Futurama Season 12 Review: Back Stronger Than Ever

Futurama made its grand return from its originally intended series finale for a third time last summer with new episodes on Hulu, and Season 12 continues that hot streak, as everyone behind it all seems to finally be comfortable again and running along smoothly. Futurama is a notable animated series in that it originally ran with Fox for four seasons before being cancelled, only to then return with a slate of direct-to-video feature films years later, and then returning with a few new seasons with Comedy Central before being cancelled again. Last summer, Futurama was then revived yet another time and got back into the swing of things. 

Futurama Season 11 felt like a season of getting the band back together on Hulu, so to speak. While there were a few standout episodes, much of the season felt like both new and returning members of the cast and staff were trying to “find” what Futurama‘s voice was going to be for this new era. It was a season of both revival and experimentation, but now Season 12 is finally making use of all of that effort as Futurama is now firing on all cylinders again. 

The first six episodes of Futurama Season 12 run the gamut of both wacky one-off adventures as seen with the previous Hulu season, and a few big looks expanding the overall lore of the series itself. Many animated shows these days have been a big hit with fans the more they explore the characters’ histories or personalities to shake up the overall status quo, but Futurama‘s been doing that for a long time. In fact, some of the biggest episodes in the series’ history have done just that, as seen in “The Luck of the Fryrish,” “The Day the Earth Stood Stood Stupid,” and more. Thankfully, that’s the case here, too. 

Futurama Season 12 has a much better blend of its modern-day technology parody with furthering a character’s story. For example, one of the episodes sees Bender starring in an NFT collection. While one of the side plots sees the Professor and the Planet Express crew misunderstanding how NFTs work (and thus much humor is mined from the idea of that technology in the first place), the real core of the episode instead shifts more of its focus to Bender as he learns more about his Mexican heritage; it’s not an episode focused on a single idea. 

You’ll see this demonstrated throughout the season overall. Rather than spending the majority of an episode aping a technology or idea that would have outdated humor by the time Futurama‘s talking about it (as seen with some of the older seasons’ weaker episodes), it’s instead used as a springboard to find a new way to highlight one of the main characters. For another example, there’s one episode that seems like it’s just going to be a parody of Netflix’s Squid Game, but turns into one of the best looks into Fry’s past yet. 

While there aren’t as many huge shifts in the status quo in the first six episodes of Futurama Season 12 as seen with Futurama Season 11 (nothing on the level as Amy having kids and adding more regular characters to the rotation), instead we get some new looks at the classic characters and some shake-ups to their dynamics. There are episodes featuring different mix-ups (like Leela finding a new group of friends or the Professor seeking out a surprising new career) that instead keep it feeling fresh even after all these years. Rather than going for these big swings, the series instead finds more to mine from what’s still on the table.

Futurama Season 12 feels like the revival series finding its groove. There are some major laughs to be found with each episode, and it’s clear that everyone behind the scenes has gotten back into the rhythm of things and found the right way to navigate Futurama in this current era of streaming animation. It’s the kind of revival fans have been hoping for when the series first made its comeback last summer, and is a great sign of what is come with the series’ future with Hulu. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Futurama Season 12 premieres with Hulu on July 29th.