Future Shock - Futurama's David X Cohen talks about what's in store for the show's ninth season

Futurama's David X Cohen talks about what's in store for the show's ninth season

- By Tara Bennett

When Futurama was resurrected for a third time in July of last year, critics and fans alike wondered if the fact that the Planet Express crew had been in mothballs for a decade would diminish the potency of the show’s wit. But the 10 new episodes of season eight didn’t skip a beat, skewering everything from Bitcoin to vaccine controversies.

Executive producer Matt Groening and showrunner David X Cohen were able to confidently throw a Bender-like rude gesture at the sceptical, because their return did so well that Futurama got picked up for another two seasons, ensuring its future through to 2026.

Season eight returns at the end of July with 10 episodes that continue to send Dr Farnsworth’s (Billy West) Planet Express delivery crew around the galaxy in their usually ineffectual way. At the helm from the very beginning, Cohen tells Red Alert that in their 25 years of making the show together, the society of the day has never failed to provide them with ridiculous topics to parody through the lens of the 31st century. “One great thing about writing about the future is that it generates itself while you’re off the air, which we often are,” he laughs.