Dead Again: Futurama Canceled for the Second Time

After 14 years — and seven seasons — of missions, the Planet Express crew is about to make its final delivery (again) with the news that Matt Groening’s Futurama ends Sept. 4 after an improbable run of 140 episodes.

Comedy Central has decided not to renew the animated science fiction comedy, which the network resurrected after Fox cancelled it in 2003.

“If this is indeed the end of Futurama, it’s a fantastic finish to a good, long run,” show co-creator and executive producer David X. Cohen said in a statement accompanying Comedy Central’s announcement.

Cohen had been a writer and producer for The Simpsons when Groening brought him aboard for the lengthy process of creating, and then running, Futurama. Work started in 1996, three years before the show made its debut. Fox never quite figured out what to do with the off-beat comedy and, which drew uneven ratings — something that almost certainly was due in part to the fact Fox kept changing the time slot and occasionally failed to promote new episodes. When Fox finally pulled the plug in 2003, everyone assumed the show was dead.

Enter Comedy Central, which syndicated the show in 2005 with an option to to make new episodes. It exercised that option a year later, announcing four direct-to-DVD movies it split into sixteen television episodes. That was followed by an order for another twenty-six episodes, and after that, yet another order for the same. When the final episode airs in five months’ time, Futurama will have lasted 140 episodes – 68 of which came after its “death” at the hands of Fox.

As you might expect, neither Cohen nor Groening are convinced this is the true end of Futurama. Groening told Entertainment Weekly, “It’d be a shame if we all went our separate ways [after this season]. We would love to continue. We have many more stories to tell. But if we don’t, this is a really great way to go out.”

The maybe-possibly-final season launches June 19, with guest stars for the run including George Takei, Adam West, Burt Ward and none other than Dan Castellaneta, who you might know as the voice of Homer Simpson.