Futurama and Community

Tonight on Comedy Central, one of my favorite shows, Futurama, begins its 13 episode “final” season. This is the second final season it’s had, the first being in 2003 when it stopped airing on FOX. This is the show’s third season on Comedy Central and while it never reached the incredible heights of its first four seasons on FOX, it has been a consistently fun show. My biggest disappointments have been the incredibly heavy-handed and obvious social commentary in some episodes, when subtle satire is much more effective, and that they’ve continued the on again/off again Fry/Leela tease rather than have the characters move forward in their relationship. I wish they’d just get married already.

We’ll see how it ends in September and whether or not someone else will pick it up to produce more episodes. I hope so, but if not, it’s been a good run.

In stranger news, NBC renewed Community, one of the best sitcoms of all time, a few weeks ago after its fairly disastrous fourth season, produced without series creator, Dan Harmon. Harmon was fired after the third season and the new showrunners, facing an impossible task, couldn’t recreate the magic. The show became obvious, strained and pandering much of the time and I was content to let it end with the fourth season. But now that Harmon is back (even network producers occasionally show some smarts), I’m looking forward to a reinvigorated fifth season, probably airing next winter.

Strange times in TV Land.