Rate and Review: "Law and Oracle"

[HMS pinafore]

Fed up with his go-nowhere job at Planet Express, Fry joins the police force.

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

Really effing good

[Real Melvin]

yeah this episode was fantastic

[bartyboy]

funniest futurama in a while

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I only saw the last act earlier but now I've seen the whole thing and it was alright but last week was still far superior. I know the whole future crimes department is a parody of one of those sci-fi films I never bothered to watch, and I appreciated the Police Academy film jabs even though I have never seen and have no desire to see a Police Academy movie. The same can be said for Avatar actually.

As far as the main plot goes it was alright, but felt like it could've been better. Fry's motivation behind joining the police felt understandable but underdeveloped and the return to the status quo at the end had the same problem. Much of the last act was really sub par to me, and I didn't enjoy that long chase scene either. That graduation scene with the sabers reminded me of the superior Simpsons gag with the World War I hats and that was the scene that stuck out the most to me...well, actually there was one other...Amy should never talk like the Professor again....or maybe all the time, I'm not sure. 3/5, better than Neutopia and much of Benderama but I just couldn't get as much out of it as others likely did. Next week's promo looks good though...

[Jakebert]

i liked it, but so far every episode this season has seemed really oddly paced and rushed in parts. they've been really funny as a whole, but the pacing is weird.

[Magnum]

almost felt like a simpsons episode

especially with all those references that would have been fresh in the 90s

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I mentioned the sabers gag above, but the whole episode I just couldn't stop thinking about it and The Springfield Connection so this episode more than any in a long time reminded me of The Simpsons as well.

[DotheBartman]

I laughed and enjoyed it, but the pacing was definitely way, way too fast. It felt like the episode was going on super-speed, even though it's hardly one of the crazier episodes of the show or anything. I've felt that way about some past episodes that seemed better on repeat viewings, though, but this felt especially manic, like they were desperately trying to cram everything in before the 21 minute mark.

So yeah, kind of weak plotting, with little real development of any of the multitude of ideas or plot points that occur, but I was laughing enough that it was still entertaining. "Congratulations on your bust." "Thanks, you too!"

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

I mentioned the sabers gag above, but the whole episode I just couldn't stop thinking about it and The Springfield Connection so this episode more than any in a long time reminded me of The Simpsons as well.

It was written by Josh Weinstein...

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

I mentioned the sabers gag above, but the whole episode I just couldn't stop thinking about it and The Springfield Connection so this episode more than any in a long time reminded me of The Simpsons as well.

It was written by Josh Weinstein...

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I was aware of that but don't think that's why just because his other episode about the invading cats never felt remotely like the Simpsons to me. Though I admit his presence might have something to do with it. The episode also reminded me of Homie the Clown in a way too, but that's much more of a stretch.

[Muskrat]

Loved this one. A reenactment of the opening of the Pilot, an appearance by Roberto and Hedonism Bot, effective movie references (great 3D animation in the Tron scene), and a shot at Leno....this episode had it all.

It was great seeing what life would be like at Planet Express without Fry, and the idea of pre-crime was used very well for the conclusion. I also liked the way they got things back to normal by the end. Sure, the pacing was fast, but at least it fast through the whole episode, instead of unbalanced like most other episodes lately have been (trying to cram too much into the third act). Most importantly, I was laughing through the whole thing.

[arii]

This show is pretty much as close as we're ever gonna get to one that's realistic and down-to-earth that's also completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots.

Agreed about the absolutely manic pacing. Looking down at the time as I was watching, only four or five minutes had passed and Fry had already graduated the police academy, which is absolutely insane, breakneck pacing. Then again, agreed about how consistent it was, so while everything was happening and absolutely everything just zipped along, it still worked as an absolutely hilarious, totally gag-based episode in which pretty much every single one hit the mark.

I'm enjoying the current version of Futurama a lot. It's funny, and consistently so with very few if any groaners. There really isn't anything to complain about, just a new style, and one that does suit the show.

[Mira]

Best one since the late philip j fry. Loved it all. loved the tron sequence. loved the 3d planet. and definitely loved hedonism bot in bondage with handcuffs. a perfect episode in my opinion.

[Ryan]

Hysterical, pretty much every joke hit (even though I've been hard on the modern day refs, the Leno zinger made me laugh pretty hard) and I really enjoyed the Minority Report parody, but the breakneck speed of it all led to an extreme amount of messy plotting. Wasn't there a Leela/Bender subplot in here... oh nevermind it's gone. Fry wants respect... oh nevermind it's about Bender and his friendship (again?)... oh nevermind back at the end and it was about Fry's respect all along?

Uh... what?!

Forget it, I'm just gonna turn the story writing portion of my brain off and enjoy the funny jokes.

Hehe, 3D is pretty stupid.

[Postmaster]

The pace felt fine to me, it was a complex plot, how else would they fit everything in? What should they have taken out? What needed more time spent on it? Not that the episode was perfect or anything just not sure how they should have done anything differently.

Re: ryan o it wasn't a Bender & Leela subplot, it was just a few scenes showing how planet express is coping without Fry. It doesn't need a full arc on it's own and it's resolved by Fry coming back. And yeah it was about Fry wanting respect, that's why he left in the first place.

I mean yeah it wasn't brilliantly written but not really any less than usual.

[HMS pinafore]

every episode of this season is better than the last 5/5

[Sniper Squirrel]

Really liked the Schroedinger's cat and early retirement jokes

[Postmaster]

I liked the Schroedinger's cat joke, but I couldn't help wondering if it was just because it gave me a smug satisfaction for getting the reference.

