Futurama - Where No Fan Has Gone Before

[Xaios]

A work like Star Trek shouldn't BE your life after all...

"Go on..."

...It should make your life richer by being a part of it.

"Perfect."
- Alec Peters

[BunBun299]

I demand more Futurama episode reviews. The show deserves to be reviewed like any other great sci-fi shows.

[Scififan]

I also adore Zapp Brannigan. He is such an awesome piss take of William Shatner, Kirk and Star Trek that as a long time Trekkie I cannot help but love him. I think my fave Zapp joke of all time is the holobarn (an obvious piss-take of the holodeck) In which five seconds after it nearly kills the whole crew, Zapp announces that he is going off for some R&R in the holobarn with the blood and dirt of the whole mess still coating his face. It is such a great send up of just how nonsensical the holodeck truly is. The thing is an absolute death trap worthy of a horror movie that OSHA would have a field day with and yet it doesn't stop anyone in-universe giving ''The Adventures of Flotter'' to their kids.

Case in point.
https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/t169.php

I dunno, I think the danger of the holodeck helps to counteract something else about the holodeck that would otherwise not make sense: why don't people just live their whole lives in the holodeck?

[Quixotica]

I don't really have much to say about this, other than I love it. Both Futurama and Chuck's view on it. Futurama was as much a love letter to Sci-fi as it was a parody of it. I think that was what was missing about Disenchanted, Groening's follow up series with an emphasis on fantasy, the love and deep appreciation of the genre that is needed for the comedy to work. Mind you, most modern fantasy works seem to lack that sense of warmth and fun for the genre too. Maybe, just maybe, us all being trapped indoors with this lockdown stuff then we'll all rediscover the need for upbeat fun and adventure too. Oh, it would be ironic if a global pandemic was the thing that ended grimdark seriousness, it really would. Yes I have been drink a lot today, why are people asking?

If Covid-19 ends ''Picard'', every cloud and all that.

Picard is in no way, shape or form even slightly grimdark. It's not even the darkest thing Trek itself has done.

[RobbyB1982]

If you think Picard is "grimdark", then you clearly haven't ever actually seen a grimdark story.

Picard isn't a squeaky clean fountain of optimism like TNG, its grounded more closely to DS9's attitude and style, it's a little darker, but it is no way grimdark. Especially near the end where Picard's optimism proves to have been correct when Starfleet DOES step back up to its ideals.

DIscovery? With its cynism, rape scenes, violent on screen visceral murder, random killing of secondaries for shock value, complete lack of hope, embracing of Space Hitler as one of the good guys? It's clear inspiration from GoT? That hews closer in that direction. That show is absolutely dark. But even that is still not grimdark, not even close, since most of the cast is still optimistic and hopeful and good and the overall message is "peace can be achieved" and good things happen too.

Grimdark needs ALL the characters to be amoral and grey. The violence and sense of hopelessness constant, having perpetuated for ages. Where nothing ever gets better for more than a few minutes at a time and life is meaningless. If you have a fountain of optimism character who is consistently proven right, who gets rewarded for their efforts? That's not grimdark, that's just a dark world against a light character.

[Madner Kami]

That is such a narrow definition, that it's completely useless. By your definition, not even 40k is grimdark.

[CrypticMirror]

Grimdark needs ALL the characters to be amoral and grey. The violence and sense of hopelessness constant, having perpetuated for ages. Where nothing ever gets better for more than a few minutes at a time and life is meaningless.

That certainly sounds like the definition of Discovery. Also you are ignoring that each franchise has its own baseline; by the standards of the Star Trek franchise, Discovery is very grimdark. And unwelcome with it. Even Deep Space Nine got too wrapped up in it by the end, and we should not be aiming for the lowest scoring of the TNG era shows as the baseline for passable. Deep Space Nine has aged increasingly badly as time goes on, especially with the pointless Dominion War, the new age hippie Bajoran religion stuff, and Section fucking Thirty One. Lets do better than Deep Space Nine and go back to the outright optimism. Star Trek Picard did manage to take some steps towards that in the back half of the season, admittedly, but they spent too much time wallowing in the doldrums before getting there. Picard ought to have been off Earth by the end of Ep One, and Seven ought to have genuinely been swayed by Picard instead of faking it for Murder One later. Picard, character and show, can do so much better.

