Futurama-Season 3 (Box Set) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Audio Commentary Storyboards-Parasites Lost Featurette-3D Models From Rough Draft Featurette-Anthology Of Interest, Part II, Animatic Featurette-How To Draw Characters - Fry And Leela Gallery-Still Gallery / New Character Artwork Featurette-International Clips (4) Deleted Scenes-17 Trailer-Futurama Season 1 and Season 2 DVD Trailers Trailer-Futurama Game
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	475:56
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (4)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Various
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Billy West Katey Sagal John DiMaggio Tress MacNeille Maurice LaMarche Lauren Tom David Herman Phil LaMarr Kath Soucie Frank Welker
Case	?
RPI	$89.95	Music	Christopher Tyng

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Danish English Finnish French Norwegian Swedish French Titling English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I have to confess to coming onto the Futurama scene very late in the piece. Not being much of a TV watcher, I hadn't even seen an episode of the show until I bought the first season DVD set on a whim (I was in Big W with a credit card and couldn't see any other DVDs that grabbed my attention). Before I'd finished the first disc of the set I was hooked! The futuristic setting provides many opportunities for the writers to go overboard, since there is no need to make everything somewhat believable.

    For those not yet familiar with Futurama, it is set roughly 1000 years in the future, where Fry (Billy West) has ended up after being accidentally cryogenically frozen on New Year's Eve, 1999. He now works as a delivery boy for an intergalactic delivery company called Planet Express, run by a distant relative (his great great great ... great nephew).

    The third season is a continuation of the exploits of the Planet Express crew, concentrating mainly on Fry, Bender (John DiMaggio) and Leela (Katey Sagal), but giving the other characters their fair share of screen time as well. If you've watched the other seasons then you're already very familiar with all the characters and their unique oddities, and this season extends our understanding of each of them as well as adding more details to some of the bit-players (such as Kiff).

    Like the other seasons on DVD we're given the production season as opposed to the broadcast season, which is contained on a four disc set, with 22 episodes (the largest season produced) broken up as follows:

    Disc 1

• Amazon Women in the Mood (21:37): In an attempt to match Kiff up with Amy, Leela agrees to go on a double "half-date" with Zapp and the two lovebirds. Of course Zapp causes chaos, and they all end up on a planet ruled by Amazon Women. When Fry and Bender come to the rescue, all the male members of the party face a punishment that leaves them with mixed emotions.
  
  
• Parasites Lost (21:37): Fry foolishly eats some take-away food from a truck-stop, and the resulting parasites that infest his body actually make major improvements to their new home. The rest of the Planet Express crew go on a virtual tour of Fry's body to try and rid him of the parasites, but Leela isn't so sure she wants the old Fry back.
  
  
• A Tale of Two Santas (21:38): Following on from the Season 2 Christmas story about robot Santa, this episode sees Fry, Leela and Bender imprisoning the violent gift-bringer in order to save their own lives. The result is that Bender has to take Santa's place on Christmas Eve, and things don't go according to plan. This was quite a controversial episode due to the violence that robot Santa dealt out to the surrounding environment.
  
  
• The Luck of the Fryrish (21:38): A clever episode that jumps back and forth between Fry's childhood in our time, and his life in the future. Now hideously unlucky, Fry remembers back to the days when he owned a 7-leaf clover, and decides to seek out said good-luck charm. However, digging up the past turns out to be quite painful.
  
  
• The Bird-bot of Ice-catraz (21:38): Planet Express is given the job of shipping a huge fuel tanker right past Pluto, which is now a penguin reserve. Leela quits and joins the protesting environmentalists, so Bender is declared captain of the ship. Whilst flying not under the influence of alcohol, Bender causes an environmental disaster that has him doing community service as punishment.
  
  
• Bendless Love (21:38): Bender is causing havoc by bending everything in his sleep. It's decided that he needs to go back to what he was made for, in order to get the bending out of his system. Whilst working in a factory he falls in love with one of his workmates, but his arch nemesis, Flexo, soon puts a spanner in the works.
  
  

    Disc 2

• The Day the Earth Stood Stupid (21:37): The earth is invaded by giant brains that send out a signal, making everyone stupid. Fry is the only one not affected, so suddenly finds himself in the unusual situation of being smarter than those around him. It turns out Nibbler is more than meets the eye, and his race seek to use Fry as a weapon against the brains.
  
