It is without exaggeration that I say that the FOX Network’s cancellation of Futurama was one of the great injustices of our time. A sci-fi comedy from Simpsons creator Matt Groening, starring an alcoholic robot, it is quite frankly, one of the greatest things ever. Finding new ratings life on Adult Swim and then on Comedy Central, the creative team reunited to produce four direct-to-DVD movies. The second, Beast with a Billion Backs is out now, and all I can do is gush. Like the first release, Bender’s Big Score, the new movie is a virtual love letter to the fans, with scores of favorite characters showing up. In fact, just about every recurring character who didn’t make it into Big Score makes an appearance. Calculon, Wernstrom, the Robot Devil, Morbo, L’rrr, the Ultimate Robot Fighters, the Grand Midwife, the Wongs, Mayor Poopinmeyer, Harold Zoid, the Bodyless Head of Spiro Agnew, and Hedonism-Bot all make their grand returns here. It’s less continuity-centric than the first movie, but it does advance one of the series’ long-running arcs, the romance of Amy and Kif. If there is anything sweeter than the courtship of an Asian girl from Mars and a boneless, vaguely reptilian alien, I’ve never seen it.