Also liked the credit joke at the end, it's not really anything new, but I always like credit humor.

[Ryan]

Re: ryan o it wasn't a Bender & Leela subplot, it was just a few scenes showing how planet express is coping without Fry. It doesn't need a full arc on it's own and it's resolved by Fry coming back. And yeah it was about Fry wanting respect, that's why he left in the first place.

Like I said, the story seemed to keep switching where it wanted to go. It seemed for a second like we were going to get a legit Bender/Leela fighting without Fry (I mean, they did have it building to something), and then the writers just shrugged and went "nahh, let's go full on this Minority Report parody", it was almost a whiplash of sorts, but the fact that the jokes that were fit into it were hysterical made it matter much, much less.

If this was an unfunny mess like say, a current day Simpsons, then it would be far more unforgivable.

[DotheBartman]

Yeah, agreed with Ryan on this one. It's not that any of the story points or themes were bad individually (I mean none of them were ingenious, but they were all fine and had plenty of potential), but it just moved between them too quickly and it seemed like a lot of them only really got one or two scenes. Fry wanting a better job isn't really reinforced outside of the beginning and end....Fry and Bender's friendship and Fry's concern about the heist is given maybe a couple scenes...that sort of thing. And character decisions (e.g. Fry abruptly quitting PlanEx) weren't really developed or built to all that naturally, just due to the speed of the pacing. The whole thing with Pickles was actually kind of a great idea, but again, just a little undercooked so that the Minority Report parody could also co-exist with an Avatar parody, and a Tron parody, and a Police Academy parody....and so forth.

But it was still really funny for the most part. "So....you're a robot?" I mean, stuff like that just made this episode despite the problems. So it isn't really like modern Simpsons to me, both because it's actually funny, and because these problems don't consistently re-occur on Futurama week to week.

Plus, great animation. I know these are airing out of order anyway, but last week's (despite being a great episode) had some surprisingly season one-ish animation in it.

[Jims]

This episode had no right to be this good. It is such a mishmash of different parodies and genres that it seemed a little incoherent at times. But luckily for this episode, they managed to make each component work somehow.

There is so much good stuff to point out, that it's probably easier to ramble off the main points.

1. The Tron parody was beautiful, just beautiful. And this is coming from someone who has never seen either movie. Very stylishly put together but also choreographed nicely with the motorbikes. The ending with the refractions looked great.

2. Loved the Minority Report parody a lot... I can't thing of a thing they did wrong with it. They parodies the balls (the clownslaughter line was great), they parodied the overall plot concept, and hell, they even parodied the precogs' names in the movie ("Agatha" turned into "Pickles"). They even did a great job of deconstructing some of the fridge logic going on with free will/predestination stuff going on in that movie. And, much like the movie, they managed to sneak in a twist at the end. And in grand Futurama tradition, it reveled in how cuckoo-bananas the plot became.

Even though it went by really really quickly, the final twist actually made some sense considering everything else in the episode (like how they snuck in the detail that Maltese Liquor kills humans). I caught an inconsistency of "How did Bender know about the revised precognition?" but that was explained by the fact that Fry and Bender were in it together. So even though the story is complete nonsense (kinda like the movie?) there were enough callbacks to keep the ending grounded in the story.

3. Pandora was handled perfectly as a short visual moment. The 3-D coloring was nice to look at and they had some fun with the effects. At the same time, they didn't overstay their welcome with the joke. It's the kind of visual joke that might get tired after another couple minutes of footage. Of course, it's not like they had the time to expand that section anyway.

4. The Policy Academy stuff was probably the weakest, but even that was 4/5 material, minimum. A lot of good stuff in that section too. I particularly liked the line to the sound-effect robot that "it would be more impressive if you were human" (or something like that). The chief of police was a fun character too, putting a goofy spin on such a stereotypical character.

5. It was nice to see more of URL. For some reason, seeing him in his casual wear was very amusing. And, on a continuity note, they kinda kept the whole robosexual thing going since the Proposition Infinity episode.

(I didn't really care for the Schroedinger's cat joke much, as I thought they over-explained it too much. I like it better when Futurama tries to sneak these kind of academic references by us, as something for people to discover on their own. This one reeked more of "Look at this highbrow reference, you guys!")

Easy 5/5 this week. Josh Weinstein's still got it!

[NoOneFamous]

This episode was just tall around awesome. Not much else to say that hasn't already been said. 5/5

Agree with Jims though about the Schroedinger's cat joke.

[do what donny dont does]

I loved every minute of it. Even the Police Academy jokes were awesome.
My favorite episode in a long while.

[hammster]

This episode was sooo good. Loved every second. Very funny and packed full of awesome references. Loved the 3D planet especially. Josh Weinstein pulled it out of the bag with this one. Amazing.

[The Angry Animated Comedy Nerd]

An episode about Fry and Leela's backwards time traveling son is what was originally written to serve as this episode...
sounds good too..... but f it.. b/c this episode is a true gem.

5/5.

[Dark Homer]

This episode is pretty funny... the super-masculine female chief might be one of my all-time favorite one-time characters, I liked the 3D planet, and most scenes of Fry as a cop were gold. I kinda liked that he was actually sorta-competent at something, and how both his absence from Planet Express and his eventual return were handled in a natural, unforced way.

But I don't like the way the episode is so overly structured around tv/film references... here's 3 minutes of the pilot episode, here's 3 minutes of Police Academy, here's 3 minutes of Tron, a minute of Avatar, now here's 10 minutes of Minority Report... you don't even need a synopsis, you can just list the titles. It's rather cheap and hacky. And that minute they spent patting themselves on the back for referencing Schrodinger was super-groan-worthy.