  
• That's Lobstertainment! (21:37): We find out that Zoidberg's Uncle is Harold Zoid, a famous Hollywood has-been (from the days of silent hologram). In an attempt to resuscitate his less than healthy career as an entertainer, Zoidberg decides to go and visit his Uncle in Hollywood. Harold decides to make a movie funded by TV actor Calculon (who now has Bender as his agent), and Zoidberg gets a bit part. Hollywood drama ensues.
  
  
• The Cyber House Rules (21:36): At an orphanage reunion, Leela meets up with an old flame who's now a plastic surgeon. He offers to give Leela a second eye, and despite Fry's protests that she looks fine as she is, Leela decides to go under the knife. Meanwhile, Bender has adopted a dozen children in order to get the welfare payments, but as usual things don't go exactly to plan.
  
  
• Where the Buggalo Roam (21:37): At a Mars day barbecue on the Wong Ranch, Amy's family have all their Buggalo stolen. Kiff, who's so far failed miserably in his attempts to impress Amy's parents, decides to go off and retrieve the animals, in the hope that it will endear him to Mr. and Mrs. Wong. The professor sends Fry, Leela and Bender along, since he thinks someone will probably get killed, and Western antics are played out Mars-style.
  
  
• Insane in the Mainframe (21:38): Getting implicated in a bank robbery, Fry and Bender are both sentenced to imprisonment in a robot asylum (human asylums are too full to take Fry). Bender as usual makes the most of the situation, but Fry slowly goes insane and eventually believes that he really is a robot.
  
  
• The Route Of All Evil (21:37): The professor and Hermes both have an altercation with their clone/son, which leads to the two boys starting up their own delivery company. They end up being so successful that they take over Planet Express (now renamed "Awesome Express") and leave their fathers jobless on the streets.
  
  

    Disc 3

• Bendin` In The Wind (21:38): Bender has a horrible disfiguring accident with the magnetic can-opener, which leaves him unable to walk. However, while in hospital he meets Beck's head, and is inspired to become a "musician". Becoming an inspiration to broken robots everywhere, Bender decides to put on a charity concert - "Bend Aid".
  
  
• Time Keeps on Slippin` (21:37): Some of these episodes are really difficult to write a plot summary for, since the plots can be so darned convoluted! Anyway, the Harlem Globe Trotters come to Earth to challenge mankind to a basketball game. The particles used by the professor in growing his super-mutant basketball team cause problems with the space-time continuum, namely that time keeps on jumping forward in random steps with people having no memory of what happened during the skipped period. Fry finds himself trying to work out how he impressed Leela during one of these time skips. Another very clever episode that uses the sci-fi setting to good humorous effect.
  
  
• I Dated A Robot (21:38): After more than 2 years living in the future, Fry only now decides that he wants to experience all the wonders of the era. He ends up downloading a pirated copy of Lucy Liu onto a blank robot, and becomes so obsessed with her that he won't relate to the real people around him any more. In an attempt to shut down nappster.com, Leela, Bender and Zoidberg stumble on a terrible secret that results in an army of Lucy Lius rampaging through the streets of New New York.
  
  
• A Leela of Her Own (21:37): A family of alien immigrants opens a pizza shop across the road from Planet Express, and in a friendly game of Blernsball to welcome the newcomers, Leela discovers every pitch she does is a "bean-ball". Desperate for something to keep the fans interested, the completely hopeless local major league team signs her up as a novelty pitcher. As the first woman to play major league blernsball, Leela attempts to become not the worst player to ever play the game.
  
  
• A Pharaoh To Remember (21:38): Bender gets depressed that no-one will ever remember him when even eyewitnesses to his crimes get his description wrong. The Planet Express crew try to cheer him up, but only make things worse. It seems Bender's problem is solved though, when he, along with Leela and Fry, is taken captive as a slave on an ancient Egyptian planet. Wangling his way into the role of Pharaoh, Bender has a huge statue built in his likeness.
  
