Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Hulu
Good news, everyone! After a 10-year spell in a cryo-tube, Futurama has finally been defrosted and delivered back into our eyeballs. Debuting on Hulu Monday, July 24, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s regularly-rebirthing space comedy that just won’t die makes a triumphant return after being canceled twice by two different networks.
Originally airing on Fox in 1999, Futurama ran for four seasons before the studio jettisoned it into an inky void of cancellation and reruns. Healthy repeat-viewing numbers on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block led Comedy Central to commission four direct-to-DVD movies in 2008 and, later, two more seasons. By 2013, however, the network too decided to ditch the show and leave the Planet Express crew to fend for themselves. Turns out, they did pretty well at that in an age of streaming—enough to convince Hulu to revive Futurama for another rebirth, complete with 20 episodes across two seasons.
Needless to say, keeping up with the adventures of Fry (Billy West), the hapless delivery boy who gets cryogenically frozen in 1999, only to reawaken in the year 3000 and meet cyclops love interest Leela (Katey Sagal), binge-drinking robot Bender (John DiMaggio), ancient Professor Farnsworth (also West) and the rest of the Planet Express team, has been a bit of a rollercoaster. In fact, even its Hulu regeneration hasn’t been without a few teething problems.