Futurama Season 13 Review: They’re Back Baby, and Better Than Ever

Futurama is in a rather unique space when it comes to the adult animation world as while it crosses over a very impressive 13th season milestone with its latest batch of episodes dropping on Hulu, this is also a very distinct era for the franchise on a whole. Futurama has lived and died, and lived again in the many years since it first began its broadcast run with Fox all those years ago, and each era of the franchise has felt distinct from one another. That’s especially true for this latest era on Hulu as it initially returned after the longest break between episodes yet.

Futurama has released two very strong seasons with Hulu as it has entered this new streaming era, and now it has returned for its third season. As Futurama continues to explore its identity within the streaming era, and changes its characters thanks to all of this new time to expand on stories and ideas after all these years, Futurama Season 13 proves that there are still many more fun and new adventures on the table. It’s only getting stronger with each new season.

Rating: 4 out of 5

PROS	CONS
Still Very Funny	Binge Release Doesn’t Work
Characters Are Still Evolving
Fun Callbacks to Past Seasons

Futurama Season 13 Is Still Strong With the Laughs

Futurama Season 13 is back to form with Futurama as fans have come to know it, and that means there’s no slip ups when it comes to the humor present itself. The comedy is still as strong as it always has been, and part of the surprise is seeing some of the ways that the series is finding new ways to tell jokes from new angles. That’s been especially the case for this newest Hulu era of the franchise as it’s been clear that the creative team has been getting more comfortable behind the scenes with each new season of this revival thus far.

Futurama Season 13 introduces fans to the Planet Express crew once more, and they are in ten new episodes of adventures. The major changes that have taken place in previous seasons are thankfully still in place as Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal) are still a couple, Amy (Lauren Tom) and Kif (Maurice LaMarche) are happily together with their family, Bender (John DiMaggio) is still very much his wacky self, and much more. For fans who have paid attention to the franchise’s continuity across its multiple eras, thankfully all that work is still in place. And it’s all led to more layers building on top of it with the new episodes.

The new season has some great callbacks to the past of the animated series, and actually mines those callbacks with fun new angles. For example, the premiere episode is one that focuses on Bender and the issues with his height and it really resembles an episode from the original broadcast run that fans loved at the time. But even if it’s a callback, it doesn’t feel like it’s previously treaded material as Bender goes about the situation in an entirely different kind of way. And ultimately, it leads to some very fun jokes.

That’s the best part of Futurama Season 13, and its greatest strength overall. It’s clear that there are still avenues to go down with each of the characters. The episodes not only have some fun callbacks to the best moments from the past, but they are used as a springboard of sorts to still surprise fans with the jokes. One of the greatest pitfalls for a long running animated series like this one would be to feel too tired especially as it hits double digit season numbers, and that’s really hard to shake off once it gets that kind of reputation. Even more so for a series that’s perfect with the episodic format like Futurama.

Futurama’s Characters Continue to Evolve

Its characters will change over the course of each season, but stories are still going to essentially wrap within a single episode’s run. That’s unfortunately going to be the only major flaw of Season 13 on a whole. It’s been shifted over to a new binge release with Hulu, and while it will still be airing weekly with FXX, this is a big change to how fans will be watching the episodes. It doesn’t have a longer serialized story to carry its episodes across the season, nor is there some kind of longer build up towards a finale as fans have come to expect from binge television watches these days.

It’s here that Futurama will unfortunately hit a wall with this season, and that’s not the show’s fault at all. The episodes are going to be great experience much like any animated sitcom, but there’s not going to be an overall connective tissue for watching all at once. As long as you take care to watch episodes at a leisurely pace then it’s all going to work. Especially because Futurama is also sure to keep evolving all of the characters. Because while they may be taking on wacky adventures, it’s not a traditional sitcom in that things just go back to normal and are forgotten at the end of an episode.

Futurama‘s characters remember everything they’ve been through, and although they don’t openly acknowledge them all the time, some of the biggest and most hilarious surprises are when they do. Even then with all of these changes across multiple franchises, the heart and soul of the animated classic is still very much intact. There are jokes for math lovers (that really put in that work), jokes featuring real-life, fact driven science, yet it’ll still surprise you with a cleverly stupid written line for Fry. It’s not once lost a step in maintaining that balance fans have come to love all these years.

That’s what makes this such a strong season even after all this time. Futurama’s status quo continues to change throughout each of its eras, and that status quo gives the show something to explore even after all this time. It’s just a marvel to see how Futurama has grown and changed over the years, yet still feels as comfortable as it always has. It’s clear that Futurama is more future-proof ready than ever before with the release of Season 13, and fans are going to love being along for the ride.