  

    Disc 4

• Anthology of Interest II (21:38): The second episode based around the "What if" machine. Basically an excuse for completely bizarre storylines (even more so than usual!) along the lines of The Simpsons' Halloween specials. This one sees Bender become a human, the world more like a videogame (with nods to many classic computer games), and Leela finding a home of her own.
  
  
• Roswell that Ends Well (21:38): If you thought the Terminator or Back to the Future movies created a lot of time-travel paradoxes, then wait till you've seen this episode. Through some unexpected circumstances involving a super-nova and Fry putting metal objects in a microwave, the Planet Express crew is whipped back in time to Roswell in July 1947. Zoidberg becomes a captured alien, a broken Bender is thought to be a flying saucer, and Fry runs into his Grandfather and Grandmother. This episode won an Emmy award in 2002, and you can see why - plenty of clever writing and nods to famous time-travel movies make this excellent viewing.
  
  
• Godfellas (21:37): Bender is accidentally blasted into outer space while sleeping in a torpedo tube. He's accelerating away from the Planet Express ship too quickly for anyone to catch up to him, and is left to drift alone in space. A community of small rock-dwelling people becomes attached to his body, and he becomes their deity. His efforts at being a god are less than perfect.
  
  
• Futurestock (21:37): Fry meets a fellow de-frostee and business mogul from the 1980s. Together they take over Planet Express "80s style" and end up challenging the giant Mom Corp.
  
  
• 30 % Iron Chef (21:37): Bender leaves Planet Express after having his awful cooking rejected, and goes to his chef idol, Elzar, for help. Elzar rejects him too, which leads him to become an aimless robo (robot hobo). However, this all changes when he comes across the one man that might be able to make him a successful chef, and he returns to challenge Elzar to a cook-off.
  
  

    I certainly wasn't disappointed with the third season's episodes, even though my expectations have now risen so high after the first 2 seasons. There are admittedly a few episodes that I didn't find to be quite up to scratch, but when you've got 22 to choose from you can tolerate the occasional lapse. The writing is still very sharp, the voice actors excellent, and we even get the odd emotional moment or two.

    It's sad to think that there is only one more production season to come out on DVD, since Futurama has been axed by Fox. I'm not alone in wishing this were not so, and it's a mystery to me how something of the quality of Futurama can be removed from our screens, while trash like The Bachelor keeps coming out of the States in what seems like a never-ending stream.

    To fans of the show, the decision to buy this set is a no-brainer, and to those who haven't yet experienced the joy of Futurama I encourage you to give it a go. Highly recommended.

Video

    As we've come to expect from the previous seasons on DVD, the video quality is excellent. The combination of 3D and traditional 2D animation is presented in such a way that it's a pleasure to watch. If it wasn't for the occasional flaw I'd label it as reference quality.

    The video is presented at the original broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is of course not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness is very good, bringing the digital source for these cartoons into evidence. No low level noise whatsoever is visible, and as far as you can rate shadow detail for animated material, there are no problems in that department.

    Colour is the feature that really makes the video transfer on these discs shine. The colours are mostly bright primary colours, which are extremely solid and well-saturated due to their digital origins. There are also beautifully shaded skies, landscapes and space-scapes (is that a word?) that complement the primary colours excellently.

    No compression or MPEG artefacts are visible. Film to video artefacts are almost non-existent, but there is some aliasing present. This becomes especially evident when we have panning city scapes as transition shots, but the problem is not confined to just these shots. Some examples are Episode 4 - 18:18, Episode 11 - 7:15 and it is very noticeable at Episode 14 - 17:30. I should point out that I'm watching these episodes using a CRT projector with over 2m diagonal of screen, but the aliasing is still more noticeable than other high quality video transfers. I also watched these scenes on a 76cm widescreen TV to compare, and although not nearly so obvious, the aliasing was still there. It's not a major flaw, but I know some people find aliasing very distracting and it is present in small quantities. The overscan problem that was evident in the Season 2 set is happily absent from these discs.

    You wouldn't expect film artefacts from a digitally-sourced animated cartoon, and there aren't any to be found here.

