Good news, everyone! Futurama has returned!

I toyed with the idea of writing this on the night that Futurama began airing again.  I sort of forgot about it until this week, when Rufus commented on a Facebook post I had made using a quote from the most recent episode.  It was then that I decided to write a short piece on the return of Futurama to television.  It’s not super in-depth, because I don’t want to spoil any of the episodes.  I am probably naive in thinking that some of you might not have seen the debut episodes, but that’s neither here, not there.

Last Thursday a momentous event occurred.  No, I am not talking about my first official post on the site…I am talking about the debut of all new episodes of Futurama on Comedy Central.  I don’t know about anyone else out there, but when Fox canceled the show back in 2003, I felt wronged.

In between the last episode of the series when it was on Fox, and the newest episodes that have recently started airing, there have been four DVD releases.  Each of these DVDs played out like extra long episodes of the series, and worked as trial episodes.

A decision was made to begin new episodes, airing on television.  After seven long years Futurama finally made a triumphant return.  Comedy Central had one of its biggest nights, viewer wise, because of the show’s return.

Picking up right where the fourth DVD (Into the Wild Green Yonder) left off.  The Planet Express ship, containing the entire main cast of the show, arrives at Earth after going through the Panama wormhole.  Most of the cast, however, meets its fiery doom as the ship (and Nimbus, Zapp Brannigan’s ship) crash just outside the Planet Express building in New New York.

The debut episode was entitled “Rebirth”, and was quite fitting since each of the crew (minus the Professor) had to go through an actual rebirth via stem cells.  The story of the episode had some interesting twists, reminiscent of “The Sting”, but not quite as involved.  All-in-all it was a great debut.  It was almost as if the show was on hiatus—and extremely long hiatus—rather than canceled.

The second episode (two aired for the debut), “Inna-Gadda-Da-Leela”, was a classic Zapp-focused episode.  Zapp and Leela undertake a mission to stop a “death ball” from censoring the Earth, and crash land on a veritable Eden world.  It also contained many of the fun elements that most Futurama episodes are known for, like the futuristic take on older cinema newsreels.

The most current episode, “Attack of the Killer App” was (at least to me) an instant classic.  A lampoon of many current trends—Twitter and the iPhone and Susan Boyle, namely—it speared these issues as only a series set a thousand years into the future can!  It was full of some great jokes, and still managed a hint of sweetness, when dealing with some Fry and Leela issues.

I am thrilled that Futurama is back on the air.  Though some of the DVD releases were weak—I am looking at you, Bender’s Big Score!!—the new episodes of the series have been very good, so far.  Some are saying that the humor has gotten crude, but I think those crude jokes were always in there.  I don’t know.  I just hope that the writers keep up the good work.  I don’t want to see another cancelation!