[clearspira]

Grimdark needs ALL the characters to be amoral and grey. The violence and sense of hopelessness constant, having perpetuated for ages. Where nothing ever gets better for more than a few minutes at a time and life is meaningless.

That certainly sounds like the definition of Discovery. Also you are ignoring that each franchise has its own baseline; by the standards of the Star Trek franchise, Discovery is very grimdark. And unwelcome with it. Even Deep Space Nine got too wrapped up in it by the end, and we should not be aiming for the lowest scoring of the TNG era shows as the baseline for passable. Deep Space Nine has aged increasingly badly as time goes on, especially with the pointless Dominion War, the new age hippie Bajoran religion stuff, and Section fucking Thirty One. Lets do better than Deep Space Nine and go back to the outright optimism. Star Trek Picard did manage to take some steps towards that in the back half of the season, admittedly, but they spent too much time wallowing in the doldrums before getting there. Picard ought to have been off Earth by the end of Ep One, and Seven ought to have genuinely been swayed by Picard instead of faking it for Murder One later. Picard, character and show, can do so much better.

I will disagree with you regarding Section 31 in that in DS9 they came across as being only a couple of guys who were being employed to do the really nasty stuff that no one else wanted to do. Kind of like the ''Special Circumstances'' division in Iain M Banks's ''The Culture''. They also raised what is an interesting question that I thank them for raising: how does one protect paradise in a dangerous universe once diplomacy and starships are no longer enough?

It was the Abrams reboot and especially STD than turned them into the CIA. EVERYONE seems to know that they exist now too, and why not, given how it has gone from seemingly a couple of guys with no fixed office into an organisation with multiple bases and their own space fleet.

[Madner Kami]

Yup, so far I always only percieved Section 31 has kind of a former agency gone rogue. They may have been sort of an intelligence agency of Earth's Starfleet at some point, that existed into the time of the founding of the Federation. Maybe they were closed down, as their services were not congruent to the Federation Charter, but they kept on going due to people not being completely blind-sided by the Federation ideals at the time and thus had enough support to keep going, except underground. And it kept going as the clandestine organization it is presented as in DS9.

[RobbyB1982]

That certainly sounds like the definition of Discovery. Also you are ignoring that each franchise has its own baseline; by the standards of the Star Trek franchise, Discovery is very grimdark.

Disecovery is a lot closer to grimdark than Picard, to be sure. But it also has characters like Tilly who are full of optimism and continuously proven right. Soru is optimistic and hopeful and his people are saved and become better, and swear to embrace peace rather than murder with their newfound forms. Everything with Pike is optimistic, including him doing the greater good even though he knows the eventual fate it will lead him to. Characters have arguments and fall apart and then realize they love each other and get back together. Michael is taken in by foster parents and treated as one of their ow because its the right thing to do... she isn't sold into child prostitution.

The first season is consumed by war and darkness, but still ends with them deciding to not nuke everything. The heroes manage to stop the super computer from murdering everything and move ont a more optimistic future.

Discovery is *dark*, especially by Star Trek standards, but its not quite grimdark. Happiness and successes exist, and most of the characters think the world can be better and brighter, none of them are resigned to it being forever crap, embracing death as soon as they can because life has no point.

Even Deep Space Nine got too wrapped up in it by the end, and we should not be aiming for the lowest scoring of the TNG era shows as the baseline for passable

DS9 is the best Trek overall series with the strongest developed world and character development, with the most nuanced character. It may not be your thing, and it may overall not be as good as peak season 3-4 TNG, but its certainly overall better than much of what Trek has offered.