    There are 9 subtitle streams on these DVDs; English, Danish, Finnish, French, Norwegian, Swedish, French Titling, English Audio Commentary, and French Audio Commentary. Note that not all these streams are listed in the audio options, but can be accessed with the subtitle button on the remote. I sampled the English subtitles and found them to be quite close to the spoken dialogue, but there were enough words missed out to take a bit of impact away from some of the jokes. I also like the idea of having subtitles for commentaries, but it does get a little confusing at times with these ones, due to the large number of participants.

    These DVDs are dual-layered, but the changes takes place between the episodes.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    For material that is made for analogue TV broadcasting, this is a more than acceptable audio transfer.

    There are three audio tracks present; English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded, French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded, and English Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded. All are encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps, and I listened to the English and English Commentary tracks.

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand, even when listening to some weird alien tongue. The voice actors do an excellent job, and the sync is about as good as you can get with an animated cartoon.

    Christopher Tyng's music is excellent, from the extremely catchy title tune to all the incidental music that fits the scenes to a tee.

    The surrounds aren't overly used, but they do add to the atmosphere with ambient sounds and the occasional rocket engine whizzing past the rear.

    The subwoofer also gets a little bit of work to do, but nothing too exciting. It's mainly the rocket/explosion sound-effects that cause any LFE action.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Note that all extras are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 unless otherwise stated.

Menu

    Unlike the previous seasons, this one gets menus that are 16x9 enhanced, as well as having the now-familiar music and animated antics going on in the background. Many people will also be pleased to know that there is now a "Play All" option on the main menus. Unfortunately, you can't skip the short intro sequences that precede these menus.

Commentaries

    I've heard stories that one of the things delaying the Simpsons DVDs so much is getting the commentaries done for them. Well, it sure doesn't seem to be a problem for the Futurama sets! They keep churning out seasons where every episode has multiple participants, in what turns out to be both entertaining and informative commentaries. Regulars are Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, but they're always accompanied by many others including voice actors, animators, writers, directors, and so on. The voice actors provide a lot of the laughs (Billy West and John DiMaggio often get into character, with DiMaggio not quite as active as he has been in previous seasons), but the others are also very entertaining and informative.

    The Emmy award-winning Episode 19 also has a bonus commentary with Cohen, Groening, the Director, the Producer, and the Computer Graphics Director for the episode. This is a slightly more serious and technical commentary, but it never gets boring.

    One thing of note is that occasionally the commentaries seem to get out of sync with what is actually happening on screen. A really obvious example is in Episode 12, where it is noticeably about 5-10 seconds behind the action from the 15 minute mark onwards. It's not exactly a serious problem, though.

Deleted Scenes

    There are a number of very short deleted scenes, presented with fairly below-par video quality. These are generally entertaining, but are no great loss to the episodes, which I assume they've been cut from in order to meet the incredibly consistent run-times.

    Disc 1

• Amazon Women in the Mood: 1:26
• Parasites Lost: 1:50
• A Tale of Two Santas: 0:38
• The Luck of the Fryrish: 0:27
• The Bird-bot of Ice-catraz: 1:53
• Bendless Love: 2:14

    Disc 2

• The Day the Earth Stood Stupid: 0:37
• That's Lobstertainment: 0:32
• Cyber House Rules: 1:32
• Where the Buggalo Roam: 0:20
• Insane in the Mainframe: 1:13

    Disc 3

• Time Keeps on Slippin': 0:39
• A Leela of Her Own: 0:11
• A Pharoah to Remember: 0:15

    Disc 4

• Roswell that Ends Well: 0:18
• Futurestock: 0:27
• 30% Iron chef: 1:52

3-D Models

    A couple of the Rough Draft 3-D animators along with David Cohen take us through a quick rundown of different 3-D models in the show:

• Mom's ship (0:35)
• Robot Arms (0:20)
• Robot Santa's sleigh (0:22)
• Titanic (0:31)
• Buggalo walk (0:17)
• Hover Convertible (0:27)
• Tornado (0:18)
• Nibbler's ship (0:09)
• VW van (0:34)

Storyboards

    Black and white storyboards for Parasites Lost, broken up into the three acts totalling 85, 94 and 106 pages respectively. Very interesting to see how the story is passed onto the animators to bring to life.

Animatic - Anthology of Interest II (22:39)

    Black and white animatic for the whole episode, missing animation frames and some audio (voices, sound effects and music). Of some interest is David X. Cohen playing Leela's voice for part of the episode. Again, a very interesting extra for animation fans.

