Futurama - Where No Fan Has Gone Before

[MerelyAFan]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/animation/futurama1.php

This definitely has to be up there as far as affectionate Trek parodies go. TOS is obviously the most iconic and it getting this sort of episode makes sense, though I do wish TNG and DS9 could have gotten something like this in a show at some point.

[Hiccups]

One thing I never got about this episode was that at one point, Shatner asks Leonard Nimoy: "Wasn't there an episode where I threw my shoe at the enemy?"
Now, knowing the Futurama writers, this has to be a reference to something, they're too smart to just pull an idea like that out of their asses, but I don't recall any episode of Star Trek where Kirk (or anyone for that matter) throws their shoe at someone. Is this a reference to a different William Shatner role or something?

[clearspira]

Firstly, I am enjoying Chaos mode. I like having random vids and I think Chuck probably does too. Not having having a ''do or die'' schedule is probably a great liberator.

Secondly, Futurama is by far one of my favourite shows of all time and as such this is an episode in which I have always hoped Chuck would review. Genuinely funny, at times genuinely sad and heartwarming, and unlike The Simpsons and Family Guy, it knew when it was starting to get stale and stopped.

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.

[Fianna]

One thing I never got about this episode was that at one point, Shatner asks Leonard Nimoy: "Wasn't there an episode where I threw my shoe at the enemy?"
Now, knowing the Futurama writers, this has to be a reference to something, they're too smart to just pull an idea like that out of their asses, but I don't recall any episode of Star Trek where Kirk (or anyone for that matter) throws their shoe at someone. Is this a reference to a different William Shatner role or something?

I figured it was just meant to be an example of actors not remembering little details from the show nearly as well as fans do. So Shatner's thinking back to fight scenes he did and is like, "How did that go? Did I . . . throw a shoe at someone? Is that it?"

[Fianna]

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.

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?

[CrypticMirror]

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?

[clearspira]

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.

[Jonathan101]

Wait...is this the first episode of Futurama on this site ever?

[clearspira]

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.

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?

I can think of a plausible chain of events in the writers' minds.

1) No one thought of it, because season 1 TNG wasn't that well thought out and originally holopeople like Minuet were seen as extraordinary. Seemingly before that it could only make some nice vistas.

2) When they did think of it, humans are too evolved in the 24th century to stoop to such things.

3) Then they pissed that whole excuse up the wall by writing Reg Barclay... but justified it to themselves that he was just an oddity.

4) Berman, Braga, Biller and Taylor on the whole had little time for deep worldbuilding with VOY and as such probably did not care.

5) Ron Moore seems to be the only one who noticed the implications of the holodeck and ran with it. Which is why only DS9 could have pulled off the episode where PTSD Nog traps himself within Vic Fontaine's bar. Unfortunately, Trek would never reach the greatness of DS9 again, and ENT had no holodecks in which to try.

[Mecha82]

Episodes like this one show that not only Futurama was clever but it also had heart and it wasn't afraid to have message. This really shows why Futurama is superior to The Simpsons and all other animated shows that follow same formula as The Simpsons. And message of this episode is very topical considering how obsessed fandoms can really be to point of getting outright toxic.