Futurama was an animated FOX comedy about the misadventures of Philip Fry and company. On New Year’s Eve 1999, Fry delivered a pizza to a cryogenic lab; finding that the order was a prank, he accidentally falls into an open cryo-chamber and is frozen for 1000 years. When he wakes up the world is a much different place. As he gets his bearings, Fry befriends Bender the robot and Leela the one-eyed alien, and finds a distant relative, Professor Farnsworth, who owns an inter-planetary delivery company — Planet Express.

Futurama lasted five seasons on FOX; however, just like the Family Guy series, it’s gained new popularity on the Cartoon Network and through DVD sales. While Family Guy was eventually brought back to network TV, new Futurama adventures will be found on DVD, such as Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs, the second of four direct-to-DVD movies.

Picking up where Futurama: Bender’s Big Score (the first direct-to-DVD movie) left off, we see a tear in the universe — which had been caused by the time-traveling trouble of the aforementioned Big Score. This time out the Futurama crew and the entire Earth meet an octopus-like creature named Yivo (supposed to be a combination of Yahweh and TiVo) who is looking to spread love to the people of Earth and beyond.

Yivo takes advantage of the loneliness of Fry who, after getting together with Colleen, discovers he’s one of five(!) boyfriends and he doesn’t want to be a part of her gaggle of suitors. Yivo spreads himself by his tentacles that attach themselves to the top of your spine, and you become a mindless devoted follower of Yivo (there might be a metaphor in there somewhere, but I was too busy programming my TiVo to notice).

There were other plots in the film including Bender discovering a top-secret, robot-exclusive club he’s known about all his life and Kif and Amy taking their relationship to the next level, all of which culminate in the third act. Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs tries to cram too many plots into one movie and so the film is uneven. Don’t get me wrong — I still enjoyed the movie, but it felt patchy and slightly forced in some areas. However it’s still worth a rental and for die-hard Futurama fans, this will find a place in your collection.