Futurama Is Back Like It Was Never Gone

Way back in 2003 Matt Groening and David X Cohen's masterpiece which was one of the funniest shows on television was cancelled by Fox beginning the short lived deaths of countless other FOX sci fi's (Firefly, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Point Pleasant, Dollhouse). Fringe will probably be next but that's not discussion of the moment because Futurama like Family Guy except more deserving has been brought back with new episodes on Comedy Central. The newest episodes aired last night and they were great and most importantly funny as they've always been.

The first episode Rebirth takes up where the DVD movie series ended: with the Planet Express crew being chased by are favorite space captain, Zapp Brannigan. Noth the Nimbus and the Planet Express crash, killing the entire cast except for Farnsworth who luckily enough has a batch of stem cells which reconstructs everyone even Bender. Everyone that is except Leela, as she is now in a coma. Fry is obviously distraught and goes the The Build a Bot workshop and constructs a Leela robot. The robot is than uploaded Leela's personality and memories making her think she's actually Leela. Her and Fry are deeply in love but then real Leela reawakens and to avoid spoilers the plot gets complicated, really complicated. The other side story is the fact that Bender needs a battery to power him but Farnsworth installs a doomsday device causing Bender to continue partying if he wants to burn off the excess energy. This leads to Bender dancing in every scene making some of the episodes best jokes.

The second episode in this double feature is strangely a Zapp Brannigan episode. In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela features a giant death sphere which Zapp and Leela try to destroy with a stealth fighter but end up crashing on a garden of eden planet. Leela finds herself trapped under a fallen tree, forcing her to depend on Zapp for her survival. Soon stripped down to nothing but some modesty-preserving fig leaves, the pair start to work through their past differences, particularly when the Earth's destruction at the hands of the Death Sphere forces Leela to ponder whether this planet is their own Garden of Eden, and whether she and Zapp are now humanity's Adam and Eve. Except, things then get more complicated...again. The other storyline is the Professor's attempts to stop the world from swearing after it's discovered the death sphere is actually a US military and FCC censoring satelite is underdeveloped and could have been a very good stand alone episode. Zapp Brannigan's bits espacially his 50's dream sequences of a classic sci fi action movie are the funniest parts of the episode.

Both episodes are very good Futurama episodes though I will say while their funny they have yet to catch up the shows original level. Still their getting there fast. The show's best bits were the self aware humor espacially Amy's joke about getting the Professor's world play about them being on Comedy Central now. Still the show is back and it's great to see that.