Aspiring Equal Oppertunity Feminist Granola girl.

I've decided that I'm going to be reviewing every episode from the new season of Futurama. No one asked, but, hey, it's my blog and I like to think people may have mild interest in my opinion. So, here are my thoughts on 'Children of a Lesser Bog'.

Once again, if you wanna chat about the episode in the notes (comments, rbs) or via DMs, feel free!

I really enjoyed this episode, I think more than I enjoyed the Impossible Stream. With the Impossible Stream, you had the novelty of 'hey, new Futurama!', with an okay story and some good jokes. But, I feel like this episode worked better for me because I adore when Futurama allows itself to examine its characters in stories that have a genuine sense of emotion. Plus, I'm biased because I love Amy and it was really great to see a rare moment of her explored in so much depth. I feel like there are only a handful of episodes that focus on Amy, and even fewer that are so genuinely touching.

The plot was actually really good, in my opinion. I assumed the writers were just going to do something a little sitcom-y with Kif and Amy becoming parents and struggling to balance everything, so I liked the way the story went with Kif being away from his family and trying his best to get home to them, and Amy struggling to cope with motherhood as well as experiencing insecurity. I like how the plot was resolved in a genuinely heart-warming way, with the conclusion of Amy's love for her kids being more important than any biological link to them she lacks. Also, I'm interested to see how they handle this idea of Kif and Amy being parents going forward. In the Comedy Central years, they preferred to maintain the status quo of the show (hence Fry and Leela's muddled relationship), so I'm wondering if being on Hulu will mean that the show will be less afraid of shifting the status quo.

So, I want to get my more negative thoughts out the way before moving onto things that I liked/loved, since I'd rather emphasise the positives of the episodes considering I had a very positive opinion of the episode overall.

I only really noticed it in this episode, but a lot of my issues with the animation/writing from the Comedy Central era of the show, and probably before then, too, is how the show has a tendency to have very limited animation when a group of characters are gathered together but only a few of them are actually talking. It always feels clumsy and odd because there'll be so many characters just standing there, not reacting to what's going on, which is out of character for most of them. I understand that it's not really the fault of the animators and that it's a tough industry. It only really registered in this episode because of how it was strange to see Zapp just standing there in the background expressionlessly, without having said anything in the episode (or even this season, to my recollection) prior. Also, it was odd to see the Planet Express crew just watching on with unchanging expressions and without saying anything as the Grand Midwife threatened to take Amy's kids away in a genuinely heart-wrenching scene. I just wish there was more reactivity to the characters in the background, to make the characters feel more fully realised and as though they have meaningful relationships to one another. Otherwise, it has the same lifeless quality to most of Family Guy and its various knockoffs.

A problem I had with this episode specifically is that I found it a little contrived that Leela would forget that she knocked up Kif because the writers needed an excuse to exposition dump information that a lot of the audience would remember. It felt very out of character for her. In general, not a lot of this ‘reminder’ dialogue felt natural. I'm worried that this will happen in the show going forward when it continues plotlines from previous episodes (e.g. Parasites Regained). I feel like it's kind of a time-waster to have them spend almost five minutes of a 24-minute-long episode reminding the audience of information they could easily access from rewatching Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch if they don't remember it. I feel like they would have cut this part of the episode out if it was airing on TV rather than on a streaming service, because of the differences in time-strictness.

That said, Sex Across the Universe and drunk Leela were pretty funny to me, so I guess I can somewhat get over this issue.

This is a very personal issue for me, and it's that I feel like Zapp didn't have as much of a presence in this episode compared to previously in the show. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine for there to be an episode that has Kif and Zapp in it but has Kif be the focus rather than Zapp. What I mean is that Zapp is this larger-than-life character who has some of the funniest lines in the show even when he's a minor character in an episode, and I just didn't get that from him in this episode.

The show feels very different just vibe-wise compared to the original run and the Comedy Central run, but I feel like, at times, the CC run could also feel a little lifeless, if that makes sense. I don't know how to describe it, really. With the original run, there was always a sense of life to it, without any moment feeling like 'dead air'; maybe it was because of the animation had more of a human touch- or feels that way, anyway- than the more recent instalments of the show. But, the style and delivery of jokes at times have felt increasingly slow and empty to the point of feeling clumsy. It's something I've always felt about Futurama as well as the Simpsons, but I have no idea if I've effectively articulated it.

Now, onto the more positive things!

I'm so happy that they've finally figured out how to handle Amy and Leela in a way that doesn't feel irritating and at least mildly sexist. In the past, I've really hated how they've had the two main female characters of the show be so unpleasant to each other, whilst the male characters can get along just fine and have close, meaningful bonds. Like, it just felt like a bunch of male writers saying 'we think women are two-faced and catty so Leela and Amy will just be like that'. I'm in the process of writing a fic that explores Amy's harsh treatment of Leela as a result of the envy Leela causes her, because I'm so unhappy with their canon relationship and I wanted to see them to have a kind of meaningful relationship. Actually, I found it interesting that the conflict between Leela and Amy in the episode is sparked by Amy's jealousy.

After this episode where they have some of the most pleasant interactions between them out of the whole show, I'm actually optimistic that the show will make Amy and Leela have a pleasant relationship after this episode, though I can only hope they can have a somewhat meaningful relationship going forward, in the same way Fry and Bender have one.

I actually think the conflict between Leela and Amy in the episode is perfectly understandable and logical, more so than the random catty comments Amy would make at Leela's expense in the prior seasons. This time, Amy's actually really hurt and insecure about her kids favouring Leela over her. I feel like it was a good, compelling storyline, not only looking at Leela and Amy's relationship to one another but also examining the broader theme of motherhood or parenthood as a whole, and how Amy may not be the kids' biological mother, but she is their mom and she loves them. And, I really like how they didn't go down the route of Leela trying to take the kids away from Amy. I feel like it's a plot line you could kind of justify because of Leela's own issues with being an orphan and whatnot, but it wouldn't have been in character for her, at least in my opinion. I really liked how they positioned Leela as the kids' aunt, rather than her being jealous of Amy for having kids.

There were a lot of funny jokes in the episode, and I've compiled them into a bullet point list:

Other little things I liked, compiled into a bullet point list: