Sci-fi sitcom “Futurama” released its eleventh season in 2023, almost a decade after its second cancellation. The series’ regular writers and main cast members all opted to return for the revival. As a popular, long-running series, “Futurama” has a large and devoted fan base, many of whom discussed their opinion on the new seasons.
While Season 11 boasts an 86% score from critics and a 71% audience rating, Season 12 only has 60% from critics and 62% from the audience. Looking at reviews, audiences and critics are split, some bemoan the new episodes, while others love them.
Season 12 is currently airing, and while I am a lifelong fan of “Futurama,” I found some of the episodes underwhelming, especially compared to how much I enjoyed the previous new season.
The biggest complaint I have seen aside from the general claim that the show is now “unfunny” is how topical the episodes are. Many episodes of the new seasons focus on satirizing recent trends and events, such as the pandemic lockdown, Amazon, cryptocurrency and Internet canceling—with mixed success.
“One Is Silicone and the Other Gold” is an episode from Season 12 that I consider exemplary of “Futurama’s” failure to be topical. The first quarter of the episode focuses on the characters attending InfernoFest, a clear parody of Fyre Festival, an infamously disastrous music festival from 2017. The show fails to be timely here by making its references so specific to Fyre Festival. The jokes I found the funniest in that segment were the ones that were not specific references to the festival.
To draw a contrast, “How the West Was 1010001” from Season 11 focuses on satirizing cryptocurrency, and it does so in a clever way that does not use a specific event involving cryptocurrency as a crutch for all of its references. It also sets the episode in a location filled with tropes and caricatures of the Western genre, allowing the writers to use a Western parody as a vehicle for making fun of cryptocurrency.
This is not to say that “Futurama” has never drawn from real-world events and trends to write an episode before. Episodes like “Decision 3012,” “The Butterjunk Effect,” and “Proposition Infinity,” all from “Futurama’s” second revival by Comedy Central, all drew inspiration from things happening in the real world. “Futurama” has even done this badly before. The episode “Bend Her” has aged poorly in recent years.
To write good satire about a current trend, “Futurama” must be creative in portraying it. After all, in “Zapp Gets Canceled,” Zapp Brannigan doesn’t get canceled on Twitter for bad posts. He gets court-martialed, where the court pronounces him “canceled.”
It should be noted that episodes from the Comedy Central revival and the original run on Fox have the benefit of time. In the decade since Comedy Central canceled the show, the episodes have had time to age, and the trends they drew from and satirized faded from the immediate public consciousness. Perhaps in another decade, fans will see “One Is Silicone and the Other Gold” and “The One Amigo” (Season 12’s divisive premier) through a lens of nostalgia without directly thinking of the Fyre Festival or NFTs.
But to answer my question: is “Futurama” fumbling Season 12? In my opinion, no. Though I found “Quids Game” and “The Temp” to be lackluster episodes, the latest episodes, “Attack of the Clothes” and “Planet Espresso” were much more entertaining and felt like classic “Futurama” episodes. I am looking forward to the rest of the season.
“Futurama” currently airs on Hulu every Monday at midnight. It has been renewed for two more seasons to be released through 2026.
