Futurama: Children of a Lesser Bog

July 31, 2023 6:29 PM - Season 11, Episode 2

Amy and Kif's children emerge from an alien swamp.
posted by Marticus (8 comments total)

Kind of disappointing, almost straight up sitcom. Admittedly with some large tardigrades.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:05 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wonder how many of the maths & science nerds are still in the writer's room. This one was nice seeing the continuation of the pregnancy storyline, but hoping for some wackiness soon.
posted by Marticus at 10:15 PM on July 31, 2023

Now, I thought this was a much better episode overall than last week’s, with much better jokes and less of a meta thing going on
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:02 AM on August 1, 2023

I thought this one was terribly unfunny, and found that I’d stopped paying attention by the end. Am sad.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:33 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

They kept explaining or overplaying their flimsy nostalgia jokes. Whether you recognized the whale biologist guy from Three Hundred Big Boys or not, it was not funnier for him to say out loud that he used to be a whale biologist. As an old person, I basically remembered the whole Leela-Amy-Kif thing from Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch, and really didn't feel like this episode added anything essential. But if you hadn't seen that episode, I have to imagine it was baffling watching them just recount its Wikipedia plot synopsis.

Amy saying "in twenty years, I'll be ready" was already a solid and succinct emotional note back then. We didn't need another episode proving she actually does end up loving her kids. We didn't need another sequence of how predators try to eat the Amphibiosan young (especially since now the main characters are resigned to sitting on the sidelines watching it happen... Amy protecting her children was a character growth moment back then). We didn't need an off-off-New-New-Broadway version of the "Bender adopts orphans and they make him do funny things" storyline from The Cyber House Rules.

And I always thought Zapp Brannigan was overused, so it's a very bad sign that I felt like this episode would've been better with more of him.

Here's hoping episode three will actually do something with an original, not self-referential premise.
posted by Riki tiki at 8:24 PM on August 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

We didn't need another episode proving she actually does end up loving her kids.

I think this was a special situation where, in 2003, the show punted any change to the status quo because that's what episodic TV did/does. I'm sure they never expected to still be making new episodes in 2023. How could they not follow up?
posted by Servo5678 at 4:37 AM on August 2, 2023

Wait, do you think they're actually going to keep the kids as regular characters? That genuinely hadn't occurred to me. I guess they could be used sparingly, like Cubert.
posted by Riki tiki at 6:59 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wonder how many of the maths & science nerds are still in the writer's room.

Maybe they've been swapped out for linguists.

The episode title, at least, is clever, playing on the English-language meaning of "bog" and the Russian-language meaning of "бог" (or "bog" in the Latin alphabet) completing the theater / movie title reference.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:38 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]