Look out, ol’ Futurama’s back!

Updated on June 10, 2009 By Ken Begg 8 Comments

Thanks for buying those movie DVDs, everybody:

“Holy Bender Bending Rodríguez!

Six years after getting axed by Fox, Futurama is being resurrected on Comedy Central.

A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox Television confirms that the cable net has ordered  26 new episodes of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s late, great animated series to air beginning in 2010. The studio cites Futurama‘s “blockbuster” performance on DVD and in reruns on Comedy Central as the reason for its rebirth.”

This is VERY exciting.  The recent DVD movies were OK, but the 90 minute format didn’t work as well as a normal 30 minute slot, and moreover each film had to break down into four segments so it could be run in 30 minute periods anyway.  I’m thrilled.  Except for maybe Firefly, I can’t think of a show I would be gladder to see back on the air.

Pin It



Related Posts

  • fish eye no miko

    ALL HAIL HYPNO-TOAD!
    ..
    I mean, yay, Futurama‘s back!

  • BeckoningChasm

    I hope they do it well, I hope they remember what made the show so beloved by its fans and work in that direction.

    I hope they DON’T load it down with contemporary politics.

    Good luck.

    As for Firefly, yeah, it was a good show, but I can’t imagine them doing anything with the format other than repeating themselves and, thus, diluting what they had. A number if the “unaired” episodes on the box set were (IMHO) deservedly so.

  • Well, actually, the movie kind of made a continuation of the show somewhat redundant. Whedon was clearly seeding hints of backstory all over those initial episodes. Aware that the movie probably represented his last shot at resolving some of them, he was forced to cram into two hours what was planned to unfold over hundreds of hours of programing.

    You could still have adventures, but again, much of his ambitious mythology scheme has already been put by the boards.

    Groening isn’t really super huge on the politics stuff, and anyway they aren’t going to be making fun of Obama much, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I’m just glad they’ve been able to bring back most everyone involved in the show.

  • sardu

    I LOVE HYPNO-TOAD…

    Errrr… yeah, I’m cautiously optimistic. Very cautiously. The movies didn’t do a lot for me. And I actually enjoyed Family Guy in its initial run and look how THAT turned out. Yechhh.

  • Jimmy

    Hopefully the new episodes will be a lot better than the recent DVD movies which were so lame they kind of put me off Futurama. I kind of wish theyed just left it with the original run of episodes insteads of letting it get crappy. On the whole I’d much rather have Firefly back seeing as they barely scratched the surface of what could have been done but that horse has truly bolted. I’m not too optimistic about this new series of Futurama but a man can dream… a man can dream.

  • Toby

    I don’t know if I want another season. Personally, I thought the ending they gave us in Into the Wild Green Yonder was too perfect to follow up. I’ll watch it, of course, I just don’t think it can satisfactorily resolve the wormhole cliffhanger, or continue with Fry and Leela together.

  • I don’t know, maybe I’m just selling myself a line, but I really think the problem with the movies (and even they occasionally offered great stuff; the This Trinity’s Going to War song is easily one of my favorite Futurama bits) was the format. I think the longform doesn’t play to the show’s strengths particularly well, especially again when those movies also had to be designed to split into four equal sections for broadcast that way.

    We’ll see, but I’m quite optimistic.

  • Pilgrim

    “Personally, I thought the ending they gave us in Into the Wild Green Yonder was too perfect to follow up.”

    I for one would be happy to just forget that movie ever happened. ItWGY was the only one I really didn’t like. From what I’ve seen elsewhere opinion on it and Bender’s Game have been pretty evenly split between love it/hate it.

    I’m pretty psyched about this, it may even convince me to get cable (I know, I know, living in a cave and such). Bad Futurama is still pretty decent, and even if we only get a few gems like “Roswell That Ends Well,” that’s still better than no Futurama at all.