Futurama – Review of Disney+ revival season.
After a very short hiatus that lasted just ten years, Futurama is back with a revival season, technically the 11th, which will be available exclusively on the on-demand streaming platform Disney+ starting next July 24 with one episode per week for a total of ten new dates with the legendary characters created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen.
Out again (and triumphantly) from the cryogenic capsule of this long hiatus of programming, Futurama reintroduces itself to old fans and extends a hand to younger generation viewers: the unreleased episodes of the 11th season are indeed suitable for everyone, both newcomers, who will be able to start the series comfortably from this revival, and longtime fans, who will finally get the answers they have been waiting for for a decade: How the epic love story between Fry and Leela evolved, what Nibbler’s litter box is hiding, what happened to Kif and Amy’s tadpoles, and especially to theiconic (and evil) Santa Claus Robot?
Buckle up, it’s back to 31st century New York!
Futurama, far from nostalgia: satire strikes again
As opposed to the disappointing Netflix TV series Black Mirror 6, with the new season of Futurama the creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen they go at it with the typical black humor that marked the epochal original seasons, without indulging in easy nostalgia or distorting the concept behind the series: reimagining the present and its ridiculous distortions in a futuristic-fantascientific key.
So here is an episode on the streaming and the binge-watching, on platforms and the television industry associated with artificial intelligence (a coincidence that smacks of prophecy-the new season of Futurama arrives as Hollywood is brought to its knees by strikes by the writers’ and actors’ unions, frightened by the very potential for AI to steal their jobs), or an episode on bitcoins, another on vaccines (in 3023 we finally eradicated Covid-19) and one more on cancel-culture.. Nothing revolutionary or ever seen before, for goodness sake, but all reimagined by Futurama’s sharp tongue.
If the animated section remains virtually untouched from the past, without embellishing themselves with the new ‘shinier’ guises that may distinguish, for example, the unreleased episodes of the new seasons of the The Simpsons, even the skill in satire-unfortunately-remains unaffected, as if indeed Disney+ (and Hulu, who commissioned the new episodes and distributes them in North America) had simply ‘defrosted’ Futurama from its cryogenesis capsule to throw it into today and see how it would fare.
The answer? As was to be expected from a piece of animated TV history like Futurama.
Leave a Comment