As the tagline says, Futurama is back… again… again (though with the movies there should be one more again). The series that just won’t die has been given life once again, this time as a streaming exclusive on Hulu. I’m sure it will be around forever and never be removed. But today isn’t a day for nihilistic sarcasm; today is a day to rejoice as we now have our first look at the new old series, with Hulu dropping the first trailer for the upcoming, 10-years-in-the-making next season of Futurama.
Clearly things are pretty much exactly as we left them. The animation style is little changed, the humor is just as satirical as always, and the voice cast is thankfully exactly the same after some drama with Bender’s voice actor not returning for a bit. The new Futurama season is supposedly easy to access for both new and returning fans, a fact Hulu is emphasizing given that the show hasn’t been on the air for a decade. However, there are plenty of long-running plotlines and gags featured in the Futurama Hulu trailer for fans to enjoy, including the return of Robot Santa, Fry and Leela making out, and Nibbler and his mysterious litter box.
Hulu has put in a full series order for the season consisting of 20 episodes, though we’ll only be getting half of that at first, with 10 episodes coming out starting on July 24 and the latter half of the season dropping sometime later this year. The voice cast for the series includes John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman. Creator Matt Groening and co-developer David X. Cohen are returning to the series as well as executive producers and, as always, taking an active role in the show.
In case you too were cryogenically frozen for the past few decades, Futurama follows the adventures of Fry, who was accidentally cryogenically frozen and awakens in the future. There he joins his descendant, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, in working at the shipping company. It’s all a setup for takedowns of modern-day life as the trailer shows, with episodes set to focus on the pandemic, cryptocurrency, and a host of other hot topics.
