The Impossible Stream

Flashback to just where we were a decade ago the romantic story of Fry and Leila is yet to begin again.

Long live the 30th century box, wait that was the 29th media, now it's the fulu and their placed advertising that rule the show. Long live the fulu platform. It wasn't much of a episode, the voice actors nail it as always, like they never took a break from voicing the characters. I expected it to way different after so long, but it kinda feels like the same show. Ignoring whatever happen to them and making jokes. Classic Futurama.

I won't ignore the fact that the episode was parody of itself, which considering the long canceling history of the show it turn into some tradition to mock the producers and the studio.

Not sure if they can manage to reboot the show without only relying on the historical and tech events in the last years as parody ground for the jokes in between. Futurama was a big thing, it was very original show, not your casual The Simpsons episode. I hope for a proper season to be remembered by this generation of viewers, no matter the streaming platform.

Enjoyable start to the episode, but then it just flushes itself down the tubes of meta jokes. How many shows do we need where the script is full of obvious and subtle winks to the audience? This episode would've been fantastic if we haven't already seen this sort of thing 100 times.

But we have.

Even so, I can appreciate that the new episode still carried some of the old spirit of mildly funny gags. And I mean that sincerely positively. Futurama rarely felt like it was trying too hard. Rather than writers always needing a punchline, it was more about creating an environment of irony, idiocy, and sci-fi world-building, and the reboot did retain some of that. It was more-of-the-same Futurama at first, and then more-of-the-same other shows.

Hopefully they got the latter out of their system, and can get back to pure Futurama in the remaining new episodes.

Futurama's back! Voices may be slightly different(such as the professor and Amy), animation may be different(definitely bender and some with leela) but the same humor and writing are back and that's all we can ask for. The self aware/deprecating humor and sharp/dull wit is had in this episode. It did have a "intergalactic TV" vibe a bit, but that's not a knock as futurama has its past commentary on contemporary TV. Some of the good old fashion laughs found in prior seasons are to be had too. Could have done with a different character than calculon(who never did have a great presence in the show) but I look forward to more episodes.

Bender, Fry, Lela, Amy Wong, Hermes Conrad, Zoiberg, even Scruffy, all back. The first episode of Season 11 picks up right where the last episode of Season 10 left off. I mean exactly where it left off. The transition is seamless, the show has lost nothing of its wit and sight gags, and the commentary on life in our century is as scathing as ever. I swear there is even a bit about the writers strike, but perhaps I'm conflating it because, as always, there's is a lot to unpack. I have been waiting for this episode for ten years, and it did not disappoint. In fact, I'm awed by how Futurama has lost nothing of its Futurama-ness. Well done, guys!

The second return from hiatus episode once again relies too much on fourth wall breaking. The writers are very much focused on poking fun at their multiple cancellations and renewals. It's hard to say whether this Hulu run will improve upon the Comedy Central seasons. However, the run time has returned to 24 minutes(instead of 21), allowing for less rushed storytelling. Hopefully the likely budget increase will allow for a return to form of the first 5 seasons. If they were able to retain most of the original staff while being given time to craft less spur of the moment ideas, this revival certainly has potential. My advice would be taking a more back to basics approach. We rarely saw Planet Express making deliveries in the Comedy Central run, so the spirit of adventure was lost in favor of more regular topical humor. Although some of the episodes this season seem to be centered around current events, others seem to be direct sequels to the original run. Whenever the Hollywood writer and actor strike lifts, I would advise the crew to think "creative reboot" and craft imaginative sci-fi stories with less of the series' established tropes. After all, looking to the future doesn't mean revisiting the past.