Good News Everyone! "Futurama" is Back!

Just like sweet zombie Jesus, "Futurama" has been resurrected from its early grave, to the delight of its dedicated fanbase of nerds and geeks and animation lovers, my favorite kind of people.

It's hard to believe that it's been well over a decade years since "Futurama," the brain child of "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and David X. Cohen premiered on the FOX network, with an episode that took place on New Year's Eve, 1999. There it enjoyed a four-year run in a lousy early Sunday evening timeslot that kept being pre-empted by various sporting events, much to the ire of it budding fanbase. After the agony of cancellation in 2003, the show would live on through syndicated reruns, first on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, where it became a cult favorite, and then on Comedy Central. Robust DVD sales of the season box sets led to four direct-to-DVD movies in 2007 and 2008, comprising a unofficial fifth season, and finally Comedy Central took the plunge and ordered up more episodes in 2009. And now, at last the long wait is finally over and the series will premiere again with two new episodes tonight.

All the Planet Express regulars will return: Philip J. Fry (Billy West), Leela (Katy Sagal), Bender (John DiMaggio), Professor Farnsworth (Billy West, again) Dr. Zoidberg (yup, Billy West too), Hermes (Phil Lamarr) and Amy (Lauren Tom). I've been avoiding spoilers, so I haven't looked at any of the previews or plot synopses that have been floating around the web in recent weeks, but it's been promised that the new episodes will resolve the cliffhanger at the end of the last direct-to-DVD movie, "Into the Wild Green Yonder." I really love that - not only because it means the creators care about preserving the continuity of the series, but because it indicates that somewhere along the line "Futurama" turned into a show where the continuity became important to the audience. Will Fry and Leela ever acheive permanent couplehood? What about Kif (Maurice LaMarche) and Amy? And am I the only one rooting for the Professor to hook up with Mom (Tress MacNeill) again?

Like "The Simpsons," to which all modern prime-time and late-night cartoons owe an incalculable debt, "Futurama" is one of those rare animated gems that can genuinely tug on the heartstrings. I enjoy the show for the brainy sci-fi satire, the snarky pop-culture references, and the darkly surreal humor that birthed the notion of preserved celebrity heads in jars, suicide booths, and Slurm. But I love it for episodes like "The Sting," and "Jurassic Bark," that gave its characters more human dimensions and told very personal stories. For every "Star Trek" spoof and rampaging robot Santa episode, we got more thoughtful installments like Bender's brush with divinity in "Godfellas" and Leela finally finding out the truth about her parents in "Leela's Homeworld." My favorite episode is still "Luck of the Fryish," which let Fry put his rivalry with his older brother to rest, despite a gulf of a thousand years separating them.

And because "Futurama" is animated, it gets to pick up right where it left off without skipping a beat. "Family Guy," which also amassed a bigger audience from late night Cartoon Network reruns, made its way home to FOX after a multi-year hiatus and is now one of the network's strongest performers, with its own successful spinoff. "Futurama," though it had to navigate a rockier path back from the abyss, is now in a good position to do the same. There's no guarantee that the new season of "Futurama" will be able to recapture the glory days, but the cast and crew certainly deserve the chance to try. Over the last few years the show has been a steady presence on cable, hardly showing its age, and I've happily tracked its slow absorption into Internet culture. The "I see what you did there" meme, the Hypnotoad, and cries of "your [insert noun] is bad, and you should feel bad!" never fail to make me grin when they pop up somewhere unexpected.

"Futurama" was never as widely embraced as "The Simpsons," and I don't think it ever reached the same highs. But it has yet to run out of steam or hit a plateau of mediocrity the way "Simpsons" did, and I expect there are a lot more stories from the year 3000 waiting to be told. I was with the show from the beginning, was crushed when it was banished from network television, bought all the DVDs in solidarity, and now I gleefully welcome its return to ongoing series status.

"Futurama" airs at 10PM on Comedy Central. The show's website currently offers a recap of the first five seasons to get new viewers up to speed, narrated by Zapp Brannigan (Billy West, for the win!)