International Clips (1:46)

    A short segment from Episode 1, where you can press the audio button to listen to the dialogue in different languages. Kind of interesting for one run-through.

How to Draw (Leela and Fry)

    Some static pages providing you with instructions on how to draw the two characters.

Still Gallery

    57 black and white pencil drawings of the show. Again, this would be of interest to animation fans.

Futurama Season 1 and 2 DVD Trailers

    Trailers for the previously released DVDs, lasting for 1:32 and 1:16 respectively.

Futurama Game Trailer

    Basically an advert for the Futurama console game, showing game footage and cut-scenes. This trailer goes for 2:09.

Easter Eggs

    There are three Easter Eggs that I'm aware of:

• Disc 1: Select A Tale of Two Santas then click to the right to highlight the image. Press "Enter" and you'll be treated to the table reading for this episode. This lasts for 35:16 and is quite funny to listen to. It's interesting to hear what didn't make the final cut, as well as hearing the actors cracking up as they hear it for the first time themselves.
• Disc 1: Follow the above instructions, but instead of pressing "Enter" when the image is selected, press the "up" button to select an image of Santa's hat. Press "Enter" and you'll get a 4:55 short of David X Cohen introducing this episode for a Christmas party, and making merry about the fact that the episode wasn't very popular with Fox.
• Disc 1: Select Episode 1 and then press "left". This will highlight the image on the left, which you can select to see a list of all the unused sub-headings that come up when the beginning credits start. This runs for 4:18, and is worth a look.

    At this stage there is no Region 1 version available, but past season sets have been almost identical in the US to our versions. The Region 2 version of season 3 is absolutely identical to Region 4, and I even noted that each corresponding disc from the two Regions has the same number of bytes used up. This, plus the fact that the sets are dual encoded Region 2 and 4, would lead me to the obvious conclusion that these are the same in every way (same master).

    The packaging is slightly different, with Region 2 sets getting a flashy plastic sleeve to go over the 4 disc box. So if you're into collecting nice packaging I'd go with Region 2, since the prices are pretty similar after conversion. Otherwise, there's no reason to not pick up a local copy.

    One additional note concerning the Region 4 discs; there have been a lot of complaints on newsgroups and web forums about faulty DVDs that won't play properly (disc 1 seems to be the worst offender). It appears that a bad batch of discs is out there, so there is an element of risk in buying locally. However, I had no problems with the review discs, so it does seem to be a fairly random thing.

    Update: As can be seen from the comments at the bottom of this page, the problem with the Region 4 discs seems to be far more serious and widespread than I first thought. It's got to the point where major B&M stores such as K-Mart are doing recalls on these DVDs. Fox's initial response was posted by MichaelD below, and following is a copy of it:

At this time, Fox are saying that there are no known problems with the Region 4 Futurama Season 3 Box Set. They have suggested that if anyone is having a problem with their discs that they should call Fox Customer Service on 1 300 369 843. If there are any further updates on this situation, we will advise you all.

    It seems however that they have since changed their tune, and we'll be posting the new response as soon as we can. At this stage I'd highly recommend getting the Region 2 set over our local copy.

    Update 2: MichaelD has provided the following update on Fox's position:

Fox have now officially acknowledged that there is a problem with some copies of this box set not playing back correctly on some equipment. If you are affected by this issue, you can call Fox Customer Support on 1 300 369 843 to arrange for replacement discs.

    Update 3: From all I've read on web forums and in newsgroups, it appears that the new batch of Season 3 discs now available has none of the problems outlined above. I'd imagine that all copies of the original batch are no longer on shelves, but I'm not aware of how to discern between the two versions. If anyone knows of any indication on the packaging please let me know, and I'll post it here.

    More colourful antics with the Planet Express Crew, which will be a must-purchase item for all fans of the show. With 22 episodes in this season it'll keep you entertained almost long enough to fill the gap waiting for season 4.

    The video quality is excellent, with only one or two minor quibbles.

    The audio quality is very good considering the material.

    The main extra feature is the commentaries, which are entertaining enough to have you watch all 22 episodes again. The rest of the extras are of some interest the first time through, but fairly forgettable thereafter.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall