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just-timewasting · 9 months

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I wanted to ramble about something I noticed about the hulu/disney revival of Futurama. Spoilers for the two aired episodes and some of the previews ahead!

Futurama was always one of those shows where nothing ever changed. Sure there has been follow ups to plot points and the odd bit of serialisation here and there, and there is definitely character growth, but mostly characters ended the episode in the same place they started it. They even did a episode (When Aliens Attack) that said TV shows have to wrap it all up in a single episode and not change anything, but with the latest revival, I think they are shifting from that formula and are veering away from the status quo.

The reason this has been in my mind is because of the latest episode. Children of a Lesser Bog isn't the first time Futurama has done a parenthood story, but it's the first time they committed to it. In Kif Gets Knocked up a Notch, they conveniently decided the kids would be in the bog 20 years, probably assuming they wouldn't be writing new episodes in 2023, which meant we'd never see them again. In Bots and The Bees, Bender's son Ben had to undergo a memory wipe and then heads off to college. Even Cubert, who does start appearing as a reoccurring character, spent some time in boarding school. I thought Children of a Lesser Bog was going to do something similar, but it looks like Axl, Mandy and Newt are sticking around. I don't think they are going to be major characters, Futurama focuses on work life rather than home life after all, but I do wonder how they will fit into the established cast of characters. I could see Axl becoming friends with Cubert and Dwight. Maybe Mandy could have a story with the orphans?

The other reason, which is a bit more speculative, I think they might be shifting from the status quo a bit is because of Fry and Leela. They might have been in some sort of relationships since Into the Wild Yonder, but it always seemed they struggled to fully commit. In seasons 7 & 8 they would be together one episode and apart the next. I've always thought this inconsistency might have come the writers not wanting to commit to such a big status quo change. In seasons 9 & 10 they do put them together, but you could forgive a more casual fan for not noticing this, because unless it was the focus of the episode, it typically wasn't mentioned. I'm not saying we needed reminded every episode but it was odd that they didn't really act like a couple unless the plot required it. So far in the revival, we've had two episodes where their relationship wasn't the focus, yet, there is no question that they are together. Hermes even uses the word girlfriend (I can't remember them actually using a label like that in seasons 9 &10?) in the first episode, and there was that wonderfully sweet moment at the end of the second, and from the previews it looks like we'll get a few moments like that. And then there is the big thing the trailer and previews basically confirm: they are moving together. This is a pretty big shift in the status quo, since the living setup was established way back in the 3rd episode of the series. I'm quite excited for this, because it not only means we'll probably get some sweet Fry and Leela moments, but also some hilarious moments with the delivery trio. I'm sure Leela and Bender have some very different ideas on how to live day to day life, so I can foresee some funny moments there.

Anyway, ramble over. I'm just excited to see where these status quo changes might actually go, and not to mention the possibilities of stories that could happen if they are prepared to change it up.

Oh, one last thought, if characters lives are now changing more than once did, that better mean Marianne is still in Zoigberg's life in some capacity.

#futurama #futurama spoilers #futurama season 11 #ramblings #The Kroker-Wong family #fry x leela

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noddytheornithopod · 9 months

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Found it interesting how in Kif Gets Knocked up a Notch it's Amy who's late, but in Children of a Lesser Bog it's Kif who has to rush to make it on time

#futurama spoilers #futurama

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joshuamartian · 9 months

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‘Children of a Lesser Bog’ is painfully unimaginative and cloying

I’m shocked to log onto Tumblr and see everyone so moved by such a contrived and unearned sappy ending. I don’t want to hear anyone say ‘Jurassic bark’ is a cheap maudlin episode after this!

I was excited to see what sci-fi twist three amphibious children would present and the answer is nothing. They don’t even repeat any of Kif’s inflatable body jokes. They just act and behave like regular children. Hubert might not be anyone’s favourite character but at least he had a personality: annoying know-it-all.

These kids defining traits are being different ages. Axl stands out slightly by being a sullen teenager, mostly communicated through his design, but he also plays noisily like the two other loud messy hyperactive children.

They also bring back two of their best one-off characters (the Grand Midwife and the whale biologist who hates whales) to repeat their bits. The biologist hates bears this time, so that's almost a new joke. (not really). They’ve been back to the Grand Midwife several times already and she’s less funny each time.

Someone on Twitter came up with a joke that the biologist might hate Bears because they still share a common ancestry with those snooty whales. Already smarter than the ‘find ‘whale’ replace ‘bear’ jokes we got.

In order to tell a story about Amy being an exhausted single mother, Kif has to go on a mission with Zapp. I know they're a great comedic duo but remember when DOOP had a fleet? And didn't the Nimbus used to have an entire crew?

