Blast from the past

After an almost seven-year hiatus from original episodes, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening's underappreciated Futurama returns to television for an all-new season on Comedy Central on Thursday at 10 p.m.

Originally airing for four seasons on Fox from March 1999 to August 2003, the animated comedy centers around a late 20th century New York City pizza delivery boy living life in the 31st century and follows the misadventures of the Planet Express intergalactic delivery company and an amusing assortment of human, alien and robot characters.

Not unlike fellow resurrected animated comedy Family Guy (currently on Fox), Futurama found relative success with DVD sales and in syndication as a staple of Cartoon Network's late-night comedy block, Adult Swim. In 2007, Futurama was reborn in the form of four original direct-to-DVD movies, to be aired later in serial format on the show's new home of Comedy Central.

Two new episodes air back-to-back Thursday night on the network and the wait was worth it.

The season premiere picks up where the last movie, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, left off. Save for the wacky Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth and our 20th century man, Philip J. Fry, (both voiced by Billy West, The New Woody Woodpecker Show) the entire Planet Express crew is dead.

But no worries — the professor soon brings everyone back to life with a stem cell stew.
"I'm dripping with placenta," one reborn character exclaims. "Good thing it's casual Friday."
Sadly, Fry's love interest, sexy cyclops Captain Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy), is not revived at first. She is replaced by a robot but sure enough, the real Leela comes back from the dead soon after. Classic Futurama antics ensue.

Developed by Groening and David X. Cohen, the science fiction-comedy hybrid still stands as one of the funniest comedies on television — animated or otherwise. The new season promises to continue the series' trademark blend of absurdity, slapstick and satire.

What the old Futurama was often great at doing was crafting emotionally resonating stories of loss or other heartbreaks. Such heartfelt episodes cannot be helped when the protagonist (Fry) is 1000 years from home (he accidentally fell into a cryogenic freezer on the eve of the year 2000 and woke up in the year 3000 in New New York City).

The tearjerkers and nostalgia-centered stories were Futurama's secret weapon, and hopefully, the reignited series continues to excel in this heartfelt field. Watching the first two new episodes, it wasn't apparent this would be the case.

At this point in the series, Leela and Fry have finally entered a consensual romantic relationship. Yet, in the second episode of the new season, Leela is forced to perform a sexual act with one of the show's slimeball characters.

The usually emotionally deft show deals poorly with what would be a disturbing scenario in any setting. The intended humor fails here.

Aside from a few missteps, Futurama looks poised to regain its position as a reliable television comedy.

Futurama airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

rhiggins@umdbk.com