Futurama Returns

For fans of the show, it was a dark day when Fox rather ungraciously ushered Futurama off the air four years ago. The brainchild of Matt Groening, it was probably one of the smartest shows to air on TV at the time (which is probably why Fox, which also airs the stupidest shows on TV, was so quick to cancel it (yet they keep bringing back Family Guy)) and was actually better than Groening's other show, The Simpsons, for the time it was on. But, that didn't last.

So, it was off to the video and syndication market for Futurama. And this caused something odd to happen. (Well, not really odd, as the same thing happened to Family Guy.) During Comedy Central's negotiation to pick up the syndication rights for Futurama, due to good DVD sales and high-rated reruns on Cartoon Network, Fox claimed it was open to producing a sixth season of the show, which would air on Comedy Central when they began showing the reruns in 2008. It was decided that, instead of producing 16 new episodes, four feature-length movies would be produced, which would be reedited into episodic format for the sixth season.

This has been in the works for two years. And now we have the first of those movies: Bender's Big Score.

Let me start off by saying that Futurama has lost nothing in its four year absence. In fact, as someone who's seen every episode, I can say that this movie may be the best Futurama episode(s) ever (unlike The Simpsons Movie, which isn't even as good as some individual episodes). The entire voice cast is back, as is most of the writing and production staff, and everyone's at the top of their games. So on top of their games that they have concocted the most complicated story ever, like Mission: Impossible-complicated. But, if you follow the story, it's great. If this is any indication of the quality of the other movies, I think we might be looking at Futurama's best season.

Seeing as this is a stand-alone DVD release (for the moment), there's some nice extras. The commentary with a good portion of cast and crew is funny and informative. And while I didn't watch a lot of the other features, I did watch a rather fascinating lecture on mathematical facts and figures that appear in Futurama. (It sounds dry, I know, but it just goes to show you how clever this show can be.)

I wish there were going to be more than just sixteen new episodes, but, hey, 16 new episodes sure beats zero. And, hey, Fox canceled Family Guy twice, and it's aired almost 50 episodes since they brought it back. If a show that stupid can get a second/third chance like that, I'm sure we can look forward to more Futurama in the futurama.

(Worst...pun...ever.)