While Futurama season 14’s arrival was always going to be exciting for fans of the sci-fi comedy, the show’s latest outing on Hulu is all the more thrilling thanks to the return of one iconic fan-favorite character. Futurama has a complicated history, to say the least. While its fellow cult sci-fi sitcom Hyperdrive was simply canceled before its time, Futurama is a rare series that was canceled, revived, canceled again, and revived again throughout its 27-year history.
Debuting in 1999, Futurama ran for four critically acclaimed seasons before its original cancellation in 2003. Before long, the cult hit was brought back for a quartet of standalone movies that went straight to DVD between 2006 and 2008, and the popularity of these outings led Comedy Central to revive the series in 2010. After another two seasons, Comedy Central canceled the series again in 2013, only for Futurama’s second cancellation to be undone in 2023 by Hulu.
Since 2023, Hulu has released three ten-episode seasons of Futurama, with a fourth on the way in early August 2026. Futurama season 14 will see the entire Planet Express crew return to screens, with Leela, Fry, Amy, Bender, Hermes, Zoidberg, and Professor Farnsworth all appearing in the first trailer for the long-awaited outing. However, Futurama season 14 also promises to bring back another fan-favorite supporting star, Nibbler, after Leela’s pet decided to lie low for much of seasons 12 and 13.
Futurama Season 14 Gives Nibbler His First Story Since 2023
In the first season of Hulu’s revival, season 11, episode 2, “Parasites Regained,” Nibbler starred in a loose parody of Dune. The episode saw Nibbler’s intelligence drained by microscopic worms, the same parasites previously seen in the iconic original series outing season 3, episode 2, “Parasites Lost.” Even though the Futurama revival’s story took a risk by reminding viewers of this beloved episode, “Parasites Regained” wasn’t a mere retread of “Parasites Lost.”
The story of “Parasites Lost” took place before Leela and Fry became a couple, so, like the similarly moving season 4, episode 19, “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings,” the outing focused on the pair’s romantic potential. This made “Parasites Lost” a particularly poignant and sad outing for the typically goofy, anarchic show, whereas its belated sequel “Parasites Regained” was a more straightforwardly funny parody of the Dune movies.
While Nibbler’s storyline was fun in season 11, the character took a backseat throughout seasons 12 and 13 of Futurama’s revival. This was a surprise, since Futurama revealed long ago that Nibbler, who is secretly a member of the alien race the Nibblonians, was actually a hyper-intelligent leader of his species who set the events of the entire show in motion a thousand years earlier when he pushed Fry into a cryogenic chamber in Futurama’s pilot episode.
Nibbler’s Comeback Is A Reminder of Futurama’s Massive Supporting Cast
Since Nibbler is such a pivotal part of the show’s lore, it might seem surprising that the Hulu revival effectively ignored him for two seasons after “Parasites Regained.” However, his return in Futurama season 14 is a reminder of just how massive the show’s supporting cast is, and how subsequently tough it can be for the show’s shorter ten-episode streaming seasons to cram in storylines for everyone. The fact that Futurama released a Christmas episode in August a few years back is another reminder of this.
The economics of television production have changed a lot in the 27 years since Futurama first hit screens in 1999, and it is always a win for fans to get more episodes of the cult series, even if the show’s seasons are a lot shorter than they once were. However, with the industry’s changes come some alterations to the show’s priorities, and this explains why Futurama has less time to explore its more minor supporting characters, like Nibbler, thanks to the shorter ten-episode runs of its recent reboot seasons on Hulu.
- Release Date
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March 28, 1999
- Showrunner
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Matt Groening
- Directors
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Peter Avanzino, Brian Sheesley, Crystal Chesney, Frank Marino, Edmund Fong, Stephen Sandoval, Bret Haaland, Rich Moore, Ron Hughart, Dwayne Carey-Hill, Raymie Muzquiz, Mark Ervin, Susie Dietter, Gregg Vanzo, Swinton O. Scott III, Ira Sherak, James Purdum, Corey Barnes, Lance Kramer, Ray Claffey, Chris Sauve, Jeffrey Lynch, Pat Shinagawa, Wes Archer
- Writers
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Eric Rogers, Dan Vebber, Maiya Williams, David A. Goodman, Ron Weiner, Aaron Ehasz, Kristin Gore, Brian Kelley, Evan Gore, Heather Lombard, Jason Gorbett, Michael Saikin
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Billy West
Fry / Professor Farnsworth / Zoidberg / Zapp Brannigan (voice)
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Katey Sagal
Leela (voice)