Looking at a lot of on-line reviews of the Futurama Season One box set, it has come to my attention that many people do not know much about this show. And it isnt all that shocking to tell you the truth. From Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, the show never picked up a wide spread fan base, and is currently a cult show of sorts. Ever since March 1999 after it premiered after the ever-popular The Simpsons, FOX has not advertised the show and has stuck it in the awful 7pm Sunday timeslot. You have to remember this is the same network that doesn't care about its TV shows. Afterall, FOX let Married...With Children, the show that put FOX "on the map" go without so much as a finale. This is the same network that cancelled Family Guy, a show many believe is even funnier than The Simpsons, and the list goes on.

Unfortunately, these days Futurama is the constant victim of pre-emptions due to baseball and football, and at this time, FOX is still showing season 3 and 4 episodes now, its its "5th season". But this is a review of the DVD, not the current state of affairs at FOX. But its important to have some background so you can understand how mistreated the show is after you fall in love with it after you watch these 13 episodes.

EPISODES
The series starts off with Space Pilot 3000. In this episode, we meet disgruntled pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry on New Years Eve 1999. When making a delivery to a cryogenics lab, he accidently (or so we'll find out soon) falls in and gets frozen until New Years Eve 2999. We meet Turanga Leela, a cyclops alien (well...) who chases after Fry when he flees from getting his "Career Implant Chip". Fry gets acquianted with New New York, and learns a bit about the future. We meet Bender, an alcohol-drinking robot; Fry's great great great (times 16) nephew Dr. Huburt J. Farnsworth, who is 150 some-odd years old, who eventually hires them as his crew at his "Planet Express" delivery service.

Next up is The Series Has Landed. Fry and the crew make their first delivery to the Moon, which has Fry really excited. Unfortunately when he gets there, he finds out its been turned into some giant cheap amusement park complete with singing sailor rides and bad merchandise. When Fry and Leela ride a moon lander off of an educational ride, they get stuck on the surface without oxygen until they are saved by an oxygen farmer. Trouble ensues when Bender has a relationship with the farmer's robot daughter, and they are kicked out. Fry and Leela spend a night in a Lunar Lander and Leela understands why the Moon is so special to Fry. In this episode we meet Amy Wong, a Chinese billionaire daughter; Hermes Conrad, a Jamaican manager, and Dr. John Zoidberg, a crab-like doctor.

I, Roommate deals with the relationship and friendship between Fry and his new best friend, Bender. They decide to buy an apartment together, and once they find the perfect one, Bender cant stay because his antenna messes up the TV signal in the building. We finally get to see Bender "blind stinking sober" when he is upset that he and Fry are not roommates. They solve the problem though when they move back to Bender's tiny apartment and Fry moves into the closet.

The first three episodes are great, but it just keeps getting better with Love's Labors Lost in Space. We finally meet Zap Brannigan, an infamous space captain known for saving the Octilian system for single handedly destroying all the killbots there. Zap Brannigan was supposed to be voiced by the late Phil Hartmann, and Billy West captures Phil Hartmann's kind of style extremely well. Zap captures and jails the Planet Express crew while on a mission to save doomed animals from Vergon 6, a planet thats not part of "Doop: Democratic Order of Planets" because its isnt developed. Leela and Zap get their thing on and they are set free. Leela gets a new pet, Nibbler.

Fear of a Bot Planet finds Fry and Leela "saving" Bender on a planet full of radical human-hating robots. Bender is upset that people don't treat him respectably and actually leads a human hating resistance. But Bender tell the robots that humans are "stupid, harmless creatures" and that he can't kill Fry and Leela after they are captured as robot imposters. They eventually flee the planet and the crew makes up.

A Fishful of Dollars is one of the best. Fry finds out that this ATM card balance of $.93 from 1999 is now worth $4.3 Billion. Fry is a rich man, and he goes out and buys a 20th century apartment (with original asbestos) and amongst other things, the LAST can of anchovies for $50 million. New nemesis Mom, the worlds most huggable indutrialist, also wants the fish, for it can put her robot oil business out of business. She and her cohorts develop a scheme to take care of the problem, and they rob Fry of his assets. But Mom finds happiness in that Fry wants to cook the old fish.

In My Three Suns the crew takes a trip to the planet Trisol (get it?) in the Forbidden Zone. Bender trys to cook, but he doesn't fair well. Fry becomes emporer of the planet after drinking the last one... the people of the planet are liquid. All is well until the people find out that the old emporer is still alive inside Fry's stomach, and the people turn against him. Luckily he has good friends by his side, friends that stick by him no matter how much of a fool he makes of himself.

