Futurama Season 11 Review – A tasteful revival of a beloved classic

This review of the Hulu series Futurama Season 11 does not contain spoilers.

There is no show better suited to streaming services than one that has been canceled a few times already.

Despite the willingness – nay, eagerness – of many platforms to axe their own IP, there will, apparently, always be a home for legacy franchises that, for whatever reason, didn’t survive on network or cable. Max even rebooted Clone High recently, as if proving this very point in the most unlikely way possible.

And thus, we have the eleventh – count ‘em! – season of Futurama, the sci-fi adult animated comedy created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen that has already been canned twice before – once in 2003, and then, following syndication on Adult Swim and a revival on Comedy Central, again in 2013.

Hulu never abandoned the property. All ten prior seasons remain available to stream, and people still do so in great numbers. But Season 11 is a proper revival, ten brand-spanking new episodes for the loyal fanbase – and, hopefully, some new converts – to enjoy. Futurama is back. Again.

Futurama Season 11 review and plot summary

It has been ten years since the show’s latest cancelation, so here’s a refresher. Futurama concerns the exploits of the intergalactic pizza company Planet Express. Its ostensible protagonist is Philip J. Fry (Billy West), a slacker deliveryman who was cryogenically frozen for 1000 years and hired by his only living relative, Professor Farnsworth (also West), but it’s really more of an ensemble piece, an absurd workplace comedy encompassing Planet Express’s entire staff.

Said staffers include Bender (John DiMaggio), a robot with a drinking problem, Leela (Katey Sagal), a purple-haired one-eyed woman, Zoidberg (West again), a crustacean doctor, and Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr), who has perhaps the most inscrutably alien role of all – he’s an accountant.

The latest season justifies its real-world reboot with an in-universe one. The Professor fast-forwards time to the year 3023, revitalizing Fry and Leela, who had married and grown old together, and getting the gang back together for a set of new adventures, many involving concepts and jokes that have cropped up in the decade since the show was last on the air.

Almost as a mission statement, the premiere revolves around Fry dangerously binge-watching the entire catalog of a streaming service called Fulu, the future not being especially prone to subtlety.

Is Futurama Season 11 good or bad?

There’s something comforting about Futurama Season 11, which doesn’t take any chances with its animation or voice cast. Everyone’s back as if they never left, nobody misses a beat vocally, and everything looks the same (if a little crisper). Some of the plotlines might revolve around “futuristic” themes and subjects, but the show itself gives the impression of no time having elapsed since the last episode, with the personalities, dynamics, and style of the show still resolutely intact.

This isn’t to say it takes no chances elsewhere, of course, and episodes fluctuate in quality as they always have depending on the idea or gimmick they’re built around, but everything retains the sense of camaraderie and heart that defined previous incarnations. Some of the character arcs are surprisingly sweet and the cameos, where deployed, are less cynical than they could be, instead paying off an old episode or joke in a smart and welcome way rather than just mining for empty nostalgia.

Is Futurama Season 11 worth watching?

In very simple terms, then, this is Futurama just as you remember it, confident in its own skin and evidently happy to be back on our screens in this new-but-old form. Fans will have little to be upset about here, and while some might lament the revival not reinventing the wheel in its comedy, animation, or characterization, it’s nonetheless a faithful and often heartfelt return to form for a beloved show.

What did you think of Futurama Season 11? Comment below.