“Futurama” has been renewed for two more new seasons at Hulu, Variety has learned.
The revival of the beloved adult animated series has been picked up for an additional 20 episodes at the streaming service. Hulu had picked the show up for 20 episodes back in February 2022, the first 10 of which were released starting in July. The premiere date for the second batch of 10 from that order has yet to be announced, though it is expected to debut in 2024. The new order will bring the show to Seasons 13 and 14 (or 10 and 11 depending on how you break it down).
Hulu’s revival of the series marks the second time the show has been brought back since it originally launched in 1999. After its initial four-season run on Fox, reruns of the show found new life as part of the Adult Swim lineup on Cartoon Network and on DVD. Four direct-to-video films were then produced, which were later re-edited into a fifth season that aired on Comedy Central starting in 2008. Comedy Central would go on to air two more seasons consisting of 26 episodes each between 2010 and 2013.
The official description for the new season states, “After a brief ten-year hiatus, ‘Futurama’ has crawled triumphantly from the cryogenic tube, its full original cast and satirical spirit intact. The ten all-new episodes of season eleven have something for everyone. New viewers will be able to pick up the series from here, while long-time fans will recognize payoffs to decades-long mysteries – including developments in the epic love story of Fry and Leela, the mysterious contents of Nibbler’s litter box, the secret history of evil Robot Santa, and the whereabouts of Kif and Amy’s tadpoles. Meanwhile there’s a whole new pandemic in town as the crew explores the future of vaccines, bitcoin, cancel culture, and streaming TV.”
The entire main cast of the original series — John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman — returned for the new Hulu episodes. “Futurama” is created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen. Executive producers include Groening, Cohen, Ken Keeler, and Claudia Katz. 20th Television Animation is the studio.
“Futurama” is a key part of Hulu’s recently launched “Animayhem” brand, a hub on Hulu that serves as the home to the streamer’s expansive library of adult animation and anime content.
Watching the new season made me wonder if I Futurama was ever actually good. Are my fond memories of the old episodes just nostalgia?
The joke that really illustrates how creatively bankrupt the new season was for me is the non-binary robot. It’s a joke I’d already heard before, complete with the same stand up framing. It was just someone seeing something funny online and just sticking it in their TV show completely wholesale. It got a laugh out of me just because I was surprised to see something so blatant.
Every time it’d do a “topical” episode, it was just them going to beat a dead horse whose bones were already bleaching. Late to the party on Amazon, Crypto, and NFTs, showing up with only the shallowest, most well trodden observations.
The Covid episode made me bail on the reboot altogether. It was the worst offender in every way that the season was bad, including the pacing of the episode.
All the episodes in the newest season resolve the plot in the last like thirty seconds of the episode. It’s like the writers kept writing until they ran out of runway, then just yelled, “oh crap!” and wrapped everything up as fast as they possibly could. Which is bizarre because the episodes are so full of tepid puns and “phone bad” boomer humor you would think the writers were starved for ideas.
No, I started rewatching the old seasons and in my opinion the general quality of the jokes and writing was much higher then. The over-reliance on current-day events just doesn’t work for Futurama, either. But there were some good episodes. For example, I really liked the season finale, the anthology episode.
I think they can make it good again, if they just stick with what made Futurama great in the first place, instead of trying to recreate is into something new.
You perfectly described my thoughts on this season.