“Futurama” is a comedy goldmine that has left fans laughing for ten seasons. The series stands out as a pillar of adult cartoons with its creative sci-fi elements, witty humor, emotional gut-punches and commentary on real-world problems with a futuristic spin.
In this creative retro-future designed by Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons,” protagonist Philip J. Fry travels 1,000 years into the future. Fry embarks on missions across the cosmos with fan-favorite characters such as his great nephew Professor Hubert Farnsworth, his metallic narcissistic best friend Bender Rodrigez, his team leader and love interest Turanga Leela and many more.
While the end of season 10 left the show on a decade-long hiatus, Hulu rebooted “Futurama,” bringing back veteran writers and new faces alike into the third revival of the series.
In the show’s new season, the writers incorporate several cameos throughout the season and flesh out the relationship between Fry and Leela.
Season 11 focuses on the character relationships and emotional beats. While there was nothing on the level of the episode “Jurassic Bark” from season four, the latest season gives Amy her most emotional scene yet, along with many other heartwarming moments.
The problem is more how the writers got to these emotional beats, as some feel a bit unnatural with the flow of the episodes.
A lot of moments handling exposition end up falling flat. Many scenes show characters explaining events from the previous season. However, they often explain these events to characters who were there when it happened. The writers seemed to find their footing later on in the season — the episode “Children of a Lesser Bog” stands out with its exposition dumps.
One episode I did not find appealing was the latest anthology episode, “The Prince and the Product.” While the anthology episodes have been hit or miss to many, this new episode goes back to the old formula of Fry and Leela’s relationship, having Leela break up with Fry to marry the prince of space.
After making mountains of progress in this season alone, many took this episode as a slap in the face, but thankfully, the episode reveals this plot line to be non-canon in the end.
Despite this small step back, season 11 immediately makes up for it in the season finale, “All the Way Down,” which plays off the theory of turtles all the way down and infinite regression. Similar to the “Rick and Morty” episode, “The Ricks Must Be Crazy,” Professor Farnsworth creates a low-powered simulation of the universe and while explaining how it runs, figures out they too are inside a simulation of the universe.
Although it has been ten years between seasons, the transition between seasons is seamless. Billy West, the voice actor for Fry, Professor Farnsworth and Dr. Zoidberg, echoes these sentiments.
“It was just like we never left,” West said in an interview with Samurai Jill. “I’m really enjoying it. I knew that the show was too good to not be in production, so it had to come back.”
Despite a rocky landing with some of the writing, “Futurama” season 11 is still the classic smart-humored show it was ten years ago. These episodes are a great start to the Hulu era — hopefully, season 11 walked so season 12 can run.
