Futurama-Season 4 (Box Set) (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Filmmmakers Featurette-International Clips Storyboards Deleted Scenes-17 Featurette-3D Models From Rough Draft Notes-How To Draw Characters - Bender And The Professor Gallery-Character Pencil Tests Gallery-Still Gallery / New Character Artwork Featurette-Animatic Of Obsoletely Fabulous Trailer-Futurama Season 1,2 And 3 DVD Trailers Trailer-Futurama Interactive Game
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	390:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (4)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Peter Avanzino Carlos Baeza Susie Dietter Mark Ervin
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Billy West Katey Sagal John Di Maggio Tress MacNeille Maurice LaMarche Lauren Tom David Herman Phil LaMarr
Case	?
RPI	$89.95	Music	Christopher Tyng Paul D. Calder Danik Thomas

    A bittersweet day for Futurama fans; Season 4 is now here in all its DVD glory, but as most of you will know, the cancellation of the show means that this is the last time we'll get the chance to purchase any new episodes. As such I was almost loathe to watch this set, since each time I finished another episode, I was moving one step closer to having no new Futurama to look forward to. I've mentioned this in the past, but it still amazes me that an excellent entertainment product such as this can be cancelled, whilst we still get masses of garbage finding its way onto our TV screens.

    With rumours in the US of other cancelled animations going back into production after excellent DVD sales, there is maybe a glimmer of hope for fans, but I certainly wouldn't hold my breath for anything to change.

    Right then, enough morbid ramblings, let's look at what's on offer here. Season 4 takes us once more into the early 3000s where Philip J. Fry (Billy West) is now living, after being cryogenically frozen on New Year's Eve 1999. Working for interplanetary delivery company Planet Express, he leads a life of seemingly never-ending adventures with the love of his life, Leela (Katey Sagal), lovable robot rogue, Bender (John Di Maggio), his boss, Professor Farnsworth (Billy West again), the other company employees, and a multitude of weird and wonderful characters who regularly make appearances.

    The ingredients of Futurama all combine to make an excellent dish of clever humour, both subtle and unsubtle parody, slapstick, and even a bit of real heart. It's not perfect, and I found some of the episodes in this season to be a bit below-par, but in my opinion it sure is the best animated cartoon to come out of the US in recent years.

    As always, this DVD set contains the production season rather than the broadcast season, which consists of 18 episodes split up over 4 discs. These are as follows:

    Disc 1

• Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch (21:40): Amy's man of the moment, Kif, belongs to an alien race where the males carry the young of the species. He gets pregnant during a visit from the Planet Express crew, and after finding out who the father/mother is he must go through all his species' rituals involving the joy of childbirth.
  
  
• Leela's Homeworld (21:40): Leela receives an award from her old orphanarium, reminding her of how much she wishes she'd known her parents. Meanwhile, Bender finds an ingenious new way to make money, getting rid of waste materials, leading to a chain of events that may have Leela discovering her real origins.
  
  
• Love and Rocket (21:40): After making some changes to the Planet Express ship, Bender falls in love with the now very seductive-sounding ship's computer (voiced by Sigourney Weaver). His love doesn't last for long though, and the jilted computer seeks revenge. Many 2001: A Space Odyssey references ensue.
  
  
• Less Than Hero (21:40): Fry and Leela discover that one of Zoidberg's healing creams gives them both superpowers. They form a crime-fighting superhero team, which Bender talks his way into, and seek to bring justice to the streets. Problems arise though when their secret identities are no longer secret.
  
  
• A Taste of Freedom (21:40): In the midst of the celebrations for "Freedom Day" (when you can do whatever you want), Dr. Zoidberg eats a flag and has to run from a "patriotic" angry mob. He finds shelter in his planet's embassy, and one thing leads to another, which leads to war against Earth. A valuable lesson in freedom is learnt ... or is it?
  

    Disc 2

• Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV (21:40): Bender gets a job on the TV soap opera All My Circuits after one of the robot actors malfunctions. His scene-stealing antics make him hugely popular, but some parents (including Hermes and the Professor) are concerned when their children start mimicking his violent and dishonest behaviour.
  
