Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs

When Fox originally cancelled Matt Groening’s Futurama, there was much uproar amongst fans, who promptly waged an online war with the company and, as is the custom in these web-savvy days, eventually got it back on our screens via a petition and bulk-buying of DVD boxsets.

Like fellow Fox axe victim Family Guy, the show was granted a reprieve with four feature-length spin-offs, first Bender’s Big Score and now this, The Beast With A Billion Backs. The Family Guy spin-off suffered because it tried to cram too much into too little screen time and ended up like a hyperactive child lost in a supermarket; distracted by every little item on display, with no real direction. This latest Futurama spin-off unfortunately suffers the same fate.

In true Futurama fashion, classic fifties sci-fi B-movies are lovingly homaged, this time round with a massive beastie named Evo from another universe threatening our own. Again, true to form, Fry’s slacker ways and charming idiocy see him through. Bender’s delightful amorality is thoroughly entertaining, Leela remains the straight-woman to every other character’s punchlines and Dr Zoidberg wibble-wobbles in the background.

All well and good, and all the ingredients of the once-classic series are there, but where it all goes awry is in trying to put too much of everything in. It’s as if a focus group ticked off every single popular feature from the series and crammed it in without thinking about how it’d all work together, so the feeling of a rushed longer episode leaves the hurried viewer breathless for all the wrong reasons. Few jokes are remembered in the barrage of quantity over quality and the end result is underwhelming.

Though Futurama was a great series for a few years, the web petitioners didn’t bear in mind sometimes it’s good for something to end before it turns sour, like the past ten try-too-hard years of The Simpsons. Futurama was decreasing in quality when it was cancelled, and The Beast With A Billion Backs unfortunately continues that trend. Still, the resurrected Family Guy improved dramatically after a year or two of being back, so let’s hope Futurama, given a chance, will do the same.

Extras: Commentary by Matt Groening and co, Futurama The Lost Adventure, Meet Yivo! Featurette with David Cross, A Brief History Of Deathball Featurette, Blooperama: The Futurama Cast At “Work”, Deleted Scenes/Storyboards.

Released on 30th June 2008 by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Written by Nick Aldwinckle.