It really wasn’t bad. I liked how they recalled the tear-squishing ending of the last season and picked up immediately in the same scene. I was a bit afraid they would something like “ohhhh, somehow futurama returned. <unspecified>” and yet they went with the setup the writers left 10 years ago and it worked. I also appreciated them referencing the WGA strike, and this must have been a last-moment change, since the protest started only in May while I believe either Billy West or John Di Maggio confirmed the original voice work for the first part was done back in 2022.

I liked the meta aspect of it, it was very futurama and anyone who says its bad probably doesn’t remember or has never watched the show before. I have to say however that it felt a bit much halfway through the episode. I think this should have been a short sequence of jokes or one 5 minutes long scene at most; did not have to make an entire episode around the show rebooting after a decade. Yes, we get it: it’s funny how it got cancelled and rebooted so many times by so many different networks.

Having said that though, I honestly expected worse and have high hopes for the remaining 19 episodes.