S12E1: The One Amigo - Discussion
S12E1: The One Amigo - Discussion
I’d say “not quite.”
The A plot involves NFTs which was pretty lame.
But the B plot involved Bender returning to Mexico and reconnecting with his roots, which wasn’t bad, mainly because it didn’t depend on pop culture references. Danny Trejo was pretty good as a guest star.
I think the reason the pop culture references seem so tired now is because our lives are filled with people making fun of pop culture on social media/the internet. All the NFT jokes have been made already, like a year ago. The writers need to stick to original, engaging plots that don’t rely on criticizing pop culture or rehashing old plotlines.
Once again, the format doesn’t work for me when the main topic is about a fad that nobody talks about anymore.
It worked in South Park for a long time because they had a relevant episode a week or two after it happened. In Futurama, not so much.
The Bender story was pretty neat though. They could have left out all of the NFT stuff and focused just on the Bender plot and it would have been a significantly better episode.
Once again, the format doesn’t work for me when the main topic is about a fad that nobody talks about anymore.
Ya, this is was a clear problem with the episode. Sure, all the NFT jokes were on point; but, given how much the issue has faded, it felt stale. I enjoyed the Bender story. But, I suspect this was a bit of grasping at straws. The best Futurama has been when the show focused on the characters. But, with a lot of the main stories about the characters wrapped up in previous seasons, there isn’t a lot for the writers to explore. So, we get a Bender backstory which was ok, I guess.
I’m still looking forward to the rest of the season. But, I can see the room for criticism.
I had a moment at the start of the episode where I thought I had pulled up the wrong season. It felt like I’d seen it before, especially with the outdated subject matter. Not many people care about NFTs anymore. Not many people ever really did. And they didn’t even bother to create any context for why this was happening 1000 years in the future (unlike in, say, the global warming episode).
I didn’t hate it, but it seemed odd. Perhaps this was originally intended for a much earlier release? Wasn’t this originally presented as a single season split into two releases? Now they’re officially called season 11 and season 12 on Hulu.