I know they’ve gotten away with focusing on Zapp and Kif on the Nimbus before but it really feels like the budget isn’t what it once was. It makes the universe feel emptier.

Also, Inez and Leo Wong act against one of their defining characteristics outside of being rich: they don't want to be grandparents anymore.

They explain this by having the Wongs think the kids are ugly (they're fairly cute by Futurama standards. Basically green humanoids). Also, it was established in the episode where Kif gets pregnant that they really don't care if their grandchildren are human or alien.

Pitch for a better episode: Amy is ready to be a parent but finds it more challenging than she’d ever expected. The over-involved Wongs are all too happy to take over as full-time Grandparents allowing Amy to slip back into her childless party-girl lifestyle. She steps up once she realises her amoral billionaire parents are spoiling the kids and instilling them with the rotten values of the super-rich.

At one point the characters stop for 20 animation-saving seconds to watch 'Kif gets Knocked Up a Notch' and follow it up with a conversation reestablishing that Leela contributed genetic material, how Amphibiosan pregnancy works and what a Smizmar is. Arguably necessary but it really eats up the runtime remembering a better episode.

The show kills time with a montage of Amy, Kif and the kids at the park, recycling the tired inflatable body jokes we’ve seen before. Why not have the kids do some of these? At least it would be a variation on these tired visual gags.

The middle of the episode builds to Amy accusing Leela of trying to get the kids to love her more.

Amy has always been catty and passive-aggressive to Leela throughout the show, so I expected Leela to push back. After all, she was doing Amy a favour by taking the kids off her hands for an afternoon. But she takes these irrational accusations totally unphased.

I think the writers are a little gun-shy about writing women in conflict after fans and critics correctly pointed out that the all-male writers room hasn’t always written women characters with much nuance. Nagging men and fighting other women.

But this reconciliation scene between the two after Amy has been so unfair to the only person offering her support and relief felt unearned.

The third act is where this thing completely falls apart.

Until now the Grand Midwife has been presented as a weird Hermit on Amphibios 9 who performs ceremonies for tips.

Now, her role also involves spying on prospective parents to judge their competence. She also has the means to travel to Earth, apparently.

She raises the stakes in the third act by declaring that Amy may not be considered the kids true parent because she contributed DNA.

Which directly contradicts a point they ate up time earlier in the episode explaining. How many times have the characters reiterated that ‘the one who initiates receptiveness to pregnancy is considered the parent’?

The Grand Midwife says Amy has to return to Amphibios and undergo a challenge to prove she is a fit parent.

Ultimately the threat of taking the kids away turns out to be a test but until that reveal we’re meant to be invested in this obstacle.

This begs the question: since Leela doesn’t want the kids and Amy does, What power does this lone elderly weirdo have to enforce this ruling? We don’t see any other Amphibians backing her up. I can’t help but feel a smaller budget is the reason so few scenes have extras.

Also, every scene that isn’t outside, the kids are being parented at Planet Express where Amy and Leela both work.

The threat of ‘Amy will never see them again’ doesn’t hold much weight if they’re being given away to a coworker who brings them to work every day. The problem might have felt more real if the Grand Midwife was threatening to keep the kids on Amphibios. Just a thought!

Anyway, on the

Also, at the beginning of the episode Amy is excited to be a parent. When Grand Midwife threatens to take custody she says ‘they’re everything to me’ But her big lesson-learned moment is saying ‘I love that more than anything’ Really doesn’t work as a character arc if she feels the same way pretty much throughout.

Anyway, the Grand Midwife says the “test” will involved “a battery of genetic tests and a full neurophysical obstacle course”

This turns out to not be true. She asks Amy one question “Do you love these kids?” and Amy replies:

This is meant to be her lesson learned moment. But it doesn’t work as a character arc because at the beginning of the episode, she says shes ready to be a parent. In her words “having a family with [Kif] is the only thing [she] wants in the world]. Also, when the Grand Midwife threatens to take the kids away, Amy says this:

How is that any different from what she says during the “challenge”? Could the Grand Midwife not have surmised from that reaction that she did want to be a parent? Why did she have to travel all the way to Amphibios to restate this?

This turnabout could have worked better if Amy had doubted herself as a parent in front of the Midwife and considered that Leela would be a better parent than her.

Anyway, after Amy repeats more or less what she told her earlier at Planet Express, that she indeed loves her children, the Midwife reveals that this was the only test.

At this point, I fully expected all the characters to be furious. Not only for wasting their time with another trip to this stinking bog planet but also for making this already overwhelmed first-time mother think her kids were going to be taken from her.

And why? To teach her some dime-store morality worthy of a greeting card which she already demonstrated she understood.

