not for Futurama... and seriously, without network censors?? It'll be WAY better.
Put beavis and butthead in it's place that show needs to come back.
It did back in 2011, but quietly died again shortly afterwards.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Hollywood can grunt out a live action version. Hey, it worked for the Flintstones!
To make money, one would assume.
Then Zoidberg, Scruffy and Zapp Brannigan all get short-lived spin-off series.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
TFA (maybe not this FA, but some FA I read this morning before I saw it on Slashdot) says that Groening is looking for another home for the show as "we still have more stories to tell". I know I know, they always say that, but all I'm saying is, Groening reportedly has not made the decision to irrevocably end the show. So it's not exactly like the browncoat thing, where sad overweight acne-encrusted fans in poorly made costumes plead with... I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Fine, I'll go make my own TV show! With blackjack! and hookers!
In fact, forget the TV show!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Futuram[a]... teaches people to dislike, hate, PEOPLE who are transgendered and transsexual.
Ah, so you're one of those people who looks to fictional works such as cartoons for education. Noted.
FWIW, that says a hell of a lot more about you than it does the creators of Futurama.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Futurama is brilliant, especially when pitted against the.brain dead "Ow my balls" class of reality of television.
The new seasons had excellent character growth and development. While the original series was great, it was childish and down right infantile at times, the movies were awkward like the teenage years, and the two new seasons were the beginning of a quality adult audience show. It is one of the ONLY animated shows on television at the moment that caters specifically to the 18-25 demographic, and it's smart too. Take the mathematical proof they created for the show. When was the last time any television show created a tangible real world theorem?
It seems the operators of the Panama Wormhole, Earth's Comedy Central channel for shipping, are making the same fateful mistake as the idiots at the Box Network.
If the rumors are to be believed, Futurama cost $1.3 million per episode to produce back in 2003 during the original run. We know Comedy Central gave them a smaller budget this time around, so let's just assume a million per episode.
So let us say we all want to fund a season of Futurama (putting our money where our mouth is):
16 episode season x $1,000,000 = $16,000,000.
Now assume the average audience is 2 million. Some would be willing to pay, some would not. But assume the lost TV viewers are made up for with the DVD buyers (who are worth a lot more). That works out to around $8/person to fund a season.
If I had the option, I would gladly pay $8-$10 per season.
For reference, AMC's Mad Men cost between $2-2.5 million per episode. In the first season, it didn't even break a million viewers. The second season had 2 million, same as Futurama.
I don't believe the economics are at the root of the cancellation; it's probably an executive trying to make their mark by shaking up programming and cancelling Futurama makes way for his/her pet project - one they can take credit for launching.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Cute Kid: Hubert (who was added explicitly as the annoying 'cute' kid.)
Wedding: That's the last episode, according to the rag sheets
Inexplicable actor replacement: WELSHIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ok, granted, it was a guest star, and was done only because James Doohan politely declined to do the Star Trek episode)
So other than that you've got Jumping the Shark, which most folks would call the movies. I'd fine with the show either way. It had a nice run, even if the comedy central episodes didn't quite have that mind blowing awesomeness (which, who knows, maybe after a few years in reruns they'll develop.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Apparently those of us viewing it at my house have souls made of sterner stuff. Maybe it just seems enjoyable compared to Seth McFarlane's triple parade of misogyny, but I get more laughs per 22 minutes out of the Simpsons current season than most of what's on television.
Did you like B&B in the 90s? It's the same damn show. And FWIW, I hate Tosh.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Did you like B&B in the 90s? It's the same damn show.
I did when it was original and new... of course, I was a lot younger back then, too, so I presume the fact that I liked the show then had a lot to do with my maturity level at the time (low. Really low.) The Sega and SNES games were pretty good, though. Fun at least.
And FWIW, I hate Tosh.
Ditto. Since when did "mouthy douchebag who thinks he's funny" become the norm for comedians? I miss Bill Hicks...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I don't really think the newer seasons developed the characters... I think they tended to continue the Federalization that had started to set in through season 4 of the original run.
IMO, establishing facts about a character, revealing the back-story of a character, or establishing a relationship between characters is not the same as character development... This is something that the later writers need to understand.
Here's an example of strong character development:
In parasites lost, Fry becomes something of an ideal man thanks to the efforts of a worm he picks up from a truck-stop egg salad sandwich. His strength, intelligence, and artistic ability make him attractive to Lela. For one of the first times in the Series, Fry and Leela become close romantically. But ultimately, Fry gives up all of his new-found strength, because Fry wanted the relationship to be based on who he was in and of himself, rather than how he was perceived by Leela. Fry's character is further developed when he starts to practice the Holophoner in order to become the person Leela respected.
This episode was a huge character defining moment for Fry. This episode did not have a significant impact on Futurama continuity. What it did was to truly help us understand fry as a person in a way that Lars never really could. It developed Fry in a way that his season 5 & 6 relationship with Leela didn't.
I think Fry somewhat devolved as a character during the comedy central run of Futurama. His sincerity is still there, but it seems like a part of his core personality. His stupidity becomes a much more predominant characteristic. He started to feel like a young, orange haired Homer Simpson.
For what it's worth, I think The Late Phillip J. Fry and the Prisoner of Benda were gems from the later seasons. There was some good stuff in seasons 5 & 6, and some bad stuff in Seasons 1-4, but on average I was kind of disappointed by seasons 5&6. I haven't been following Futurama nearly as closely as I once did.
"In the year twenty-five twenty-five twenty-five
The backwards time machine still won't have arrived
In all the world, there's only one technology
A rusty sword for practicing proctology"