Ten years ago it seemed like Futurama was definitively done. It had been canceled for the second time after diminishing returns on Comedy Central, and in its seventh and final season, that dip in quality that had come to The Simpsons a decade or so prior was starting to appear. “The Bots and the Bees” and “Assie Come Home” are not classics (the latter in fact a recycling of the much better “Bendin’ in the Wind”. But it ended on a strong note -not just the exceptional finale “Meanwhile”, but the last handful of episodes leading up to it I thought were pretty great too. Futurama had had a couple finales before, but this especially felt conclusive. The book was closed on one of the great animated series.
But nothing is dead permanently in the age of streaming. And if Animaniacs could come back for a few years on Hulu, so too could Futurama. I was skeptical when it was announced a new season was being produced. Then I felt a little hopeful to hear the original cast and crew, headed up by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, were returning. Then skeptical again when John DiMaggio didn’t sign on and Hulu was seriously considering just replacing one of the show’s vital voice actors. Hopeful again when he was able to reach a deal. But skeptical once more when it was announced only recently some of the pop cultural topics this new season was going to address -including cryptocurrency and “cancel culture”. On the one hand Futurama has always been about holding a mirror up to the present -on the other “Attack of the Killer App”, which took on the smartphone revolution, is one of the worst episodes they ever produced. So I’ve settled into a cautious mood about the whole thing.
I’ve talked before about how impactful Futurama was as a show for me, and as such I was going to be giving this reboot a chance regardless. Concerned though I may be, I can’t resist that chaotic world and those baffling yet endearing characters. But it won’t stop me from giving the show as it now sits on Disney+ an honest assessment. And I want to do that, given my love of the show in general. So I’ll be reviewing these new episodes as they come, and examining how Futurama works (if it can) in 2023.
From the title, the first episode called “The Impossible Stream” is not a promising start. And sure enough the episode itself, after a cold open that connects it to “Meanwhile” and establishes the setting is now 3023, the episode goes all in on streaming television and the binging sensation that would have been a lot more relevant a few years ago. Futurama obviously can’t be blamed for that, but it’s still awkward to see the show put forth a bunch of jokes the writers were likely sitting on for years. Indeed the whole episode feels like the writers are venting about the state of modern streaming television, while never going too far given the platform they are on. And it does lampshade several times over a half hour both Hulu (here called Fulu) and the nature of Futurama’s own pattern of being canceled and brought back over the course of now multiple decades. Futurama has done these sort of jokes before, but in moderation, and there’s nothing really funny or interesting to them this time around.
The plot concerns Fry realizing how little he’s accomplished over the years and deciding to rectify that by streaming every TV show -in which context we get a series of flat parodies (including a grating and worrisome Dave Chapelle bit) and a revamp of The Scary Door to connect it more to Black Mirror. Binging in the 31st century involves being concealed and strapped into an ominous device with goggles that drill into a person’s head (subtle). And soon it becomes apparent that Fry will die without a steady stream of content, prompting Leela and Bender to pitch and subsequently engineer a reboot of All My Circuits (not forgetting “Calculon 2.0” they swiftly resurrect its star).
The episode is in some ways a spiritual sequel to “When Aliens Attack” and “Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television” -both of which targeted the TV landscape and culture of the late 90s and early 2000s. But it’s not so sharp anymore, a lot of the comical observations on the industry have been made in better, more incisive ways in shows like BoJack Horseman. “The Impossible Stream” doesn’t offer any new comment or even a clear stance on the streaming bubble (no surprise given it is now within it). And some of the observations don’t really make a lot of sense, such as the double and triple-speed that Fry is apparently watching at -prompting the show’s production to undergo a ridiculously rapid pace. It doesn’t feel rooted in any real trend in streaming, more that a writer thought it would be a funny illustration of the hectic nature of so much television turnaround.
The voice actors haven’t missed a beat, which makes it shame that some of the humour has. There are a handful of good jokes through the episode (“Honey Bunches of Springs” -not for humans), but only as many as your average post-2001 Simpsons episode -which is disappointing and not a good sign for the rest of this season. I appreciate that the episode wasn’t all about the fallout from the last ending the way season six’s “Rebirth” was (though “Rebirth” is a better episode overall); it wanted to be its own standalone episode of Futurama to set this revival off on. But while it is nice to be back in that world, I’m sorry to say it was more or less what I was dreading it would be: heavy on bland meta-textual references and poor satire of a vaguely topical cultural phenomenon that’s been dwindling in relevance for a few years.
And now just a few random things that stood out to me:
- Ten years since this show last aired and immediately the opening logo is given a brief “H” treatment to read Hulurama. Readers, I shuddered.
- I notice John DiMaggio was first-billed in the credits and I have to imagine that was a stipulation of his contract when he came back. Good for him and all, but regardless of Bender’s popularity, Billy West voices three of the show’s main characters, including the protagonist and I feel should be credited accordingly.
- Another joke that got a chuckle out of me was the brief Slurm Zero ad with a now out-of-shape and addiction-recovering Slurms McKenzie. Now that’s the kind of world-building callback I appreciate!
- Bender visits the overworked All My Circuits writers room briefly and as was customary on The Simpsons, the writers in question are caricatures of the real series’ writers. Eric Horsted’s head-in-a-jar is clearly labeled, as is new writer Shirin Najafi. A couple other writers appear to be Ariel Landesohn and Cody Ziglar -also new. And the head writer who claims he died doing what he hated is probably the episode’s writer Patric M. Verrone. Additionally, Bender, a robot, makes an accidentally topical joke about joining the Writers Guild that I wonder if the Futurama scribes regret now.
- There is an end tag mostly just so Fry can once again lampshade and promote the show on Hulu, but it establishes importantly that Richard Nixon’s Head is still in office on his seventh term. Though granted he could have been defeated in 3016 only to win a non-consecutive term in 3020 -yet Fry does call him “Your Majesty”.
- I didn’t catch all of those show names as Bender was flipping through the TV guide, and am honestly not that interested in investigating -though I noticed M*A*T*H, which seems to reflect once again this writers’ room’s penchant for math jokes as well their older TV reference points.
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