Futurama’s premise used to be a simple one - it was about a guy from the turn of the millenium who was transported a thousand years in the future. Celebrities are kept alive in jars! Robots drink beer! They call baseball blernsball! Oh the fun they had. But after it returned from its second cancellation, it suddenly became about a guy from the turn of the millenium who was transported 1,000 years in the future. That’s a subtle but distinct difference - no longer just a wacky picture of the future but a strained satire of our specific era.
When Proposition 8 was in the news, Futurama had Proposition Infinity. When the iPhone was at a fever pitch, Futurama brought us the EyePhone. It lost a little bit of the timeless magic in trying too hard to be referential in a world that did not suit it. Many sci-fi writers use futuristic settings to explore issues of the day, but Futurama’s take became too one-note and too zoomed in. So it goes with the latest comeback, The Impossible Stream.
In the episode, Fry worries he’s achieved nothing with his life, and so pledges to watch every TV show ever made. This quickly boils down to watching All My Circuits for reasons that aren’t clearly explained, and then becomes a running joke about streaming. We have jokes about shows (like Futurama) being cancelled numerous times, jokes about failed streaming comebacks, jokes about the quality and rush of streaming services… you get the idea.
It immediately gives up the ‘watch every show’ premise and then doubles and triples down on fairly straightforward commentaries on streaming in general. Not to mention most of the jokes seem written for fellow TV writers and the characters and plot fade away at will out of a reliance on a central gimmick that’s not strong enough to carry the comeback.
They change The Scary Door to The Scary Mirror (like Black Mirror), and make a joke about NFTs. A joke that is somehow far too timely and far too out of date.
I want Futurama to succeed. Hell, I want Disenchantment to work. And I think there’s potential in this new run of episodes, but I hope it doesn’t fall into the same old trap. There are a couple of good jokes in the mix, it instantly reminds us of the brilliant finale, and it’s nice to see the Futurama gang back together. Hopefully this is it finding its feet, not the beginning of a tumble downwards.
There’s a way to still be timely: the stand-up robot’s joke about non-binary robots was exactly how it should be done. Firstly, it’s a punch down at comedians who just pick easy targets, secondly a non-binary robot (when robots run on binary code) has an extra layer to it, then when he calls them ‘a PC crowd’ (they’re made up of actual PCs) we get our third gag in one bit. And most importantly, it lasts for 30 seconds and then it’s done. The whole episode isn’t built around it.
In the original run, there were episodes where Zoidberg is arrested for treason after eating the flag, and Kif gets pregnant as the male of his species. These days, we’d probably get some hackneyed take on January 6th (I’m still expecting Trump, Pence, or DeSantis to have a head in a jar), while Kif’s episode would be shorn of any actual world-building for a bunch of transgender jokes too scared to punch down or punch up so they just kinda wham their own face for an episode. I don't even want to think about the mess Bend Her would be these days.
Futurama is back, baby! But it’s Season 6 Futurama and not Season 2. Like a thousand and 1,000, that’s a minor but meaningful difference.