Original release date: April 22, 2025
The premise: We’re “treated” to a National Geographic-type nature special starring our beloved Springfield regulars played by different creatures of the animal kingdom.
The reaction: I consider one of the worst episodes of Futurama to be “Naturama,” a fake nature program featuring our favorite future pals re-imagined as wild animals. Aside from the two “Anthology of Interest”s, I don’t really care for any of the anthology Futurama episodes, as I never understood the purpose or appeal of doing “fantasy” stories in a series where impossible, fantastical shit happens all the time (also curious how the new Hulu reboot has already done two anthology episodes out of the twenty aired so far. Why bring the show back if you’re just going to do more fillers?) Anthologies on The Simpsons feel a little more appropriate, getting away from the normal reality of a normal town to depict Milhouse as Moses or re-imagine the Mutiny on the Bounty with schoolchildren or some shit. But I find almost all of these kinds of episodes unengaging too. I watch a series because I’m invested in the world of the show and its characters, so any major deviation from that in an alternate reality where the cast is all playing figures in history playing out an established story is just less interesting to me, unless there’s some novel twist to it. “Yellow Planet” tells a bunch of mini-stories of our characters played by animals: Bart and his fellow lizard classmates must evade a bunch of Snake snakes, Lisa the finch revolutionizes ant-catching with her discovery of a stick, and beluga whale Homer falls deeply in love with narwhal Marge, in a romance for the ages. The episode is filled with fish puns, characters playing unique roles (a school of Moe fish, Lovejoy as a mackerel so they can say “Holy mackerel!”) I’m sure there’s some people who find this kind of stuff charming and cute, even funny. I’m not one of those people, I just have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this type of storytelling. Most of the runtime is devoted to the Homer/Marge story, where Homer lies to Marge’s narwhal pack that his pack was all wiped out by killer whales, he and Marge have a romantic date on the deep down sea floor, Homer’s lie is exposed, Homer leaves, Marge gets inspiring advice from her narwhal mom and then they reunite. I cannot emphasize enough how boring I find all this. It’s the same trope-filled story you’ve seen in a million different movies and TV shows, but everyone is a sea creature! That’s something, right? Is this absolutely inert storytelling really worth wasting the animation department’s time creating all of these new character designs and assets? I just don’t get it.
Three items of note:
– I still don’t understand why they’re releasing certain episodes straight to Disney+. “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” as a double-length Xmas special releasing on the show’s 35th anniversary I kind of understand, but this and “The Past and the Furious” aren’t really special or unique enough to stand on their own on a streaming service, they’re just these random episodes that are inexplicably removed from the regular season. When season 36 is dropped on Disney+, will these episodes be folded back into the normal season? Or will they forever be isolated?
– I’m already thinking of “Naturama” as this episode begins, but then I still having Futurama on the brain when we see Marge as a purple-tinged narwhal, which feels reminiscent of “Bender’s Big Score” where Fry cares for a purple-tinged narwhal named Leeloo, for obvious reasons, eventually setting it free to be with its appropriately orange-tinged mate. Boy, Futurama was a great show, wasn’t it? I’m sure glad it ended on a good note back in 2013.
– The Homer/Marge plot line is so stock and boring, as Marge finds Homer in self-imposed captivity at a SeaWorld-esque aquatic park, pleading for her lost love to return to her. And I know it’s been a while since I’ve bagged on about this redundant point, but hearing the 74-year-old Julie Kavner croak out dialogue straight out of a romantic comedy about finding her person and wanting to spend the rest of her life with them… I’m sorry, but it unavoidably creates a cognitive dissonance for me hearing such an aged voice come out of a much younger character. I’ve certainly gotten used to it over the years, but there are times, thankfully infrequent, that it comes into more stark relief. Our favorite family hasn’t aged a day since 1987, but our cast has, and will continue to age over the next four confirmed seasons. As always, I have nothing but the utmost respect for these performers and their devotion to these characters, but sometimes I can’t just ignore when this kind of stuff triggers my brain.
Me Blog Write Good 
Have you watched any new Futurama episodes after “All the Way Down” or did you lose interest?
I have not. Totally lost interest. I read about the last season finale and was “shocked” that it was another Fry and Leela bait and switch where they get married but actually no they didn’t. How long can they possibly keep spinning that plate?
