(Yeah, I know this DVD came out two months ago, but hey, better late than never.)

Futurama is definitely one of my all-time favorite shows – throughout it’s abbreviated run, it consistently delivered tons of laughs, memorable moments and quotable lines. I, like many other nerds out there, was ecstatic when news hit that the show would be returning by way of 4 direct-to-DVD movies.

The first, Bender’s Big Score, was enjoyable and had some really great parts along the way, but overall it did not hold up next top the extremely high caliber of material Futurama fans expect. The plot was extremely disjointed, and the main plot thread, the relationship between Fry and Leela, was completely mishandled.

The follow-up, The Beast With A Billion Backs, follows that trend almost exactly. It’s a step up in quality, but it still feels all over the place with a lot of unrealized potential.

This film sort-of-kind-of picks up where the previous installment left off, with a hole being ripped in space. Though when the last film ended, it seemed like that rip was signaling the End of Things, but apparently a month has passed since the tear and very little has happened. Unfortunately, this lack of urgency in the beginning of the movie seeps into the rest of the story as well.

In the wake of this non-apocalypse inducing space tear, Fry has found a new girlfriend, who also has several other lovers, Amy and Kif decide to get married, and the Professor seeks to uncover the mystery of the space tear. The Fry and Colleen storyline felt hollow, mainly because after the events of Bender’s Big Score, it seemed more likely that Fry and Leela would once again give romance a shot (but I’ll get back to that later). The wedding between Amy and Kif had some great moments, and all of the Deathball scenes were extremely enjoyable. It was interesting seeing the Professor team up with his old nemesis Wernstrom, but it felt like there was a lot more room for potential conflict between the two instead of them just being best friends suddenly.

Also haphazard was the way that Kif was killed by Zap Brannigan without any kind of real repercussions. It would have been nice to see a remorseful Zap, or a Zap who feels guilty and angry with himself over his incompetence. I’m glad that they brought Kif back, but part of me felt like it would have kicked up the drama a notch if they had left him dead.

Bender’s involvement with the League of Robots also felt all over the place.  Bender went from stalking Calculon to becoming his ally and then his rival within the league so fast it was hard to keep track of what was going on.  Bender has gone on anti-human tirades before, but it felt odd that he was so anti-humans suddenly, while he still longed for Fry’s company.  I guess hell hath no fury like a bending robot scorned.  The way Bender got found out, when his friends escaped Destructor’s leg, was funny, but his ensuing duel with Calculon felt like it could have been funnier.

Yivo was a truly great character, and another big complaint about this movie is that he felt woefully underused.  I’m a big David Cross fan, and so the sheer concept of him voicing an alien that wants to have sex with every creature in the universe is just brilliant.  But it felt like the movie was half over by the time we finally got to hear him speak.  After it was discovered that he was actually having sex with everyone, the jokes about him starting over and dating our entire universe was funny at first, but it wore thin pretty quickly.  (Yes, I do realize the irony in me of all people commenting on a joke running thin…)  In the end, the universe decides to move-in with Yivo, but they are forcibly rescued by Bender and his army of robots, and then kicked out when Yivo realizes that Fry contacted Bender despite specific orders not to.  The point made, that love needs jealousy and can’t be easily shared, was a good one, and the story wraps up nicely with Yivo finding “shkim’s” true love, Colleen.

I think one of the main problems with this whole story is that it greatly overlooks the Fry-Leela romance.  There love story, it could be argued, was the “emotional core” (whatever that means) of the series, and the initial run of the show ended on a note that seemed to indicate that Leela was finally going to give Fry a chance, after realizing just how dedicated he was to impressing her that he went so far as to make a deal with the Robot Devil.  Then in Bender’s Big Score, Leela apparently was back to not being interested in Fry again, as she was quickly won over by Lars.  Who, it turned out, was really Fry.  So after that discovery, one would think that Leela would REALLY be impressed by the great lengths that Fry went to to be with Leela, that maybe she would then decide to give him a chance.  Nope!  Jeez, what does it take with this woman?  Of course, Fry also didn’t do much to woo her after his whole time-travel adventure, as he jumped right into Colleen’s arms.  It seems like the resolution of the Fry-Leela story that was used in The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings has been completely discounted, and that the writers of these new movies don’t seem to be building towards any newer resolution.  And that’s frustrating, especially given the plot points of the first two movies, which have provided ample potential in that regard.  They can get together, they can stay friends, and they don’t have to play “will they or won’t they” forever, but their story deserves to get some closure.

Despite my complaints about the movie, I still did find myself laughing a lot on the way, and that counts for a lot.  I’ve only watched the movie once, and my hope is that after repeated viewings, it will grow on me.  But my first impression of this movie, like it’s predecessor, is that it feels like several episodes crammed together, and of course, that is part of the point, that they can be aired as four separate episodes on Comedy Central as well as sold as films on DVD.

The bottom line though, is that any Futurama is still going to be better than no Futurama at all.