Futurama - Season 3 [1999]

Recurring minor characters (Elzar the chef, the robot mafia, the mutants in the sewers) pop up unexpectedly throughout, providing another wink to dedicated fans; like Red Dwarf, this is a show that loves the genre it sets out to spoof. Shame, then, that the show has had a troubled broadcast history and never quite found the mainstream appeal of its stablemate The Simpsons.

This year, Fry and the Planet Express team find themselves stranded on a planet of unfeasibly large women ("Amazon Women in the Mood"), standing in for psychotic Robo-Santa ("A Tale of Two Santas", with John Goodman reprising his evil robot) and variously falling in love with each other and sundry other humans, aliens, man-bots, fem-bots, virtual reality constructs and even the Planet Express ship itself.

On the DVD:Futurama, Series 3 comprises 22 episodes on four discs (see below for complete episode list). As with previous series DVDs the animated menus are a treat and there's a selection of bonus features including deleted scenes, storyboards, selected episode commentaries, animatics, "How to draw" tips and more. Best of all, though, each disc now has a "Play All" facility for the first time. Sheer heaven. --Mark Walker

Customer reviews:

still enjoy the simpsons? whats wrong with you!, 2007-09-09
the simpsons are still coming up with the same old rubbish but futurama is brilliant and series three contains my personal favourite episode "a tale of two santas" and my favourite moment as the crew try to save bender dressed as santa and they all enter the room saying "im santa clause" and zoidberg comes in and says "and I'm his friend Jesus!" absolute classic

Futurama gets better and better, 2006-11-08
This is the only season of Futurama I hadn't seen all of before getting the DVDs but thankfully it does live up to its predecessors. All the characters continue to develop, including some of the recurring characters such as Lieutenant Kif, Zapp Brannigan's second in command and Nibbler, Leela's three-eyed pet. Highlights of this season for me include `Parasites Lost', `The Luck of the Fryrish' and `Time Keeps on Slipping'. The only real low point of the series is the episode `That's Lobstertainment' but the rest of the episodes more than make up for this one. Futurama is sometimes touching always funny and generally a great series, far better than the Simpsons.