TV Review: "Futurama" Returns On Hulu for Its 13th Season with Giant Bender, Climate Catastrophes, and More

More than a quarter-century after its debut and after having survived several big gaps in its broadcast schedule, Futurama is back once again for its 13th (or 10th, depending on how you’re keeping track) season– its third on the Disney-owned streaming service Hulu since relaunching again in 2023. Laughing Place was provided with advance screener for the full season’s worth of episodes, and below are my mostly spoiler-free thoughts. Note: I will be mentioning the premises of the episodes, but not any major developments or conclusions, in this review.

Having been a fan of Futurama since it kicked off in 1999 (the year Philip J. Fry got cryogenically frozen in his own time– at midnight on New Year’s Eve– and woke up a millennium later in the year 3000), I’m always excited to see more episodes generated by the show’s talented writing staff under reliable showrunner David X. Cohen (The Simpsons, Disenchantment) and creator / executive producer Matt Groening. This time around, Fry (voiced, as always, by Billy West) is still in an unlikely relationship with mutant pilot Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal) and living with his drunken robot buddy Bender (John DiMaggio) while they all continue to work for the Planet Express delivery service, owned by Fry’s distant grand-nephew Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (also voiced by West).

In the first installment of this batch of episodes, Bender comes to the realization that he is shorter than the average robot, thus making him less popular with the ladies than he could be. This leads him back to Robot Hell where the Robot Devil (recurring guest star Dan Castellaneta, AKA Homer Simpson) offers Bender a deal he can’t refuse. From there we get a sequel to the classic Futurama episode “Crimes of the Hot" that sees the Planet Express crew struggling to solve a climate catastrophe– again– after their previous solution proves unsustainable, and in the third episode Fry messes up an anniversary celebration he has planned for Leela, only to come to the conclusion that he might not be her soul mate after all. There are further episodes dealing with screen addiction, a parody of the “Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, and a particularly funny entry in which Leela’s mutant parents decide to adopt Dr. Zoidberg (another of Billy West’s hilarious characters).

There’s an episode entitled “Wicked Human" (a reference to the National Geographic reality TV show Wicked Tuna) that will likely prove to be the most controversial of the bunch, in that it unfavorably compares adherence to the scientific method to cult-like behavior. We also get a fun Bender solo adventure on a hunt for expensive outer-space truffles, and the season finale “The White Hole" is another high-concept science-fiction romp that reminded me a bit of another classic installment called “The Farnsworth Parabox" in how it delivers a lot of rapid-fire jokes dealing with the individual natures of the show’s cast of characters. But the most pleasantly surprising entry this year is “The Numberland Gap," which serves as an homage to the 1959 Walt Disney Productions animated short Donald In Mathmagic Land– even going so far as to include a clip of that short in the opening titles, which is probably easier to do now that Disney has purchased the holdings of 20th Century Fox.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am that Futurama has lasted as long as it has– through a few peaks and valleys, and at least a couple periods where I thought the show was dead forever– and still maintained the level of quality that we’re getting in this season. The gags are still sharp, the characters are still true to themselves and fun to hang around with, and the writers have still managed to find new and exciting adventures for the crew to embark on. We also get to spend more time with the children of our main cast– Dwight, son of Hermes Conrad (both voiced by Phil LaMarr), Cubert (Kath Soucie), the clone of Professor Farnsworth, and Axl, Mandy, and Newt, the children of Amy (Lauren Tom) and Kif Kroker (Maurice LaMarche). These characters help breathe some new life into the series, keeping things fresh while the main focus remains on the central personalities. 26 years in, minus the 15+ years in there when there weren’t new seasons being generated, Futurama remains just about as entertaining and amusing as it ever was. That’s a feat in and of itself, but the fact that I just inhaled ten episodes straight from the new season without ever really getting tired or bored is even more impressive. That’s good news everyone, indeed.

Futurama season 13 is available to stream right now, exclusively via Hulu and the Disney+ Hulu bundle.