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| Production number | 3ACV03 |
|---|---|
| Reviews written | 2 |
| Overall rating | 75% |
| Plot | 75% |
| Characters | 90% |
| Gags | 85% |
| Voice actor performance | 100% |
| Guest actor performance | 80% |
| Continuity | 90% |
| Animation quality | 90% |
| Music/sound quality | 100% |
Written by cyber_turnip on 11 July 2010.
| Overall rating: | 7 |
|---|---|
| Plot: | 7 |
| Characters: | 8 |
| Gags: | 7 |
| Voice actor performance: | 10 |
| Guest actor performance: | 7 |
| Continuity: | 9 |
Personally, I opt for this Christmas episode over 'Xmas Story'. It's not incredible but makes good use of the Robot Santa characters, has a great musical number and whilst the laughs are somewhat hit and miss, when they hit, they hit hard.
The visuals are also very nice. Planet Neptune is lovely to look at and there are many examples of great animation throughout the episode.
Unfortunately, I don't quite buy Robot Santa's characterisation towards the end when he gets Bender to help him 'save Xmas' only to let him live, but still, it's better than the heartfelt crap in most Christmas episodes of sitcoms.
Written by Aki on 27 July 2010.
| Overall rating: | 8 |
|---|---|
| Plot: | 8 |
| Characters: | 10 |
| Gags: | 10 |
| Voice actor performance: | 10 |
| Guest actor performance: | 9 |
| Continuity: | 9 |
| Animation quality: | 9 |
| Music/sound quality: | 10 |
Futurama's second Christmas episode is much better than the past, which I always blame for being all too forgettable and predictable. Where "Xmas Story" is your traditional sitcom cheese with a few Futurama moments, "A Tale of Two Santas" is your traditional Futurama episode with some satirical parodies of Christmas.
I love Robot Santa. Plain out, he's one of my favorite minor characters and he's a wonderful villain, maybe because he shows much more seldom than Mom, and because he really is the villain with NO heart (maybe because he is a robot). Therefore he suits perfectly in the plot, which feels a little rushed but overall is hilarious. This is definitely a joky episode, and is led by joke following joke in a sense that after a while the viewer is simply confused on where everything is. Don't get me wrong - sometimes this is a bad thing, "Bender's Big Score" being an example of such, but in this case it turns out really good. We even get one of the greatest musical moments of Futurama along, with the Neptunian elves, and one of the greatest lines of the show ("You're not Santa! How dare you lie in front of Jesus?!").
Unfortunately, I still can't get the ending properly. Bender seems just a little out of character wanting to help Robot Santa attack Earth (sure, "kill all humans", but if Bender does have a heart no matter what he claims), and it seems to me the episode never properly end.