Season 11 Episode 9 - The Prince and the Product [Discussion and Spoilers]

Awa@lemmy.worldmod to Futurama @lemmy.world – 88 points –

Airing on Hulu (US) or Disney Plus (outside US) - Monday, September 18, 2023 at Eastern Time (ET) 03:00 a.m/ Pacific Time (PT) 12:00 a.m

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What the hell did I just watch ?

I watched half way, got PTSD from season 10 and put on s1e1 and fell asleep. I've liked this season so far, being fan since literally 1999 (holy shit...) but I couldn't make it through this episode. It was Naturama all over again.

Was painful. An episode I will never watch again

Hey, you do you. My days of slamming things I don't like are over. Not everything's made for me and I accept that but there are definitely similartities I can draw between the two. I told my brother that I don't mind the off-the-wall goofy episodes when the What-If machine is involved but the knee-jerk transitions between actual episode and goofiness just isn't for me. Glad there's a new season and that there's an audience for episodes like that though!

Oh absolutely. Not everyone's cup of tea. I just didn't enjoy it at all. Just wanted it to stop.

I turned it off halfway through. It was completely rubbish. So bad that it's making me want to NOT rewatch classic episodes.

If the writers on this are striking for more money, I can only hope they lose their homes to an AI. That also pleasures their wives, since at least one of them seems to have a fetish for cuckoldry.

I stopped watching 3 episodes into the new season when it was obvious that this was exactly what I feared it would be -- a half-baked revival where characterization and good writing got thrown out the window. Even the CC revival had solid episodes even if some weren't quite up to par with the original run. This is just embarrassing. I consider it a bad fanfic reimagining of the series and refuse to consider it actual Futurama.

It feels like someone made them include at least 4 references to better episodes per episode and don't care if the writing isn't strong enough to hold them all together.

This is a show now meant to offer dopamine in the form of nostalgia and that's it. It's just giving a junkie their fix and I'm not interested since I'm not an addict.

Such a fucking shame.

Did anyone else think this episode was supposed to be a dream? The fact that adverts are spread throughout definitely made me think it was (remember ads are beamed into peoples dreams).

Also there were elements shared between the anthology segments, like Fry being unwell, or Bender doing loop-de-loops that make me think it’s a reflection of some real events? Maybe events we’ll see in the season finale?

Curious if anyone else got these vibes. Could just be reading too much into it.

What the fuck did I just watch

I came here to say this. What the fuck is going on in this one?

If I had a nickel every time Bender became a car, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

The framing plot here was imo definitely a self-aware parody of past episodes where Leela just totally forgets/ignores she and Fry are dating, and through that lens I found it hilarious. The science spell reveal at the end is the perfect absurd capper to it and also makes it clear it wasn't meant to be taken seriously

My theory here is this episode is 4 mini episodes written by ai.

Usually when they do an anthology or clip show they have some kind of in-universe framing device, but this almost feels like the whole screenplay was ai and they just said fuck it.

I really hope this is the case and they were trying to prove a point in favor of the striking writers... otherwise I may skip the rest of this season. Its been okay, if a bit stale, but this was one was disheartening.

Its been okay, if a bit stale, but this was one was disheartening.

Yeah, I feel the same way. The other episodes were all right, although a bit heavy on the memberberries, but this was just awful.

I haven't seen every episode of Futurama, but I've seen the vast majority, and while more than a few haven't been my kind of humor, this is the first one I've seen that I thought actually sucked.

Extremely doubt that. These episodes have been in production for a long time, way before the strike and hell likely before the current AI craze of the last year or two

ChatGPT was made available to the public in November 2022, when they were still in production. I don't know enough details to say whether that was enough time to get a script in for one episode. It's possible they used something before ChatGPT, since similar tools have been around for several years, just not as advanced or accessible as ChatGPT.

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This season has been so bad. I only watch it in the memory of the show I loved.

Here is my theory. They intentionally make these god-awful episodes so the rest of the episodes would shine against them.

Can’t believe the first season back is already almost done! Any word yet on if it’s been picked up for season 12?

From my understanding it was renewed for 20 episodes split it into two parts so there will still be 10 coming at some point (much like Disnenchantment did).

I am simultaneously encouraged about the writers starting to take chances and completely baffled as to why they even bothered with an overall throwaway storyline.

I would also like some actual jokes thrown in. This is like...an outline of an episode that was never punched up in any fashion.

It feels like I'm the only enjoying this season. I think they're doing great job and the episodes really funny! I agree that this one was a weird one and trippy as fuck but it was really original and I caught myself laughing several times. The main story was less good, but I feel like they wanted to put weight on the short ones. Also this is the second time that we see that a character is cheating and it's starting to get annoying. This is the only criticize I have

Oh god, the commercials, were so great. Totally going to be my zoom backgrounds this week.

This is why kids shouldn't do drugs. Even adults can't handle them.