The Simpsons
1989
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Reviews 92% 1,000+ Ratings Avg. Audience Score Accidentally frozen, pizza-deliverer Fry wakes up 1,000 years in the future. He is taken in by his sole descendant, an elderly and addled scientist...
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By A.A. Dowd
Posted: Jul 22, 2023 6:00 pm
Season 11 of Futurama debuts July 24 on Hulu.
At the risk of getting too highfalutin about a cartoon starring a beer-chugging robot, let it be said that destruction and rebirth have always been a part of Futurama, the zany animated comedy of 30th-century misadventure returning to screens next week. The first of the show's many spectacular sci-fi visions arrived in the original pilot, when hapless delivery boy Philip J. Fry (Billy West) lay frozen in a cryogenic tube as civilization rose and fell around him multiple times over, razed and then rebuilt in time-lapse perpetuity. Right from the start, was Futurama gazing into its own future, anticipating its phoenix-like ability to repeatedly resurrect itself from the ashes of untimely cancellation?
This is, after all, the third miraculous revival of the series Simpsons creator Matt Groening and longtime Simpsons writer David X. Cohen launched on the cusp of Y2K. After mediocre ratings halted its run on Fox, Futurama returned for a series of movies that went straight to DVD (a format now nearly as anachronistic as Fry himself), then two seasons of brand new episodes on Comedy Central. Here and now, a full decade after it last left the airwaves, it's been granted an improbable fourth life on Hulu. Cryogenically unfrozen yet again, Futurama stubbornly endures, and remains stubbornly itself – or at least the slightly diminished version of itself fans have come to expect since news of the show's death first proved premature.
Groening, Cohen, and their team of writers thankfully get all the self-conscious commentary about the time away out of their system quickly. Even more so than previous re-pilot "Rebirth," Hulu's premiere episode winks at the forever shifting fortunes of Futurama. "It feels like we've been rebooted," lampshades incorrigible hedonism bot Bender (John DiMaggio, back in finely rude vocal form after working out his salary dispute with the producers). From there, "The Impossible Stream" develops into an extensive in-joke about TV revivals in the cutthroat streaming era, as Futurama boldly goes where it's never gone before: completely up its own shiny metal ass.
Well, maybe not its best. Rarely, in its post-revival days, has the show matched the one-liner-machine hilarity of its initial run. The Hulu episodes are no different; they exemplify the groove of "pretty funny" Futurama settled into around the time it was transitioning, briefly, into feature-length form. Still, the false endings and periodic interruptions have counterintuitively helped its consistency, to say nothing of how they've nourished its cult underdog appeal: Creatively replenished with each revival, Futurama never feels as atrophied as The Simpsons does after nearly 34 consecutive years in primetime.
And in a way, those previous restarts all lowered the bar to what Rastafarian bureaucrat Hermes (Phil LaMarr) might call comfortable limbo height: below the expectations Groening and Cohen set in those terrific early seasons, above what we might normally expect from a show ticking off significant anniversaries. If the past is any indication, Futurama's future is clear and relatively bright: After a season or two of solid laughs, fans will sigh in mild disappointment when Hulu gives it the inevitable ax, then smile in mild contentment when it triumphantly returns on Xbox Plus or whatever a few years from now.
Good news, everyone! Futurama is back yet again, returning for a 20-episode season on Hulu. And it's as good as… well, not ever, but certainly about as good as the show regularly was during its past revivals on DVD and Comedy Central. At this point in its unlikely lifespan, Futurama's blend of sci-fi parody, satirical digs at modern culture, and cl...
- A.A. Dowd
86% 29 Reviews Tomatometer 74% 250+ Ratings Audience Score Accidentally frozen, pizza-deliverer Fry wakes up 1,000 years in the future. He is taken in by his sole descendant, an elderly and...
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- March 28, 1999
Jul 23, 2023 · ‘Futurama’ Review: Latest Go-Round Mines the Past. The animated sci-fi comedy, now on Hulu as a reboot of a reboot of a reboot, is the same show as ever. For fans, that will be enough. Share...
Jul 22, 2023 · 'Futurama' Season 11 Review: The Sci-Fi Comedy Is Back Like It Never Left. By Nate Richard. Published Jul 22, 2023. 'Futurama' has always had a lot of heart amidst all the chaos and these new...
- Nate Richard
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Jul 22, 2023 · TV Reviews. Jul 22, 2023 11:01am PT. Hulu’s ‘Futurama’ Reboot Is Brilliant, but Inside Jokes May Alienate Newcomers: TV Review. By Aramide Tinubu. Courtesy of Hulu. There appears to be a...
Jul 24, 2023 · Futurama: Season 11 Reviews. All Critics. Top Critics. All Audience. Alyssa Christian Tell-Tale TV. “All the Way Down” is a great way to end the season, as its handling of simulation theory is...
