Futurama is one of my favourite shows of all time and like many fans, thoroughly enjoyed last year’s revival season. Hearing the show was renewed through the next few years was a delight and the first part of that renewal order is about to release. Most animated shows start to experience a decline in quality after many seasons, but Futurama hasn’t become a victim of this yet. It brings me so much joy to report that the second half of Season 8 (or 12, it’s confusing I know) is just as good as you could hope for and it’s a delight to see these characters again.

Something I’ve always loved about Matt Groening’s shows is the animation style. His character designs are extremely distinctive and visually stunning. All the characters look so sharp in the newly-introduced 4K resolution, and the backdrops are just as stunning. Every colour is so vibrant, allowing for a visual treat for audiences. It’s so good to see this animation style back on the small screen.

The voice cast is, as always, absolutely excellent. Billy West, Katey Segal, Tress MacNellie, Lauren Tom, and Phil LaMarr are all stepping back into their roles like they’ve never left. West in particular, is still killing it as Fry, Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan among other characters, at the age of 72. Groening always gets the best out of his voice actors and this is proof of that.

As good as the rest of the voice actors and characters are though, the star of Futurama in my eyes will forever and always be Bender Bending Rodriguez. The breakout character of the show never fails to crack me up and his episodes are often some of the best ones of the show. Out of the 6 episodes I got to watch, I was pleased to see that not one, but TWO of them were Bender-focused, including the series premiere. Bender is the source of the best jokes of the season, providing the laughs and crude jokes whenever the show feels dry. John DiMaggio brings SO much life into the series and to think that he almost didn’t return for the revival is just insane. The show wouldn’t be the same without him.

The storylines in the show are still surprisingly fresh, often simple and effective, which I think has always worked the best for shows with a fixed timeline. However, it’s not afraid to poke fun at some of the tech fads we’ve seen over the last few years, such as NFTs and A.I. All shows have their peak and while Futurama is far past that point, the dip in quality is insignificant as the laughs keep coming at a highly enjoyable rate.

Futurama is back and as funny as you’d want it to be. The series balances the handling of current issues, the character arcs, and development better than most shows today and makes for some of the best entertainment on television right now. It may be more of the same but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.