Monsters of Television

“Party, Bender! Party for your life!”

Returning from a long hiatus is quite the double edged sword. Fans will praise a show’s comeback and yet are often quick to doubt that it can return to any semblance of its former glory. Family Guy (as tired as it is now) was able to rise the successful phoenix from the ashes of cancellation. The Boondocks has been able to do the same for the most part after its 2 year disappearance.

Futurama was canceled in 2003, but thanks to the resuscitation machine that is Adult Swim and a number of direct to DVD movies it hardly feels like it went anywhere. Now with its return on Comedy Central with a brand new slew of episodes, can Futurama continue the trend and reclaim (and maintain) its position as one of the greatest animated shows in TV history? My answer is…

Maybe.

The dual re-premiere of Futurama contained both the good and the bad of a returning show. The first episode, “Rebirth,” was all about just that: rebirth. Not just the rebirth of the show itself, but the rebirth of the characters. Picking up right where Into the Wild Green Yonder (the final Futurama film) left off, the Planet Express ship and Zapp Branigan’s ship, the Nimbus, crash back on Earth. Professor Farnsworth, the only survivor due to his full body safety sphere device, rebuilds the Planet Express crew with the help of stem cells and a birth machine. Thankfully, Fry is there to reintroduce us to everyone as they are birthed from the machine, naked and covered in hot pink stem cells. Ah, science.

The main conflict of the episode deals with Fry building a robot replica of Leela, who was placed in an irreversible coma as a result of the crash. Real Leela eventually awakens and the crew must decide which Leela to keep around as well as escape the clutches of the Cyclophage. The episode wasted no time in reminding us of the show we know and love. Fry’s aloofness, Professor Farnsworth’s lack of ethics, Bender’s sick dance moves: all still present and all still hilarious. Were this to be a single episode premiere I would have been most pleased.

But the universe hates me and does not want me to be happy. Ever.

“In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela,” part 2 of the premiere, is the cautionary tale half of a show’s return to TV. That is to say it wasn’t very good. A Death Sphere, the result of a secret military weapon and an FCC satellite crashing into one another, is traveling through space censoring planets. Leela and Zapp pilot a new craft designed to take out the Death Sphere but are shot down. They crash land on a mysterious Garden of Eden -like planet (actually just an undisturbed part of Earth) and decide to rebuild humanity. Now I’m all for Star Wars references and jabs at the FCC, but this episode just didn’t deliver.

Many of the jokes just fell flat. The whole third act is just Leela uncovering the fact that every misfortune they stumble upon is Zapp’s own doing and he keeps making this “aahhh there’s something else I’m not telling you” squeal. This “joke” is repeated about 5 or 6 times and the small amount of humor contained within decreases exponentially each time. And if that didn’t grind my gears enough, Futurama actually ruins some of it’s own mythology. The Death Sphere agree to spare Earth if its new Adam and Eve consummate their relationship. And so Leela and Zapp have to sleep together to save the planet. I’m sorry, but no. Leela and Zapp slept together once and only once. That has been a joke since the beginning and now it is ruined. Blah blah blah I’m letting my fandom and love of history cloud my judgment on the progression of story blah blah blah. No. Not ok.

So where does Futurama stand? It satisfied both sides of the “can a show successfully come back?” debate. It had both the good and the bad. I guess that resets it to zero. One thing I will say is that Fry and Leela as a couple does not seem to be a damning element. If the show does fail in this second incarnation, they will not be to blame. There is no Jim and Pam argument to be had here. We’ll see if next week can hit another home run that we know the show is capable of. Or was at least. I’m gonna go watch some DVDs now.

Final Thoughts:

• Robo-Fry and Robo-Leela will return. Mark my words.
• Zapp waxes his rocket everyday. Good man.
• I want my own Chamber of Understanding.
• Zapp and Leela’s humanity rebuilding conversation really puts how incestuous the Adam and Eve story is into perspective.