They're back! After dozens of episodes spread out over several years, Fox abruptly canceled Futurama, Matt Groening's consistently funny animated sci-fi comedy. Futurama may have never become a hit like The Simpsons or even King of the Hill, but, especially after seeing what Fox replaced it with, you have to wonder why they couldn't find room for the show, even as a mid-season replacement. The average Futurama is much funnier than the average Fox sitcom and, at it's best, it was still must-see TV. But Fox let it go. Like the Griffin family returning from the cancellation grave, the crew of Futurama have returned for a series of four straight-to-DVD movies. But should we be happy that Futurama has made the move from network TV to feature-length DVD? Is this like the Family Guy movie or like those Land Before Time flicks?

Luckily, it's definitely the former. In fact, it's better than the Family Guy straight-to-DVD adventure from last year and a must-have for animated comedy fans this season. Futurama: Bender's Big Score is so consistently funny, clever, and inventive, that it will actually make you remember the show more fondly than you did before and probably lead to increased sales of the season sets. Like Family Guy, Futurama feels like it could be more popular after its cancellation than before. There is a TV God.

Bender's Big Score is almost impossible to summarize. Trust me. There's even an easter egg featurette on the DVD which shows scribbles and notes trying to keep the continuity of the piece together. That's what happens when you dip into time travel. After a hilariously self-parodying opening where the Box Network closes down Planet Express, the plot of Bender's Big Score kicks in. In one plotline, Hermes loses his head, literally, and Leela meets a new man trying to save him named Lars. Leela and Lars fall for each other, much to Fry's jealous chagrin. Meanwhile, we discover that the ultimate time code is buried in a tattoo on Fry's ass. After being taken over by information-scamming aliens, Bender uses the time code to steal things from the past, like the Mona Lisa. From there, it gets even more ridiculously complicated. Let's just say, there's more than one Fry and more than a few Benders floating around the time-space continuum. And they're all hilarious.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score may be impossible to recap, but that's part of what makes it brilliant. Unlike most television, the plot twists of Big Score don't telegraph themselves from miles away. In fact, the biggest pleasure of Big Score, besides the copious alien nudity of course, is watching all the various threads come brilliantly together. What first seems ridiculous will bring a smile to your face an hour later. Bender's Big Score will be broken up into four installments for airing on Comedy Central at a future date. Watch it on DVD. The payoff is too good to wait. Each act gets better, as the plot gets richer and more interesting and the jokes that were set up in minute 5 pay off in minute 105. At first, it may take a while to get back into the Futurama groove. By the end, you'll be upset there isn't another episode next week that you can watch.

The episodes/movie itself are the big draw of Bender's Big Score but Fox did scrape together some pretty cool extras from the robot heap. On a technical level, Bender's Big Score is a little disappointing. It claims to have been mastered in high definition and the colors look vibrant but there's a surprising amount of line degradation. Bender shouldn't be wavy. As for special features, fans of Futurama will find a commentary by half a dozen people involved, a live comic book reading by the cast, a full episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, a terrifying message from Al Gore, a math lecture featurette, an original draft of the script, new character/design sketches, the original Comic Con promo, and three deleted scenes. Anyone familiar with the typical Groening-verse DVD release should know what to expect by now (greatness) and Bender's Big Score doesn't disappoint on any level.