This is the first review I've ever written so here it goes.<br /><br />Futurama starts off on New Year's Eve 1999 where a pizza delivery boy, Phillip J. Fry, AKA Fry, is working the last hours before the New Year. We immediately find out that his life sucks. He gets dumped by his girlfriend while delivering a pizza and when he parks his bike to make the delivery someone steals it. He ends up delivering a pizza to a cryogenics lab to where he accidentally falls into a tube where he gets frozen for 1000 years.<br /><br />He wakes up to the year 3000 where obviously everything is completely different. Without telling too much more, Fry realizes he can start his life over, but he also realizes that he knows nothing about this world. He ends up working for a space delivery company with a wide variety of people.<br /><br />The owner of the company is an 150 year-old scientist who is Fry's Great x (a lot) nephew who hires people for unusual reasons. He has a one-eyed space captain, Leela, A robot who does the least amount of work, Bender, A Jamaican who runs the business side of things, Hermes, an extremely rich Asain engineering intern from Mars University, Amy, and a lobster doctor, Zoiderberg, who happens to be very unqualified and very poor.<br /><br />Those are the main characters, but as you watch the show you will realize that the side characters and even the extras make the show a lot more funny.<br /><br />The only problem with Futurama is that it was released by the same people who created The Simpsons and at the time when The Simpsons had just finished their best years. This led to immediate comparisons between the two shows and people were expecting the Simpsons in space when they saw months of advertising about a show by the same creators of the Simpsons set 1000 years in the future. Fans actually got a lot more (dare I say) than the Simpsons.<br /><br />There are a few great things about Futurama. One thing I noticed is that people know so little about the past and even the smartest people, the fungeneers, know so little. For example the first known astronauts are the honeymooners because of the line "bang zoom straight to the moon" and the first people on the moon were the "Whalers on the moon." The show generally revolves around Fry and his struggle to fit into this new world and his love for Leela. There are many episodes and parts of episodes that focus on Fry trying to win Leela's heart and most of the time he is unsuccessful or unfortunate. Bender, the robot, is an extremely selfish robot who cares about no one and always gets his way. He is the most quotable character on the show and has some classic lines. The rest of the characters are very funny, and have very odd personalities, but don't get much of the shows focus.<br /><br />Many people consider Bender to be the best character on the show, but the real gem is Fry. Fry is as as dumb as dumb can be but he is a good person who actually would be a smart person if he wasn't so lazy. He is a web of contradictions mainly because he hasn't focused himself in life and wants to go places, but doesn't have the drive. Throughout the show he has done some pretty amazing things and has actually saved the lives of his co-workers on a few occasions.<br /><br />Hope this kind of helped, but if you skipped all these explanations and came to the bottom I heavily suggest watching this show and start at the first first two episodes of season one and then have fun with the rest (5 season total, 4 volumes of DVD's). And if you are already a fan and have seen all the episodes, watch them again; they have much more to offer than funny lines and dumb actions.<br /><br />5/5 10/10 ****/****... simply the best.