But no! The typically surly and impatient Planet Express crew all-tear up and the episode is so confident of this sappy ending hitting home, it doesn’t end with a punchline.

No, Fry, it really isn’t!

None of the characters react to this incredibly cruel trick by the Grand Midwife appropriately. I was shocked how contrived this whole crisis was and that the episode expected me to tear up over it.

Wouldn’t the more appropriate time to get all misty eyed have been when Amy and Kif meet their parents for the first time? Why is this incredibly cruel and elaborate trick by the Grand Midwife treated as so heartwarming?

It reminded me of those horrid prank-family videos. “We’re going to take your children from you! Pretty scary, huh? PSYCHE! We aren’t going to do that. Bet you feel pretty relieved that the lie I told you wasn’t true, right?”

And that’s not even mentioning all the variations on jokes they’ve done before or the Zapp attacked by Tardigrades plot that does nowhere.

Not to say there aren’t some funny lines but not enough to overlook the really shoddy plotting of this episode.

My favourite joke of the episode was Zoidberg eating Amy and Kif's tadpoles. I like a dose of sweetness now and again but the Planet Express crew are basically jerks. Jerks are funny!

This episode has a similar issue I had with the revival of Clone High. Not to sound like a reactionary but the writing staff seem so worried about controversy that they feel the need to make all the characters kinder and more supportive to each other.

I’m all for nice-core shows but some show are allowed to be mean! Two of my favourite and wildly popular shows (What We Do in the Shadows and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) are about selfish, vain, impatient, self-deluding characters who are endearing because they’re flawed and hilarious.

Sorry to be such a Comic Book Guy about this one but I've been waiting to see Kif and Amy's kids for twenty years and the story they end up telling (parenting is tiring but worth it) could have been from any non-futuristic sitcom.

#futurama #amy wong #kif kroker #children of a lesser bog

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bussterj · 7 months

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I'm watching Futurama 5x05 "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch"

#Futurama #trakt

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tvsotherworlds · 8 months

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dahliavandare · 1 year

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January 12, 2023

“Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch” first aired 20 years ago today.

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scootypuffjr · 10 months

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#futurama #kif gets knocked up a notch #kif kroker #zapp brannigan #S04e01 #Season 4

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krn-art · 9 months

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So I guess I'm back on the Kif x Amy OTP train.

Oh Futurama they just won't let you go.

✦ Please don’t repost or use my art ✦

#fanart #cute #amy #kif #futurama #hulurama #otp #children of a lesser bog #Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch #smizmar #Fonfon Ru #kif x amy #smooch #kissy

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ladyofdecember · 5 years

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Fry and Bender threw Amy and Kif a baby shower at their apartment 😲

#Futurama #liveblogging #kif gets knocked up a notch #bender rodriguez #philip j fry

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robotbirdhead · 6 years

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Spare me your space-age techno-babble Atilla the Hun!

Futurama is perfect

#futurama #atilla the hun #zap brannigan #kif gets knocked up a notch #its a good show

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just-timewasting · 9 months

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Last week, I listed the call backs in the new Futurama episode, decided to do it again:

Unsurprisingly, there were a few to call backs to Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch. Aside from the exposition about the story of that episode, the monsters that attack the children coming out of the bog are the same ones that tried attack them going in. Also, when Amy shows up without Kif the midwife says "Oh! The shame" which is the same as what she says to Kif in the original episode when he arrives without Amy.

This is the 3rd appearance of the grand midwife (she works five jobs, all of them grand). She was in the same role in Kif Get Knocked Up a Notch. She was also in A Beast With A Billon Backs where she was the grand priestess and the grand funeral director. She was also the grand butterfly keeper in The Butterjunk Effect

Newt's bottle is filled with butterflies, another reference to The Butterjunk Effect.

Bender was previously shown to be confused and/or grossed out by biological reproduction in Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch and Why Must I be a Crustacean in Love

We see Kif and Amy using eye-phones, the first time they have appeared since Attack of the Killer App.

On Amy's calendar (of course I paused it) you can see "Freedom Day" mentioned - which the crew celebrated in A Taste of Freedom. (I looked it up, that episode aired on 22nd December 2002, and was followed by Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch on 12th January 2003, on Amy's calendar, freedom day is around 3 weeks before her reminder about the babies. It's details like that which make me love this show)

You can also see "Guenter's Birthday" on the calendar. Guenter was Amy's monkey classmate in Mars University and later her guide to the planet of the primates in Fry and Leela's Big Fling.

The bear biologist was previously a whale biologist who hated whales in Three Hundred Big Boys.

After going to the wrong planet for babysitting, Petunia has to once again public transport to Nutely, much like in she was after her "date" with Fry in Put Your Head on My Shoulders

#futurama #futurama spoilers #children of a lesser bog

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