In A Big Piece of Garbage, we meet Professor Wornstrom, Farnsworth's enemy. After being humiliated and laughed at, Farnsworth invents the Smell-o-scope the Fry finds the smelliest thing in the universe. Its a giant meteor sized klump of garbage blasted into space from the year 2052 that could reduce New New York to a stinky crater. They have less than 72 to stop it. Look for Bart Simpsons little cameo in the episode.

Bender finds religion in Hell Is Other Robots. After getting lambasted by the crew for all the problems he causes, he cleans up. When he gives that up to be bad again, the robot devil comes and he finds himself in Robot Hell. Fry and Leela go to to rescue him, but Bender rescues them all. Is Bender going to give up his bad ways after this event? Maybe... not.

A Flight To Remember is just another piece of evidence of this shows greatness. The crew take a vacation on a space cruise called the Titanic, piloted by none other than Zap Brannigan. Titanic references run amok in this one, as Bender finds love with a rich aristocrat robot. Meanwhile, Leela and Amy both use Fry as their boyfriend. Leela uses him to stave off Brannigan, and Amy uses him to keep her parents off her back. When Leela and Fry are about to kiss, the ship is pulled toward a black hole, no thanks to Brannigan and his alternate route "with some chest hair".

The crew goes to Mars University to deliver Prof. Farnsworth's package to his office there. Fry and Amy enroll in the university and Fry's new roommate is a monkey named Gunter. Its a smart monkey though, thanks to Farnsworth's special hat. Meanwhile, Bender joins his old frat to make it cool again. Gunter doesn't like being under control of the hat, and strives for freedom.

We start with a flashback to 1999 in When Aliens Attack, when Fry accidentally knocks out FOX's broadcast of "Single Female Lawyer", an Alley McBeal-like show. 1000 Light years away, 1000 years later, the signal is interrupted at Omicron Percei 8, and Lurr gets upset and sets out to invade Earth. Zap Brannigan enlists all people with spaceships to destroy the mothership, but that goes wrong, and the fleet is forced to retreat. Since "Single Female Lawyer" has been gone for 1000 years, and the tapes had been destroyed at the second coming of Jesus in 2443, Fry and crew film a new episode to bring the aliens closure.

And in Fry and the Slurm Factory, we learn how the ever popular Slurm is made when Fry wins a contest to visit the Slurm bottling plant. "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" references are made throughout the episode. But then they get into the bowels...literally...of the factory and find out what slurm is made of.

EXTRAS
Disc One contains the first 4 episodes, Animatics from "Space Pilot 3000", the Script and Storyboard for "Space Pilot 3000", and 5 deleted scenes.

Disc Two has the next 5 episodes, and 2 deleted scenes.

Disc Three has the last 4 episodes, a short 5 minute featurette about how Groening wanted to bring something like The Simpsons into space, an interactive stills and video gallery, and 1 deleted scene.

Every episode has commentary with Matt Groening, David X Cohen, and others.

COMMENTS
First off, I feel that I need to say that I like Futurama a lot more than I like The Simpsons. I think that The Simpsons is a show that is too simple and depends on current events too much. Futurama is a much more adult show in my opinion because you need to have more intellect to pick up all of the jokes and references.

So finally, after the long wait, Futurama is finally out on DVD. These 13 episodes are fantastic. I know it sounds corny, but I really love them all. There isn't one bad episode in this collection. Most shows don't start out too well, but this one sure did. As a matter of fact, you think that this show can't get any better at some points, but then you see the next episode and the bar is raised again. The perfect fusion of animation and computer graphics is really top notch, as the CG compliments the animation perfectly.

The video quality of these episodes is nothing short of amazing... FAR better than all of the Simpsons DVDs out right now. Everything is so crisp and gorgeous picture quality wise, and its totally solid.

The sound on the other hand, is a bit unfortunate. FOX opted to keep the episodes in their original stereo sound... no 5.1 remixes here.

As I wind up the review, I want to say that you should give this show a chance. I can almost guarantee that you'll be hooked on this show after just a few episodes. The characters are great, the stories are great, the writing is excellent. Its very funny. There are a lot of sound effects from The Jetsons and Star Wars and more. There isn't one bad episode in the entire set, and for only $30, you can't go wrong. This show isnt an excuse to have stupid jokes in space, it actually has heart too. Sci-Fi fan or not, Simpsons fan or not, give it a chance. You won't be dissatisfied.

The packaging is a slip case and inside are 3 mini snap cases. Each disc and box has original, beautiful box art. It looks real nice.

UPDATE - April 12: I finally got through a good amount of the commentaries, and they are great. Funny, interesting, and entertaining.

I'm very happy to own this. Go buy it.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older