Movies News Talk
The beloved animated science fiction comedy Futurama has had a turbulent past with several cancellals and revivals. The production interruptions of the show have virtually equal notoriety with its clever comedy and wild ideas. Futurama has struggled to remain on the air despite a committed following and critical praise.
Futurama has only been formally canceled twice, even if it has gone through multiple finales. Fox, the original network, displayed a lack of support for the first four seasons of the show, continuously shifting its time slot and postponing the episode showing date. Given the great popularity of The Simpsons, the sister series that kept flourishing on the network, this apathy is startling.
Fox stopped buying Futurama episodes even though its sibling program was popular, which resulted in its first cancellation. Fox's erratic time slot changing and lack of confidence in the project produced low ratings that would not support the rather costly running expenses of the show. This resulted at the end of season 4 the first series finale, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings." The tune from the episode was even Emmy Award nominee.
Comedy Central revived Futurama by commissioning four new direct-to- DVD films, which formed season five, following years of popular syndication on Adult Swim. Still, the business was stand-alone with little assurance of longevity. As an open-ended climax, "Into The Wild Green Yonder," the last movie left the destiny of the characters unknown. Comedy Central finally chose to keep the show running with a complete sixth season despite all the unknown. Once more, the future was unknown, and "Overclockwise," the season 6 finale, was developed as a possible series conclusion. Although the sitcom was revived for a seventh season, it finally became its last as Comedy Central decided to axe it once more. Currently holding the Futurama "series finale" title was the seventh season finale, "Also Known as."
Hulu brought Futurama back to life even after two apparently irreversible cancellements. But the episode count of the show gets perplexing since Hulu marks the two new seasons as seasons 11 and 12 instead of 8. This disparity results from Futurama's release seasons and production seasons not matching one other. Two 26-episode seasons were commissioned, labeled seasons 6 and 7 when Comedy Central brought the show back on air. The channel released them, nonetheless, as four 13-episode seasons, half of each season split. Hulu's first revival season is eleventh as, depending on the release order, Futurama ran ten seasons before its second termination.