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David X. Cohen Talks About Futurama's New Season 246

Posted by timothy
from the bachelor-chow dept.
joelkeller writes "I spoke to David X. Cohen, executive producer of Futurama, about the upcoming season, which premieres on June 24 on Comedy Central. He talks about the season finale (!) and how the show is always on the precipice of cancellation."
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David X. Cohen Talks About Futurama's New Season More

David X. Cohen Talks About Futurama's New Season

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  • Re:Good News Everyone! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by danomac (1032160) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:15PM (#32672006)
    Dammit, anyone know if it's airing in Canada? It doesn't look like it (at least on the Comedy Network or on the Global TV here.) :(

  • Re:So what? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:18PM (#32672026)

    I've always thought of Futurama as the thinking man's Simpsons.

  • Re:Good News Everyone! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mr. Picklesworth (931427) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:31PM (#32672126) Homepage

    I would LOVE to watch it on TV, but it doesn't look like Comedy Central is airing the episodes in Canada.

    So, I will pirate it (because that's all I can do), look at some ads, and tell the market research people I watched it.

  • Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cthubik (1588847) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:34PM (#32672150)
    I completely agree, the Simpsons hasn't been funny or clever for many years and should have been canceled many, many seasons ago. The writing was once above average, now it is just pathetic to watch to anyone who isn't a simpleton (average sitcom writing). Futurama, however, is actually really funny.

  • Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hedwards (940851) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:39PM (#32672168)
    Personally, I love both series. (Well, I loved the Simpsons from like season 5 or so to season 15, it wasn't very good outside that range. But Futurama definitely takes a much keener intellect to really appreciate. There's a lot of references that require considerable education at times to really appreciate. And even with that it often takes several viewings to really notice most of what's going on.

  • Re:Good News Everyone! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jenming (37265) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:42PM (#32672202)

    The only way they can tell if you watch it is if you are selected for a Nelson survey. If you are part of one be sure to put down you watched Futurama in every time slot available.

    I guess there is some damage you do to overall commercial value by pirating, but you would do the same damage by watching TV and not changing your purchasing habits.

  • Re:Penalty: Intentional Grounding. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ailnlv (1291644) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @07:59PM (#32672342)

    So what exactly killed arrested development and family guy?

  • Re:Penalty: Intentional Grounding. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vrallis (33290) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @08:10PM (#32672446) Homepage

    Have there ever been any shows other than Futurama, Firefly and maybe Family Guy that Slashdot has ever given a rat's ass about getting canceled? I don't remember timeslot arguments coming up in Firefly or Family Guy.

    And don't waste breath promoting Legend of the Seeker around a lot of us here, we're still pissed at how badly they destroyed the Sword of Truth books in this show. They turned an epic story into a Hercules/Xena style corny weekly show. Hell, every plot point that gave the first book such a good ending was completely destroyed in the first episode.

  • Re:Penalty: Intentional Grounding. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Wednesday June 23 2010, @09:08PM (#32672840)

    Arrested Development had too many big-name stars, and therefore a bloated budget. It was popular, but not popular enough to justify its production costs. Remember, the object of the TV game is to make money, not keep fans happy.

    Family Guy was also on the Sunday post-NFL schedule and not given right-of-way over The Simpsons, and therefore also killed by the same factors that did in Futurama.
     

  • Dumb TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Strange Ranger (454494) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @09:09PM (#32672850)
    "The only way they can tell if you watch it is if you are selected for a Nelson survey. And that's why"

    That I think, is the root cause of why TV is generally so terrible.
    Busy interesting people don't have time for Nielsen surveys. People good at math realize that the time and effort spent will yield about the same results as voting. People who love really good mysteries (or insert your favorite type of show) likely have nothing to watch and comment on during the time of the survey. Really, imagine all the people who actually take part in the Nielsen ratings getting together for a BBQ.
    Would you attend?

  • Re:Penalty: Intentional Grounding. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hedwards (940851) on Wednesday June 23 2010, @09:30PM (#32672988)
    Probably the fact that it was on Fox. Fox has a pretty well established reputation for dooming shows via incompetent scheduling and unrealistic expectations. I can pretty much guarantee that had Seinfeld been on Fox it would've been canceled before the second season. I'm not personally a fan of that show, but most of the fans seem to agree that it got funnier the more episodes you saw. Had Fox bought it they would never have allowed it to get big before canceling it.

    Fortunately now that shows are available on DVD shortly after or even while still being produced, people do have some ability to say that they want that show back. Which is sort of what has given Family Guy the ability to come back from the dead twice.

  • Re:Penalty: Intentional Grounding. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mikael_j (106439) <slashdot@pa[ ]urk.info ['ntb' in gap]> on Thursday June 24 2010, @01:17AM (#32674008)

    But most of the big-name "Sci-fi" these days is just "blockbuster action movie, IN SPACE! (Also, we threw in some comic relief for the kids and some romance for the ladies, enjoy!)", there is little sci-fi to sci-fi in hollywood these days.

    Or how about "Knowing", a friend of mine called it the best new sci-fi movie in ages, I watched it and concluded they went with the much-overused "Alien horror" genre which then turned into some sort of "Jesus as an alien (who just seemed bad because we're idiots who wanted to make a cool trailer) saves the innocent and righteous and brings them all to a new garden of eden while everyone else dies horribly".

  • Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by delinear (991444) on Thursday June 24 2010, @04:59AM (#32675128)
    One of the key differences between the shows is the level of "resets" of the world from one show to the next. The Simpsons seems to reset much harder - okay there's some linear movement, Maude dying, Apu's babies, etc. but mostly a bunch of crazy stuff happens one week and the next it's like it never did (and in fact one of my favourite visual references is that giant head monument in the Simpson's basement, which I'm sure is a subtle reference to how everything else goes back to factory default every week). The same happens in Futurama but they do have some longer story arcs (the brain attacks, Fry and Leela's relationship, Amy and Kif's). This probably adds to the difficulty for the average person to get into the show, not only is it full of sci-fi and science references they don't understand, but there's at least a little requirement to have watched previous shows, whereas with the Simpsons you can skip ten seasons and pretty much pick up where you left off.

  • Re:precipice? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by squizzar (1031726) on Thursday June 24 2010, @05:02AM (#32675160)
    To an extent I agree. I always find it interesting that British comedies tend to have 6-episodes per series, and most of the greatest comedies have only done a few series. My favourites like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Black Books, The IT Crowd, Fast Show, League of Gentlemen etc. have as many episodes in their entire run as one series of Scrubs, but most are remembered as being brilliant. I would of course love to see more episodes of each, but as you say, it would a be a terrible shame if they did more episodes for the sake of it and in doing so ruined the memory of how brilliant the existing episodes are.

And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!!