Bad news everyone, FUTURAMA has been cancelled – again

Welcome, to the news of tomorrow! Except it’s today. If there’s one cartoon that you’ve got to spend a weekend watching, it’s Futurama. Set in the year 3000 and onwards, the show stars the cryogenically-awakened 21st century delivery boy Phillip J Fry, one-mutant spaceship captain Turanga Leela and repeat offender and violent sociopathic robot Bender Bending Rodriguez.

It’s a cult hit show that has survived cancellation to bounce back even stronger than before, with wild plots that traversed everything from mocking the Apple culture to watching the universe itself end. And it’s just been cancelled. Again.

Originally cancelled by the brainless dolts at the FOX network in 2004, strong fan demand brought back Futurama as a series of direct to DVD movies a few years later, before Comedy Central picked the series rights up and commissioned new episodes.

Comedy Central right now has refused to renew any options to continue the series  though, which means that the current slate of upcoming episodes will indeed be the final nails in the coffin of this quirky show. The 13 remaining episodes will air from June, bringing the total episode count up to 140.

“I can’t say I was devastated by the news,” executive producer David X. Cohen said to EW.

I felt like we were already in the bonus round on these last couple of seasons, so I can’t say I was devastated by the news. It was what I had expected two years earlier. At this point I keep a suitcase by my office door so I can be cancelled at a moment’s notice.

As for show creator Matt Groening, he reckons that the final episodes will be the best yet. “The experience of this show has been so much fun from the very beginning to now, everybody is so happy to work on this show, that it’d be a shame if we all went our separate ways,” he said.

We would love to continue. We have many more stories to tell. But if we don’t, this is a really great way to go out… I think these episodes are the best ones we’ve ever done.

So what can we expect in the final half then? Cohen says that fans can expect “a bunch of episodes that I think are going to be classics.” One episode will feature Fry being “reincarnated as various cartoons of your youth,” while the latest finale episode will be “a tasteful, emotional gorefest.”

“It’s a really satisfying ending. It’s an epic ending. If it’s indeed the ending,” Groening said. The show has had two finale episodes already. The first was in the episode “The Devil’s hands are idle playthings” and the second came from the fourth film, “Into the wild green yonder”. I’m going to be sad to see Futurama gone for good, but if it truly does end on a high note, I’ll be happy that it had a good run at least, and didn’t devolve into a putrid mess of cheap jokes and emotional crap, much like The Simpsons has become.

So long meatbags.

Last Updated: April 23, 2013