“Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence! And not just fired, but beaten up, too! Pretty badly. In fact, most of them died from their injuries. Then they were ground up into a fine pink powder.”

—Professor Farnsworth in Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

Man, it blows Futurama got cancelled. Always stuck in the shadow of The Simpsons, it never hit quite the way it should have—maybe it was because it was a sci-fi cartoon, maybe it’s because its humor was a little bit more clever and quick and subtle than the broader character-based humor of The Simpsons or King of the Hill. But despite gaining a loyal fanbase, Futurama deserved to be a lot bigger than was. By which I mean it should have been on longer. Mostly so that there would be more of it for me to watch. Because I am selfish.

Luckily, Bender’s Big Score came out yesterday, the first in a series of four new direct-to-DVD Futurama movies. Clocking it at 88 minutes, Bender’s Big Score basically amounts as four new Futurama espisodes, which is good enough for me. For better or worse, the film basically feels like an overlong episode. (Thankfully, though, Futurama’s zanier humor adapts better to this format than the hit-and-miss The Simpsons Movie—it also benefits from the scientific fact that the universe contains entirely too many Simpsons repeats, and not nearly enough fresh Futuramas).

Things get off to a solid start, with Futurama’s jilted writers taking a solid amount of vengeance on Fox execs for canceling the show. (A little while later on, there’s also a welcome jab at another resurrected show, Family Guy, which is fucking terrible, and which should have stayed dead.) From there it kicks into an engaging (and surprisingly complex) plot about time travel, but mostly it’s just an excuse for Futurama’s characters to banter and for Futurama’s writers to throw as many physical, visual, and spoken gags as they can at the screen. Even though the film is feature-length, it doesn’t quite feel long enough--not a second is wasted, and the jokes hit quick, sometimes piling up, which’d be awkward if almost all of them weren’t so solid. It's like the minds behind Futurama never really took time off when the show was off the air, and instead continued writing, saving up all their jokes for this sharp movie.

Another benefit of the DVD: Since it’s basically targeted at longtime fans--or, at the very least, those already familiar with the show--the writers can largely skip the exposition and get down to business, also managing to cram in a ton of fan-favorite characters and references. In other words, all hail the return of Slurm, Zap Branigan, and maybe most importantly, Hypnotoad.

In addition to all the old favorite characters and cameos, there’s an unexpected guest star who pretty much steals the show: Al Gore, as in the real Al Gore, who plays a pivotal role as… Al Gore. There are jabs at the botched 2000 election and environmental references, sure, but the best moment has Gore in the film's climactic space battle, eagerly blazing away at enemy forces: “Finally!” he declares. “I get to save the earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slideshows!” (I assume Gore’s involvement is somehow connected to Bender’s Big Score being Fox’s first “carbon neutral DVD release.” I don’t know what it means, but it feels like something I should know, and makes me feel guilty about all of my carbony DVDs.)

Anyway, long story short: Futurama got canceled too soon. It was a great show, better than most. And now that the Futurama crew is back on DVD, they're well worth supporting. This is something that isn't only worth watching, it's worth buying--hopefully, these DVD flicks will do well enough that we won't have to be without Futurama ever, ever again.