  
• Jurassic Bark (21:40): Fry's old workplace is dug up in Old New York, and amongst the artefacts found is his fossilized dog, Seymour. Remembering all the good times he had with man's best friend, he decides he wants to clone Seymour, leading Bender to become jealous of his friendship with Fry. A very moving episode for dog-lovers (of which I am one).
  
  
• Crimes of the Hot (21:40): Global warming is getting out of control, and it seems that Earth's supply of giant ice cubes (Halley's Comet) is all out of ice. Some dark secrets from the past reveal how the Professor is largely responsible for the greenhouse effect, and to solve the problem Nixon wants to destroy all the robots on the planet.
  
  
• Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles (21:40): When an attempt to make the Professor younger ends up "youthifying" the whole Planet Express crew, Leela decides to go back and spend her teenage years with her parents. A failed attempt to restore the rest of the crew to their correct age causes them to get younger all the time (the Professor inexplicably looking like someone from the 1970s!), and something has to be done before they all become just twinkles in their fathers' eye.
  
  
• The Way of Fry (21:40): Following on somewhat from an episode in Season 3, Nibbler takes Fry to his home planet, where it appears Fry's unusual brain is once again needed to save the universe. Like many other episodes before it, this one tinkers with time travel in an imaginative and entertaining way.
  

    Disc 3

• Where No Fan Has Gone Before (21:40): This episode starts off with a Brannigan-esque court sitting, and tells us the story mostly in flashback. Fry has gotten himself in trouble by mentioning Star Trek in public, which is now illegal due to the Trekkie's religion threatening to take over the world many years previously. Horrified at the absence of Star Trek in the future, Fry takes Leela and Bender to Omega III - the planet where all things Trekkie have been banished. This episode has most of the original Trek crew as guest voices.
  
  
• The Sting (21:40): The Professor sends the Planet Express crew to the last resting place of his previous crew for the purposes of collecting honey from some killer bees. Whilst protecting Leela from getting stung, Fry gets a stinger through the torso and winds up dead. Leela keeps having dreams about him though, and all might not be as it seems.
  
  
• Bend Her (21:40): In an attempt to cheat his way into the Olympic history books, Bender enters himself into the fembot bending competition. He wins 5 gold medals, but when a gender check is required of him he has to have a sex-change performed in order to maintain the deception. TV star Calculon falls for the new feminine Bender, which opens up opportunities for more scamming on the part of our favourite bending unit.
  
  
• Obsoletely Fabulous (21:40): MomCorp releases a new line in robots: the 1-X, which makes old models (like Bender) totally obsolete. Not wanting to get upgraded, Bender ends up running away to a desert island where the robot inhabitants have rejected modern society. He gets himself downgraded and starts a crusade against all 1-X robots.

    Disc 4

• The Farnsworth Parabox (21:40): The Professor creates a cardboard box with another universe in it. Going through into this alternate universe, the Planet Express employees find that everything is mirrored to their home, except the toss of a coin always has the opposite result. Another very cleverly written, faux-science episode.
  
  
• 300 Big Boys (21:40): After Zapp Brannigan conquers the planet of Tarantulon, and takes a trillion dollars worth of silken spoils, Earth President Nixon gives everyone on the planet a $300 tax rebate. Each member of the Planet Express team decides to spend it in their own unique way, resulting in varying levels of disastrous results.
  
  
• Spanish Fry (21:40): Whilst on a camping holiday, Fry is abducted by aliens and has his nose removed. It turns out that human noses are considered an alien aphrodisiac, and in an attempt to retrieve his nose, Fry gets himself into even more hot water with everyone's favourite aggressive aliens.
  
  
• The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings (21:40): Here it is folks, the last episode ever (most likely). Clearly written with this in mind, there is an element of closure provided with the ongoing Fry and Leela relationship. Fry makes a deal with the robot devil, swapping hands with him, so that Fry is able to play the holophoner in such a way as to win over Leela. The devil isn't happy with the way the deal works out though, and sets about to ruin Fry's plans.
  
  

    That's all folks ... finito, the end, no more, enjoy it while you can, all is concluded. As mentioned above, there are some less successful episodes in this season, but it must be pretty hard to make every one a winner, and even the poorer offerings are better than most of what passes for comedy on TV these days. I'd recommend this set as highly as any of the other 3, and no self-respecting fan should be without it. If you still haven't experienced the joy of Futurama then it's never too late to start. Now please excuse me while I go and sign another one of those pointless Internet petitions to have the series put back into production.

