When the animated comedy “Futurama” debuted in 1999, it peered a full 1,000 years into the future, following 20th-century pizza delivery guy Philip J. Fry (Billy West) on his accidental trip to the year 3000. 24 years later, the culty, less mainstream show from “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening has slowly but surely chipped away at that thousand-year gap. It may not have (yet) survived a full millennium, but there are countless technological breakthroughs over the past quarter-century that even an imaginatively far-flung satire has failed to predict.
One such change: the streaming-TV revolution, currently experiencing demand-for-growing pains and strike-related strife. “The Impossible Stream,” the first “Futurama” episode to be released in a decade, hasn’t quite caught up to this reality yet. Its 2019-ready storyline about binge-watching streaming TV illustrates the pitfalls of trying to keep an animated show current with our 21st-century reality, especially when competing with the 31st-century weirdness where the show has always excelled. This was an on-and-off problem with the show’s last revival, a set of episodes for Comedy Central that mixed head-spinning instant classics with awkward attempts to satirize then-contemporary culture with barely-modified equivalents of iPhones or same-sex marriage legislation. (The original run seemed more content to toy with classic sci-fi premises and weirder what-ifs.)
There are warning signs that the newest 10-episode batch of “Futurama” produced for Hulu, with at least another 10 still forthcoming, will continue in this direction: episodes about cryptocurrency, Amazon and, yes, binge-watching streaming series.
Yet in the six episodes provided for review, “Futurama” nimbly dodges the more literal-minded inspirations of its lowest moments while re-introducing Fry, his one-eyed love Leela (Katey Sagal), his mouthy robot bestie Bender (John DiMaggio), the lobster-man weirdo Dr. Zoidberg (also Billy West), and the rest of the show’s durably eccentric ensemble. The aforementioned “Impossible Stream,” in which Fry endeavors to stream every television show available in an endless sea of content, offers table-setting opportunities to goof on the show’s endless cancellations and revivals and, more importantly, a barrage of ridiculous and sometimes gruesome gags about couch-potato inertia disguising itself as ambition.
“Stream” leads off the season with one of its funniest episodes, but there are other, sometimes unexpected highlights. “How the West Was 1010001,” a sure-to-be-dreaded riff on cryptocurrency, actually performs a “Star Trek”-y genre riff, placing the employees of Planet Express in Old West roles to populate a (bitcoin) mining town, where many modern conveniences aren’t available because all of the energy is diverted toward crypto-mining – a famously energy-sucking project in our own bleak dystopia. “Related to Items You’ve Viewed” goes even further in taking shots at an Amazon-like service that people know as a destructive force in the universe but can’t stop excusing on the basis of low prices and laziness.
These six installments don’t have a mini-masterpiece on par with past series triumphs like “The Late Philip J. Fry,” “Where No Fan Has Gone Before” or “The Prisoner of Benda” — episodes where the show spoofed sci-fi stories so cleverly that it became, in its way, as brainy and provocative as the genre’s best. The resolution to “Related to Items” has some of that conceptual boldness, but other installments, like a time-traveling holiday episode, are more gag-driven romps. Even within that realm, the plotting feels a bit arbitrary at times, especially when it comes to picking up old stories from past incarnations. This is a show that, between its original run, a series of direct-to-DVD movies and the Comedy Central episodes, has produced no fewer than three potential series finales; it’s bound to untie some nice bows if it keeps getting picked up after years off the air. (The show returning to its original status quo actually requires a reminder of the time-travel reset that closed out the previous season.)
On the other hand, there isn’t an outright dud in the group. And anyone who has missed the ridiculous exclamations of the antisocial Bender, the desperately needy Zoidberg, or the no-nonsense Leela will find comfort in the show’s ongoing durability. Maybe this erratic schedule has been good for “Futurama” after all; it hasn’t had the time or the means to disappoint fans with extended fallow periods like “The Simpsons,” which has been on the air continuously for more than three decades.
“They’ll bring back any old crap!” Amy (Lauren Tom) none-too-subtly says of the 30th century streaming channel Fulu. It’s true, but there’s certain old crap that’s all the more fun for its oddball resilience.
“Futurama” premieres Monday, July 24, on Hulu.