Futurama returns — Matt Groening’s cartoon comedy gets a reboot

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The first punchline lands before the series begins. Futurama, the cartoon comedy set in the fourth millennium, is being revived to fulfil our nostalgia cravings.

The popular Emmy-winning series created by Matt Groening in 1999 makes a welcome (if not entirely necessary) return 10 years after it last aired. Reverting back to the status quo following its touching “finale” — the Six Feet Under of animated show endings — the first batch of episodes of an initial 20 are comfortably executed and familiar.

The revival remains true to the series’ tone and humour — which is more significant than the fact that there is little novelty or ambition here. The HD animation may have a cold, slick feel but the vocal performances have no sign of rust and the show’s trademark blend of silliness, savviness and bittersweet emotion persists.

Self-aware gags about the show’s cancellation (its second) and resurrection are dealt with early in an opener that sees the Planet Express gang attempt to revive a beloved soap opera, with plenty of jokes at the expense of disposable content and binge-watch gluttony. The episode proves timely in sending up the current industry crisis when brash android Bender (John DiMaggio) is brought in to replace maligned human screenwriters.

Futurama used its setting to poke fun at the absurdity of the present long before Black Mirror, but some attempts to be topical are sharper than others. A send-up of Amazon’s exploitative practices cuts deeper than an episode-length joke that literalises bitcoin mining and the “wild west” of unregulated cryptocurrency.

If such references risk seeming dated, allusions to Richard Nixon, Al Gore and The Twilight Zone indicate there’s little interest in courting a new generation of viewers. Indeed, stories about perennial intern Amy becoming a mother, or tele-transported 1990s slacker Fry (Billy West) and girlfriend Leela (Katey Sagal) moving in together, acknowledge that the audience who grew up with the show are themselves in a different stage of life.

★★★☆☆

On Disney+ and Hulu; new episodes released weekly