Video

    "Same again" would be the quickest way to describe the Video transfer. This is another excellent presentation of the glorious 3D and 2D animation that makes up Futurama (have a look at the waves in Obsoletely Fabulous if there's any doubt lingering in your mind), but unfortunately with the same slight failings as previous seasons.

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, which is the same as its original broadcast presentation.

    The direct-from-digital source transfer once again displays excellent sharpness, but unfortunately with the same slight haloing that was evident in previous seasons. This is most evident when using a projector and large screen, but not nearly so bad on a smaller TV set (I used a 76cm Widescreen TV for comparison purposes).

    Colours are (as always) rich, vibrant, and solid. I don't think you can fault this department, and although we're a bit spoilt now with 3 previous seasons of the same quality, the colours still jump out of the screen at you. As well as the bright primary colours, there are also some beautiful, more subtle shades in the landscapes - alien, human and cosmic.

    For the most part, this transfer is artefact free. However there are instances of the dreaded aliasing once again, and this becomes quite evident in any scenes that are panning across a crowded image (such as cityscapes). Some of the many examples of this can be seen at Episode 3 - 1:43, Episode 5 - 16:26, Episode 7 - 19:46, Episode 13 - 19:17, and Episode 15 - 9:45. Again this is a lot more obvious on a very large screen, but is still clearly visible on smaller ones. Also, as mentioned previously, there is slight haloing around any dark outlines, which is most likely from edge enhancement.

    There are 6 Subtitle streams on these discs; English for the Hearing Impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and English Audio Commentary. The English subtitles are fairly accurate, but unfortunately with this sort of material you do lose a few humorous moments when subtitles aren't spot on. Audio commentary subtitles are always something I approve of, but here they occasionally get hectic with so many people all speaking on the one track.

    All layer changes are between episodes.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are 2 audio tracks on these discs; English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s). I listened to both tracks.

    Dialogue is clear and coherent, despite the fact that it's often being delivered in some weird accent or from some slobbering alien. Audio sync is also about the best you'll see coming from a cartoon, and is no doubt partly due to the digital technology used.

    I never get sick of the foot-tapping title tune, by Christopher Tyng, and his incidental music fits the on-screen action to a tee. This season we also hear a number of popular songs making their way into episodes (at the expense of Fox, as David X. Cohen quips), as well as a few songs sung over the credits by the cast. The superhero theme sung on Less Than Hero is classic stuff.

    There is limited use of the surrounds, but it is there. Things like rain and fireworks engulf the listener, and occasional ambient sounds will also emanate from the rears.

    The subwoofer will also have a little to do, but don't expect too much. The pavement collapsing in Episode 2 is one of the best examples that wakes up your sub.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    Menus are 16x9 enhanced again (something that we didn't see until season 3), and have little animations and sound effects playing whilst waiting for your selection. A rather cool feature that hasn't been on any of the previous seasons is regular comments from Futurama characters, telling you to hurry up and make a choice, or making quips about what's being shown on the menu. It seems these were mostly recorded just for the DVDs, since very few of the lines of dialogue are familiar to me from existing episodes. One of my favourites has to be Zapp saying "Don't feel bad ... I don't know how to use a remote control either".

    Unfortunately, the somewhat humorous (but lengthy) intros to the main menu on each disc can't be skipped. This gets a bit annoying after multiple viewings.

Audio Commentary

    Each episode has a commentary attached, with Jurassic Bark getting two commentaries. Once again there are multiple participants for each episode, and there is barely a silent moment. These are almost as funny to listen to as the episodes themselves, and also contain a fair dollop of information of a technical/production nature. Voice actors regularly indulge us by getting into character whilst making comments. The extra commentary for Jurassic Bark is a more sober affair, with 8 writers talking us through the writing process for an episode (and not very specific to this particular one).

    One thing that was noticeable in this season is that John Di Maggio first pops up in the 5th episode, and throughout most of the episodes where he is a participant he doesn't actually contribute much. The reason this stands out is that he's been such a vocal contributor in past seasons, so I'm not sure if the cancellation of the series subdued him somewhat. On that note; due to the fact that most of the commentaries were recorded after the show had been canned, there are a number of comments and jibes relating to this, and I must say they all seem to take it surprisingly well considering the way Fox treated them.

