Futurama's 'New' Season Begins with "Neutopia"

Last night, Comedy Central celebrated the return of Futurama with the premier of two new episodes of Matt Groening's hit series. Considered to be a premier of a confusing season 8, we see yet another plot that takes the demise of the Planet Express crew and their failing package delivery company, and turns it around for the better in the end. This has been a plot that Futurama fans have grown accustomed to with each big network move, or large stint of programming such as this one that has split season 7 and 8. We have witnessed this time and time before with the beginning of "Bender's Big Score" along with the season premier of season 7.

Matt Groening brought back the talent of J. Stewart Burns, however, to liven up this exasperated plot-line. Burns can be credited for writing the script for the Futurama video game, many earlier episodes of the series, as well as the Emmy Award winning episode: Roswell that Ends Well. This gave me high hopes when it came to the quality of this return of the series.

As mentioned before, the plot of the episode puts Planet Express in turmoil as it once again is about to belly up as a business. The team finds themselves on a gender-free planet composed of creatures made entirely of rocks... yes... rocks. I for one was excited for the new species of alien, cause well, I am a geologist, and rocks are kind of my thing.


The planet itself was a phenomenal creation, with actual plausible geologic features scattered throughout the background of many of the shots, something that I was really pumped to see. The team soon finds that this planet's sun is about to burn the surface and it is up to them to trek to the "Cave of Harmony" to provide shelter from the heat. Push comes to shove, and the gender's find themselves split and encouraged to work together to get to their goal. But instead of working together, they instead try to betray one another and from here, the story begins to unravel.

Let's just say that this new rock species has a "gender-empowering" capability, and we begin to start seeing the more feminine and masculine sides of the crew that we have never seen before. Back on Earth the team finds a creative way to fund the now in-debt Planet Express company that you will indefinitely crack up about.

Funny little science jokes were scattered throughout this episode, a mainstay of much of Groening's comedic style, without excluding the immature jokes we all know and love. All in all, it is nice to see the return of Futurama and I am sure we all can't wait to see what escapades the Planet Express crew gets themselves in to.

What's this you say? There were two episodes that aired last night? Check out the second portion of the Season 8 review coming up soon on Wired Gamers!

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