Yeah, the reboot/revival era is definitely not slowing down now that there’s so much money involved in it, but I could probably count on one hand the ones that were actually good. The iCarly one is the last one that seemed to have genuine interest from people and effort put into it. Almost all of them are living in the shadow of the original and play it safe, or they try so hard to be different, it hurts the value of the original.
When Futurama first came back, there was so much hype around it. Everybody was excited to see new episodes two years ago. Last year, there was crickets. I didn’t hear anything about it online, way less advertising, no YouTube channels reacting to it. Same thing with Frasier’s second season, but Paramount+ did try a little harder.
The only revival I can say I genuinely love is the new Beavis and Butt-head, which I was really not looking forward to, but was pleasantly surprised how funny and fresh it feels, especially compared to the 2011 reboot.
The best part of the second Hulu Futurama season was how the first episode immediately opens with Bender going “NFTs? What’s that?” and Farnsworth and Hermes’ kids humorlessly explaining NFTs to him for five minutes.
It’s like they were TRYING to drive away anyone naive enough to give this show another chance.
Not to mention, they already kind of did this sort of thing at least twice before.
First in the Treehouse of Horror segment “The Island of Dr. Hibbert” where they all turned into wild animals.
And also in “The Shrimpsons” intro they did for “Singin’ in the Lane” where they were all sea creatures.
If there’s any single episode of this show that has no reason to exist, it’s probably this.
And lest we forget, the couch gag from “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming”, waaaaaaaaaaay back in season 7. The one where Our Favorite Family were sea monkeys swimming to a clamshell to watch a treasure chest. Homer’s “Under the Sea” fantasy from “Homer: Bad Man” doesn’t count because the family were still humans for that.
I thought the sea animal designs were cute. I enjoyed watching this with my boyfriend. He was sick yesterday (kidney stone) but the yellow planet episode got him laughing. We also saw Rogue Not Quite One which he loved too. Maybe we have shit tastes, but I’m glad we saw them.
Hey, it’s wonderful you guys got something out of these episodes! I think these shows deserve a lot of criticism, that the writers should have come up with something more interesting (in both ideas and execution), but regardless, this is what we got. So the best-case scenario is that as many people as possible enjoy it.
I comment here and not at No Homer’s because I feel a dissonance with many of the opinions there which trend more positive. It feels like the average user is watching a completely different show than me, and it isn’t pleasant to feel like the odd one out, so I participate in the discussions here instead. Meanwhile, you enjoyed this episode (and others), but still share your thoughts here on a site where most people are frustrated by them. Rather than “shit tastes”, it comes across to me as being strong enough to not mind being the odd one out. So if anything, I actually respect you more for sharing an unpopular opinion, not less.
“I comment here and not at No Homer’s because I feel a dissonance with many of the opinions there which trend more positive.”
This is genuinely a shame. I find you to be one of the most balanced and insightful commenters on this site, and I think your presence on NHC would only enrich it. I hope you’ll reconsider at some point!
Indeed, your negative opinions would not be out of place these days. Reception towards this season has generally been lukewarm at best, with particular disdain directed towards the holdovers (of which Yellow Planet is the last).
Thank you. I’m more active on NoHomers. It may not be the best damn forum in town but I like the vibe.
‘It feels like the average user is watching a completely different show than me, and it isn’t pleasant to feel like the odd one out’
That’s how I felt ever since Selman began showrunning and seeing no real difference between him & Jean which was part of my reason for giving up on watching the show regularly starting with Carl Carlson Rides Again.
I love it when anybody speaks up in the comments in a positive light to these episodes, it’s incredibly refreshing. I adopted the belief long ago that if I dislike something, and someone else likes it, ultimately, I’m the one that’s missing out, as that’s one less thing that I enjoy. Everyone has different tastes, and I certainly don’t look down on anybody who likes any episode of the show. I hope your boyfriend feels better! That sounds rough.
Julie Kavner and Harry Shearer should both retire. Their characters sound way more withered than they should be–even Mr. Burns–and there’s dignity in knowing when to bow out.
Anyway, I thought the Lisa subplot was cute, but that’s about it.
Well the show was just renewed up to Season 40, so that isn’t happening any time soon. Plus, AI will probably take over their roles when they die.
I really hope they don’t sink to that low, though honestly nothing really surprises me anymore.