David X. Cohen here. I wanted to mention a few things regarding the "weekend syndication" run of Futurama that starts in the U.S. this weekend (Sept 24, 2011).

Obviously this is very good news for Futurama... Futurama has reached a number of episodes and a level of awareness where broadcasters are interested in showing the series. One thing that goes along with this success is that we have to make the episodes a little shorter to match the available length of the syndication time slot. This affects all syndicated series, not just Futurama. For example, the Simpsons episodes are cut down for U.S. syndication.

In the case of Futurama, we are fortunate that we still have our production team together, so I have been able to personally make the adjustments to the episodes with our editor, Paul Calder, who has been working with me on the series from the very beginning. I have tried my best not to cut anything that is critical to the episodes or the series as a whole, and also to keep intact the most popular runs of dialog. But of course, here and there, somebody's favorite line will be missing. There's just no way around it... it's the price of success. On the bright side, I think in many cases the pacing of the episodes has been improved slightly, and some subtle visual improvements and error corrections have been made as well. Some episodes may well be improved on the whole. Rest assured, no cuts are being made by anyone outside our production office.

The Comedy Central cable network, which broadcast both new and old episodes in the U.S., also has the option of showing either the original or syndication versions of the show. In the case of reruns, they are switching to the new syndication versions. New episodes should continue to air uncut, and the original full-length versions of course remain available for download and on DVD.

That's all... back to work for me now on 26 more new ones...

DXC