You know, I'm not really a believer in the whole Karmic ledger. Good deeds getting rewards and all that. But even though my blog has been up barely a week, and technically still hasn't been read by anyone other than the Robot Fingers staff, good things are already starting to happen.
Yes, that's right, Futurama is coming back! After its cancellation in 2003 by our friends at FOX, and its all too brief revival in 4-episode/movie length straight to DVD releases in the last couple of years, Futurama is finally coming back. For real this time.
Not that I'm trying to take all the credit here. I'm just one man after all. But after only a week of my new TV blog, brimming with optimism and positivity about a television landscape so loathed and easily dismissed by others, Comedy Central just happens to order 26 new episodes of one of my favourite shows? Sure, call it coincidence if you feel that you must. If you're one of those people.
In case you are unfamiliar, Futurama is that other show that features characters like those on The Simpsons. Created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen (who as David S. Cohen also wrote on The Simpsons for several years and invented the word "cromulent"), Futurama is an animated science fiction sitcom (or ani-sci-fi-com) set at the beginning of the 31st century. The show centres around Fry, a lovably dimwitted slacker who gets cryogenically frozen on New Years of 1999 and wakes up 1000 years later. There he meets Leela, a purple haired, one-eyed humanoid in the space heroine mould, and Bender, a drinking, smoking, gambling, stealing, bootlegging, pimping robot. Also he can bend things. Together they connect with Fry's descendant Professor Farnsworth, a dottering 160-something year old professor who gives them jobs as a delivery crew. And the hilarity ensues!
But as well as hilarity, in its original four year run (well, four year production, five year broadcast), Futurama made several unusually touching episodes, including my personal favourite episode of anything ever (forgive the hyperbole). These are the stories that tap into the core character dramas, which despite the sitcom facade and the fact that they are often used as sources for comedy, are actually quite tragic.
Leela, for one, is an orphan, and the only one eyed humanoid on earth (and in the known universe). Until the brilliant fourth season episode Leela's Homeworld, she had no idea where she even came from, and the answer to the mystery was one of the emotional high points for the series. (I'm not going to give away spoilers here, even though the episode is like 8 years old, I don't want to ruin it for anyone). And then there's Fry. For the most part, he's happy to leave behind his crummy 20th century life, but there are two episodes that explore what he left behind; Luck of the Fryrish, about his brother, and Jurassic Bark, about his dog. I will most likely write in depth about Jurassic Bark in a later post, but for now I'll just say that both episodes are examples of what episodic television is capable of. As well as what science fiction and time travel stories are capable of in evoking character drama that otherwise you just can't do.
Fans all around the world are rejoicing at the news. (well, I assume they are. I know I am) Though it is not completely unexpected, nor un-precedented, it still marks only the second time a show has been brought back from the dead so long after its original cancellation. Family Guy, also cancelled by FOX, was given new episodes in 2005, thanks in part to strong DVD sales and excellent ratings on Adult Swim. And now that show's creator Seth MacFarlane is poised to have three (mostly) different shows airing every Sunday on FOX, with spinoff The Cleveland Show joining not-really-spinoff American Dad for a rather lopsided Animation Block. Though Futurama will now be produced for Comedy Central and not Fox, we can still hope that its return can be so successful. Perhaps a Dr Zoidberg spinoff, with his very own private practice?
-hobospaceman
please rise for the futurama theme song
