The Kingdom After Futurama

Let’s not do the thing where we relitigate exactly when The Simpsons stopped being worth watching, or how much got lost when Futurama was cancelled. Both true. Both permanent. Nothing’s moving on either front.

What can interrupt the slide, at least momentarily, is Disenchantment—Matt Groening’s new Netflix show, set in a crumbling medieval fantasy kingdom full of dragons, monsters, and what appears to be a serious drinking problem. Futurama in a different costume, essentially, which is not an insult. The first trailer doesn’t give much away, but the bones look right: the character design has that same slightly-off warmth, the timing feels like Groening, and the premise leaves enough room to be genuinely strange.

After years of watching the zombie seasons of The Simpsons shuffle forward while the work that actually mattered got frozen in syndication, the idea of something new—something that might be alive—is enough to generate a cautious, carefully managed feeling close to excitement. I’m keeping it small. I’ve been here before. But it’s there.