Futurama's back and everything is good again. Probably forever.

[Solid Snake]

...The real problem with Futurama is that I thought the first four seasons (+ the first movie) were so perfectly well-contained and told such a cohesive storyline that I'm not sure what the heck Futurama's going to be about anymore. I just sort of feel like the show's explored all the interesting avenues and continuing it may result in yet another Family Guy style letdown in quality.

I'll put it this way: When I watched the first movie my initial reaction (Aside from "This is awesome! A Futurama movie! I thought I'd never witness another episode!") was that the writers essentially crammed all the "deep" or "serious" remaining material they planned to explore in future Futurama seasons into said movie. The first movie seemed to resolve all the unanswered questions that the show subtly asked us to examine, like "Why did Fry go to the future?" and "Why is Fry special?" and "Who is Nibbler and what is his purpose?" and "Why did it appear that an alien race destroyed the Earth during that montage when Fry was frozen?"

...With all those questions essentially resolved, Futurama's either going to have to create new mysteries out of thin air or completely ignore the deeper or more serious series-wide content in favor of just seeking out quick laughs. I've always felt the strongest Futurama episodes were the ones with the heavier content, though (such as Luck of the Fryish, and of course the one with Fry's dog.) Those episodes tended to be ones that Groening and his cowriters had planned from the very beginning, and the series benefited from it; that same dynamic isn't going to be present now.

Oh, there's still plenty of stories that could be told about a cast of lovable characters getting into random shenanigans in the future, but I feel that Fry and Leela and Bender's stories are all done, or they should be done. If Fry and Leela aren't in a strong relationship together in upcoming season(s), it will only be due to artificial reasons (the writers ignoring the character's past development in favor of continuing the tension.) That holds true with Amy and Kip, too.

[Aerozord]

actually the movie made some continuity errors like how his girlfriend said that he just disappeared but clearly she met him and kicked him out. Or why his brother would name his kid Philip in memory of his brother when his brother was sitting right there. Also lessens the emotional impact of his dog waiting for him all those years, if he was still living with him

Its also possible it wasn't done, the story is thought up way in advance. For example, in the first episode ThE VERY FIRST ONE you can see nibblers shadow when Fry gets frozen. Remember the show was prematurely cancelled, he might have had more stuff planned that he never got to do

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

actually the movie made some continuity errors like how his girlfriend said that he just disappeared but clearly she met him and kicked him out. Or why his brother would name his kid Philip in memory of his brother when his brother was sitting right there. Also lessens the emotional impact of his dog waiting for him all those years, if he was still living with him

...Well if you put it that way, I might as well cross off the first Futurama movie and just view the four original seasons as the "genuine" Futurama content. =/

[Doc ock rokc]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

actually the movie made some continuity errors like how his girlfriend said that he just disappeared but clearly she met him and kicked him out. Or why his brother would name his kid Philip in memory of his brother when his brother was sitting right there. Also lessens the emotional impact of his dog waiting for him all those years, if he was still living with him

Its also possible it wasn't done, the story is thought up way in advance. For example, in the first episode ThE VERY FIRST ONE you can see nibblers shadow when Fry gets frozen. Remember the show was prematurely cancelled, he might have had more stuff planned that he never got to do

There is always the possibility that Paradox fry/lars didn't interact with anyone. Think about it. He lived above the pizza place (away from his girlfriend's apartment) for 2 years then went off whaling. Then there is always the possibility that he skipped a few days weeks months in time when he came back.

[Lithp]

Lars eventually gets into the cryogenics machine anyway, so the retcon is essentially that the characters weren't referring to the disappearance we thought they were. And I'm kinda glad they toyed with the Seymour thing. That...was really depressing....

As for new stories, the latest movie threw out a big one:

"I will now collect the DNA of homo sapiens."
"I thought you only collected the DNA of endangered species."
*Flies away.*
"Huh, I guess he didn't hear me...."

Futurama has shown in the past that it's all about things that appear like mundane jokes at the time, but are actually massive foreshadowing. Therefore, this probably implies that some big shit is going to go down soon.

And whether or not that's true, the 2nd Brainspawn episode really came out of nowhere. The plot contained within the 1st Brainspawn episode wrapped them up quite nicely. There wasn't even a hint that there were more than the ones Fry messed up. So, even if shit DOES start coming out of nowhere, it's not necessarily adaptation decay.

[Mannix]

I may or may not have seen the first two episodes. They may or may not have been awesome.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Doc ock rokc

There is always the possibility that Paradox fry/lars didn't interact with anyone. Think about it. He lived above the pizza place (away from his girlfriend's apartment) for 2 years then went off whaling. Then there is always the possibility that he skipped a few days weeks months in time when he came back.

but he does girlfriend mentions him being kicked out, you see him eating dinner with his family, and Fry jr was even the one that told Bender he left town. He also returned mere moments after he was frozen, so he didn't skip time either.

[Lumenskir]

...The real problem with Futurama is that I thought the first four seasons (+ the first movie) were so perfectly well-contained and told such a cohesive storyline that I'm not sure what the heck Futurama's going to be about anymore. I just sort of feel like the show's explored all the interesting avenues and continuing it may result in yet another Family Guy style letdown in quality.

I think you might be elevating your past memories of the show to Arrested Development levels, which it really doesn't deserve. Sure, there were some episodes that benefited from having callbacks layered on top of callforwards, but the majority of the series was a mostly episodic "Simpsons in the Future" (but the good seasons of the Simpsons). I'm not anywhere close to a megafan, but I still find it incredibly easy to watch whatever random episode is on repeat and laugh at 95% of the self-contained jokes.

[Aerozord]

they really seem to be tossing out the twist ending alot, wonder if they intend to keep this trend going

Also for some reason this thread now confuses me. All this talk about the show being cancelled? whats that about?

[Lithp]

Aerozord: To reiterate, Lars eventually gets into the cryogenics machine anyway, so the retcon is essentially that the characters weren't referring to the disappearance we thought they were. And the show was cancelled. Don't you remember the line from the first movie? "Those morons who cancelled us were themselves fired for incompetence!" et cetera et cetera.

Lumenskir: Yeah, I didn't want to be the first guy to say, "Y'know, Futurama isn't really that great," but I also felt that the analysis was painting the show to be something it wasn't. It's not like it's some kind of grand, dramatic story. There is some continuing story, but it's really minor. Overall, Futurama is an episodic show with little continuity. For example, remember Bender meeting God? That doesn't dramatically influence later episodes. The show even lampshades this format with the episode about the Omicrons wanting to see the last episode of "Single Female Lawyer."