When the news broke that Hulu had picked up Futurama for a new 20-episode season, fans of the animated series rejoiced. The series, created by The Simpsons mastermind Matt Groening, concluded in 2013 and that really seemed to be it for the popular sci-fi show.
Futurama faced multiple cancellations and renewals during its original run, starting out on FOX before eventually moving to Comedy Central. However, as one of many properties acquired by Disney during its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, so we're not exactly surprised the studio has decided to revive the property.
The entire original cast will be back (for a time, it looked like that might not be the case), and new remarks from Futurama producer Claudia Katz suggest the animated series won't shy away from tackling controversial subjects.
"We have a vaccine episode," she tells SFX (via Toonado.com). "We’ve finally conquered COVID-19 in 3023, so that’s a very fun exploration of the science, vaccines and just a commentary on that whole situation."
"There's a fun Bitcoin episode. And we have an NFT episode which, of course, no one understands, which is sort of the joke," Katz continues. "And one of my favourite episodes of the season involves one of our cast members being cancelled for their behaviour, so that’s pretty fantastic."
It's inevitable thatsome will take offence at these subjects being covered but Futurama isn't South Park so we're not anticipating anything too hard-hitting or shocking!
"New viewers will be able to pick up the series from here, while long-time fans will recognize payoffs to decades-long mysteries," reads the show's synopsis, "including developments in the epic love story of Fry and Leela, the mysterious contents of Nibbler's litter box, the secret history of evil Robot Santa, and the whereabouts of Kif and Amy's tadpoles."
John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman reprise their roles in this Futurama revival, though we expect to see some big guest stars as well when it hits Hulu on July 24.