Deleted Scenes

    Each disc has the deleted scene(s) equating to the episodes on that disc. They are as follows:

• Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch: 3:02
• Leela's Homeworld: 1:09
• Love and Rocket: 0:14
• Less Than Hero: 0:20
• Taste of Freedom: 0:45
• Crimes of the Hot: 0:20
• Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles: 0:45
• The Way of Fry: 0:25
• Where No Fan Has Gone Before: 0:09
• The Sting: 1:36
• Bend Her: 0:50
• Obsoletely Fabulous: 1:05
• The Farnsworth Parabox: 0:40
• Three Hundred Big Boys: 0:55
• Spanish Fry: 1:10
• The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings: 1:23

    These scenes are pretty much one-off gags that have been cut for the purposes of keeping the extremely tight runtimes down. They're generally of the same standard as those in the show itself, and worth watching.

Animatic - Obsoletely Fabulous (24:36)

    The episode in its early form (around half way through the production process), being only line drawings and missing animation frames. This is the full episode, including some short scenes that didn't make it to the final cut.

International Clips - Love and a Rocket (1:25)

    A short scene from this episode with the option of listening to English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish tracks. You can jump between them with the audio button on the remote.

3-D Models From Rough Draft

    Rotating models from the 3-D animation company that created Futurama's excellent 3-D imagery. These are all accompanied by a commentary from various animators. They are as follows:

• Planet Express hanger and lift (0:24)
• Los Angeles urban defense vehicle (0:26)
• The Nimbus (0:22)
• Nixon robot (0:18)
• Planet Express Neighbourhood (0:38)
• Various Planet Express ship (0:44)
• Planet Express controls (0:19)
• WWII tank (0:19)
• Character walk test for neighbourhood extras (0:17)
• WWII army truck (0:18)
• Angelyne's hover Corvette (0:16)

How to Draw Characters

    Step by step instructions and images showing how to draw some of the Futurama characters. This time round we get Bender (22 images) and the Professor (17 images).

Character Pencil Tests

    Some animation tests with rough, pencilled images. These are taken from many different seasons. Characters are as follows:

• Bender (2:16)
• Leela (0:29)
• Kif (0:17)
• Zapp (0:15)
• The Professor (0:12)
• Zoidberg (0:46)
• Fry (0:20)
• Amy (0:20)
• Miscellaneous (3:21)

Still Gallery

    52 images from the show - mostly pencil line drawings.

Trailers

    Trailers for Futurama seasons 1, 2 and 3, as well as the video game. If you've bought this set, then you probably don't need any prompting to know that the other seasons are just as worth owning.

Easter Eggs

    I have no doubt that I have yet to find all the Easter Eggs on these discs, but here are some that I discovered:

• Interviews with cast/crew members (Disc 3): David Goodman and John Di Maggio discuss the Star Trek episode and Bender, at what looks like some sort of Comic Con event. In the menu for Where No Fan Has Gone Before click the right button while on the bottom option.
• Table reading for The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings (Disc 4): Audio-only recording of the cast during a read-through for said episode. The audio is fairly muffled here, but it's still worth a listen. On the sub-menu for this episode, click the down button until the item below the fridge is highlighted, then select it.

    Despite early rumours to the contrary, once again we've had to wait in Region 4 for this set, while Region 2 has had it available for a number of months already. The discs are absolutely identical, and their dual region coding suggests that they're taken from exactly the same masters. The Region 1 sets are not available yet, but past experience has shown them to be almost identical to our versions. I'd just let price dictate your region of choice.

    The only other consideration (assuming we don't have a repeat of Season 3's mastering problem) is packaging, since the Region 2 set has a spiffy partially transparent plastic slipcase that goes over the box.

    The last season of Futurama - what can I say? You should know by now whether or not this is your cup of tea, but if you haven't tried any of the previous seasons: go out and buy them all, including this one!

    The video presentation is excellent, with only a few failings.

    For a cartoon, the audio is more than adequate.

    Another decent offering of extras, with the audio commentaries once again being about as entertaining and informative as commentaries can get.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall