One of the greatest animated series of our generation, Futurama, returned to television last night?  So how was it?  I thought it was pretty damn funny.  Yay – Futurama is back!

I really do think that Futurama rounds out my top 3 “best cartoons ever” list, with the other two obviously being The Simpsons and South Park.  No offense to Family Guy – they definitely have had their funny moments – but FG just has not been consistently amazing like The Simpsons, South Park, and Futurama.  (Sure, those 3 have had their lows, too, but even a bad Simpsons episode is better than a so-so Family Guy.)

Anyway, the Futurama DVD movies were not especially amazing.  Sure, they had some quotable and memorable moments, but overall, the stories just didn’t feel like “classic” Futurama, and I argued that straddling the line between being one movie and four separate episodes just didn’t work.  So when I heard that the show was coming back again, this time in it’s tried and true 30 minute episode format, I was giddy.

And as last night’s episodes showed, this brilliant series still has legs.  They wrote off the black hole ending of Into the Wild Green Yonder in the first episode back, but they did keep the continuity going of the aftermath of their crash landing on Earth, and the way the episode was told using flashbacks worked to great effect.  Actually, they used the flashback device again in the second episode, but they were both done so well, it didn’t bother me.  I once again felt like some of the deeper Fry-Leela stuff was glossed over (Why can’t they be together now?  Why doesn’t Fry step in when Zapp is hitting on Leela?), but the show was full of jokes and sight gags, clever math problems, silly throw away lines, Bender being Bender, memorable and quotable lines, and everything we’ve come to expect from Futurama.  It may be 7 years too late, but at long last, Futurama is back on TV, and back to its old form.

Fine, I admit it, I was scooped by jamesbrief.com, but screw it:

Futurama has been given an order for 26 new episodes!

I have made my lack-of-love for the 4 DVD movies known, but I’m still really excited about this news, because in spite of the movies, Futurama is still one of my all time favorite shows, and it ranks up there with The Simpsons and South Park as one of the most consistently funny long running* shows, ever. (Sorry, Family Guy…)

And besides, my main complaint with the movies is that they couldn’t decide if they were movies or four episodes. So if they are coming back in pure episode form, where the show has always shined, this is nothing but amazing news.

*OK fine, Futurama hasn’t had as long a run as Simpsons or South Park, but maybe now it will!

The fourth, and presumably final, Futurama has arrived, and I actually checked this one out relatively quickly compared to the last three. Despite my lukewarm reactions to these direct-to-DVD movies, I was extremely curious to see how the Futurama saga would end. All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot, and though it still felt a little bit disjointed, it did seem a lot more like one complete story than the last two flicks.

I thought I would be annoyed by the concept of a “green” storyline, as they can get awfully preachy awfully fast, but they were able to do it relatively agita free. I was hoping for something that maybe would have tied back into the brains or some other universe ending threat from the show’s initial run, but I understand the writers’ wanting to do something fresh. The story of the “Dark Ones” required an awful lot of exposition, but the way they poked fun at that part of the story-telling made it a bit more digestible.

The Fry-Leela story was given a bit of closure, although it did feel somewhat hollow. Leela should have trusted Fry from the beginning, and her “epiphany” moment lacked any real motivation. It’s nice to see her finally falling for him, but with all he’s done for her in the past, why now? Suddenly she just loves him? I know I’ve said this about some of the other movies, but they could have a lot more fun with getting these two characters together.

As for the very end, well, they didn’t go the conventional “they all lived happily-ever” route, and that’s pretty admirable. Of course, the door was left wide open for future episodes/movies, which is always a good marketing move, especially given that they’ve already been given one new lease on life so far. I would be happy to see more Futurama down the road, and the show definitely remains in my all-time favorites list. The “fifth season” isn’t my favorite, but that’s all right – the show still remains head and shoulder above most other shows out there, especially considering the geek quotient.

Now I just need to rewatch everything with the commentaries on. Wow, that was pretty geeky, even for me…

My problem with the first two Futurama direct-to-DVD movies is that they didn’t seem to have the right “flow,” like they weren’t quite full movies, and not quite four episodes. As much as that bothered me with the first two, the problem seemed to be amplified even more in Bender’s Game.

See, here’s the thing: Most movies follow a three-act structure, set-up, conflict, and resolution. Sure, it’s an old formula, but the fact is that it is the standard because it works so well. Chopping a story into four pieces that are designed to also be able to stand on their own, seems like it would be not only a daunting challenge, but also an unnecessary one. If these things are designed to be individual movies, then let them be individual movies. If they wanted to create 16 new episodes, they should have done that.

Further hurting Bender’s game is the fact that it doesn’t feel like it has a great finalizing purpose in the Futurama universe. Bender’s Big Score and The Beast With a Billion Backs tried, even though not totally successfully in my humble opinion, to address some of the larger unresolved issues the show had when it was canceled way back when. This movie feels like a pure stand-alone, which wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing, but if this is in fact the penultimate adventure, it should be working to actually moving towards some final resolutions. That or maybe they’re just saving everything for Into the Wild Green Yonder.

The Dungeons and Dragons/Lord of the Rings parodies were overall funny, but they didn’t feel all that fresh to me. Maybe that’s because I just like LOTR and am not obsessed with it, and despite my other nerdy leanings, I’ve never in my life played a game of D&D. Maybe the jokes would have been funnier otherwise, but as it was, many of them fell flat. Although on the flip side of that coin, despite the way the film was marketed, the Middle-Earth type shenanigans didn’t really seem to kick in until the movie was more than halfway done.

And, on top of all that, once they did end up in their alternate reality, it felt like something from an Anthology of Interest, only it was sort of kind of real. There was a scientific explanation offered, but even the writer’s seemed to be admit that it was itself pretty lame.

But hey, I have to cut the thing SOME slack – there were, as always, some very funny moments sprinkled throughout the DVD, and I will always think that eh Futurama is better than no Futurama. The problem is I want GOOD Futurama, which is, as we know, great Futurama. My fingers are crossed that the fourth movie will be able to deliver the GOOD goods.

(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.