Futurama Season 4 on Channel 4
24 January 2004
It's a case of good news and bad news for C4 Futurama viewers; as 2004 begins, Channel 4 UK have finally found time in their schedule, among the reality shows and Friends repeats, for the fourth season of Futurama (having shown season 3 as far back as autumn 2002). That's good!
Unfortunately, it's been given a time slot after 1am on Friday nights. That's bad. I know "late night Futurama fest" sounds cool (to an uncool individual like me, anyway), and we can always tape it, but it's still a shame, and an inevitable result of scheduling; Futurama just cannot be shown between 7pm and midnight, because that's prime time and apparently we, the public, expect popular programmes like Home Garden Relocation Decorating Challenge, and Wife Swap. C4 do show US imports like The Osbournes, Friends and Scrubs (anything with a pluralised name, really) on Friday evenings, but I can't imagine Futurama being given that kind of time slot, even if its name was changed to Futuramas. So, many possible new fans will be lost.
On the plus side, there won't be any cuts. In season 3, even though it was shown at 18:30 on weekdays, there was a massive reduction in censoring episodes, and whenever Channel 4 have shown Futurama repeats at night, they've been uncut. I wouldn't expect any different from this new series, so I won't be updating the site weekly like I did for season 3 in 2002.
And beyond...
Is that all? Futurama has, thankfully, been given a second chance in the US by Comedy Central since 2007. It's perfectly possible that Sky One, and who knows who else, have been censoring it.
If you've noticed any censorship of Futurama (or other series), and have the time and nerdiness, you should start your own site and tell the world what they're unable to handle! It's a fairly honourable goal...
Anyway, that's all I've got. Channel 4 haven't broadcast Futurama for years; I don't think they screened the "broadcast Series 5" (the last 12-ish Fox episodes), but for the record, here's when each broadcast series was premiered by the relevant channels, from 1999-2004:
SEASON 1 2 3 4 5
Fox scumbags (US) Mar 1999 Sep 1999 Nov 2000 Dec 2001 Nov 2002
Sky One (UK) 1999 2000 2001 mid-2002 mid-2003
Channel 4 (UK) late 2000 Jul 2001 late 2002 early 2004