Futurama: Volume 5 – Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews

Few shows have struggled to reach their sixth season the way Futurama did. Fans of the show had to weather one cancellation, four pretty good direct-to-DVD films, and wait seven years for a return to network TV.

Somewhat awkwardly picking up where Into The Wild Green Yonder left off (especially since Yonder was initially created to be the end of the series), Season 6 kicks off a little strange but quickly returns to the greatness the show is known for and even manages to reach it’s landmark 100th episode (the DTVs are considered Season 5).

All your favorite characters, major and minor, are back in these thirteen mind-boggling episodes. Watch in amazement and laugh as the Planet Express crew take on a mighty death sphere called the V-GINY, Mom takes control of society with the new eyephone, Nibbler and Amy save the world from cute alien cats with mind control and much, much more.

The show is as solid as ever with a great cross section of zany episodes (The Professor invents a mind switching machine), social commentary (Amy and Bender fight for the right to date), romance (Fry travels to the end of the universe and back to be on time for his date with Leela) and if nothing else you get to see Dr. Zoidberg and Professor Farnsworth make out. Why you might ask? You’ll just have to watch the episode to find out!

If you’re a Futurama fan you will not be disappointed in these great 13 episodes!

Episodes:

Rebirth 6-24-2010
In-A-Gada-Da-Leela 6-24-2010
Attack Of The Killer App 7-1-2010
Proposition Infinity 7-8-2010
The Duh-Vinci Code 7-15-2010
Lethal Inspection 7-22-2010
The Late Philip J. Fry 7-29-2010
That Darn Katz! 8-5-2010
A Clockwork Origin 8-12-2010
The Prisoner Of Benda 8-19-2010
Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences 8-26-2010
The Mutants Are Revolting 9-2-2010
The Futurama Holiday Spectacular 11-21-2010

The episodes are presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. French and Spanish subtitles are available. These are so damn fine look episodes. They sound great too.

Full-Length Commentaries: Each episode has various cast and member participation. They’re all pretty funny, but sometimes too many people talk at once and it just becomes a cacophony of sound instead of distinct commentary. But you do get to hear the fascinating story of Nicolas Cage’s love of trilobites.

The Adventures Of Delivery-Boy Man: (7 min.) Fry narrates this motion comic that he drew. Some if it is seen in the episode Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences. This is the full thing. It’s pretty funny. You can watch it with and without commentary!

“Bend It Like Bender”: (3 min.) A cute little song about Bender. Oddly enough, it feels like something from the ’60s. Or perhaps not, considering his pension for folk tunes.

Behind The Fungus: Makin’ A Hit Song: (5 min.) Not only is Billy West an amazing voice talent, but he’s apparently a great guitar player too. Here he talks about writing the song “Shut Up And Love Me” for the episode Proposition Infinity.

Previously On Futurama: (1 min.) This is various characters from the show saying “Previously on Futurama” to introduce highlights for the films when aired on TV.

The Prisoner Of Benda Table Read: (35 min.) Watch an animatic of the episode while listening to the cast read through the episode for the very first time. This is really funny. I wish they had these for all the episodes. You get to hear some funny jokes that don’t make it into the final episode.

Deleted Scenes: (10 min.) These are some pretty funny little jokes that were all cut due to time constraints. Definitely worth watching.

Sneak Peek of Season 7: (this is a BD-Live feature) (2 min.) You can download or stream this. It’s a short clip from the first new episode The Silence of The Clamps and if this is any indication, the rest of season 6 is going to be just as good as what you get here!

The direct-to-DVD films were good, but rarely great, so I was a little worried how the returning series would compare to the classic seasons. I’m happy to report it’s as great as ever and with some really fun extras to boot this is certainly a must own for every Futurama fan.


20th Century Fox presents Futurama: Volume 5. Created by: Matt Groening. Starring: Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeile and Maurice LaMarche. Running time: 281 minutes on 2 discs. Not Rated. Released on Blu-ray and DVD: December 21, 2010.

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years