Futurama's Back
by Simon Hoodikoff
Good news, everyone!
If you want proof that persistence
pays off, Futurama is a textbook
example. The show, which
has been cancelled a total of three
times, is being resurrected for 26
new episodes starting in late June.
Thanks to record DVD sales and
a productively annoying fan-base,
the show was picked up by Comedy
Central in hopes to get the show the
proper airtime that it deserves.
A lot of the reason Futurama
was cancelled was its unfortunate
timeslot, often getting interrupted
by overflowing baseball or football
games that Fox thought were more
important. The timeslot was consistently
changed, each time losing
a larger percentage of the show’s
fan base. Eventually, viewers lost
faith that Fox would even run the
program at all—which was sort
of correct because they cancelled
it after the fifth season. When
enough DVDs sold, Fox gave the
go-ahead for Comedy Central to
produce 16 new episodes in the
form of four straight-to-DVD
movies. The show has been on life
support for quite some time, always
narrowly avoiding complete
cancellation based on nothing
more than its dedicated fan base.
Even when the show was officially
resurrected in June 2009,
there quickly arose a problem
with the voice actors and their
paycheques. The actors were requesting
the same salary they had
when the show was on the air, but
Fox didn’t want to pony up the
dough. After issuing a communal
threat to Fox, saying that they
could either pay a decent wage or
find a new cast, Fox finally caved.
Thankfully, all that turmoil is
over, and the new episodes are
literally weeks away. Some of the
plots include how Zoidberg got
hired onto the Planet Express
team, as well as “Mom” taking
over the future version of Twitter,
and a hilarious take on the iPhone
actually being implanted into
the eye. Most importantly, the show
will have a better base on which
to grow now that it has gained so
much popularity, and it’s likely that
more seasons will follow. The writing
staff is smaller, but have stated
that they feel renewed and ready for
another run.
Obviously, many things contribute
to the success of the actual show,
but the biggest appeal for many was
how similar our world is to the one
depicted in Futurama. The idea
that mankind essentially stays stationary
while moving forward has
been the underlying theme of the
show from the beginning. All the
advances made in technology still
present problems, and even though
the world has formed into one planetary
government, the same political
problems plague the public. Our
common mistakes and blunders are
poked fun at constantly, and having
Fry in the middle to question
everything makes the show damn
near perfect.
Without the fans, the show
would have been lost in the heaping
pile of cancelled Fox programs.
Though it’s going to take more than
that for Fox to redeem themselves,
so for now I’m still riding the “it’s
about time!” train like most of the
other diehard ‘rama fans. All in all it
looks like a strong rebirth for the series,
and the television world is being
handed back an amazing set of
characters to enjoy all over again.