Every Futurama finale was of its time

“It just won’t stay dead!” is the subtitle of ‘Bender’s Big Score’, the bombastic long return of Futurama after it was canceled in 2003.

In retrospect, the tagline seems like quite a statement to make after being canceled just once. The show would eventually end again in 2013, after climbing back out of the mud after its initial cancellation. FuturamaThe journeys between graveyard and screen have become something of a 21st century tradition, with the latest refresh arriving on Hulu on Monday.

Despite being taken out with a loaded shotgun twice, each cancellation had a silver lining — the show’s creators were able to craft a definitive finale each time, leading to “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings,” “Meanwhile,” and the feature-length, direct-to-DVD In the wild green yonder, which was produced when the series was in limbo between syndication deals. (Another potential finale, “Overclock,” aired at the end of the sixth season.)

A show’s ending should attempt to resolve the main tensions of the series while offering a final dose of what gave the show its foundational identity. For Futurama, that meant solving the will-they-won’t-they tennis match between Fry and Leela in the midst of a wacky sci-fi adventure. Each finale shoots for that exact balance, but they don’t all hit it head-on – though they all show love for some part of Futurama‘s identity.

All roads lead to Fry and Leela

The show did a lot of work to ensure that Fry and Leela’s romantic tension lasted throughout its run, often requiring them to retrace previous final endings or find creative solutions as to why they aren’t together yet. Some are more successful than others – Leela’s proclamation that “you’re a boy, I’m a girl, we’re just too different” stands out as one of the more delightfully silly reasons to prolong their unresolved tension.

While Fry and Leela finally find their way to each other in each finale, that storyline isn’t always central to the plot. However, the most effective finales in this regard – “Meanwhile” and “Devil’s Hands” – revolve around the couple. The first sees Fry interrupt time completely and give himself and Leela eternity to travel the cosmos and harness their love for each other. The latter is more of a depiction of Fry’s courtship as he makes a deal with the literal (robotic) devil in hopes of courting Leela.

“Devil’s Hands” proves to be somewhat indeterminate and ends with Fry fumbling through his big performance, his audience abandoning him, except for Leela, who claims she “wants to hear how it turns out” as the series fades to black. It’s moving and the openness keeps the finale from feeling like it’s racing to an end. “Meanwhile” offers more of a concrete outcome, with the pair growing old together in a frozen universe, something deeply romantic and satisfying to watch after spending more than a decade with these characters.

In the wild green yonder sees a grand kiss as Fry and Leela are on the verge of certain death. The film has an undercurrent that charts their relationship as they occupy opposite sides of a political issue and eventually find their way to each other – a microcosm of these two characters’ journeys. They started the series separated by 1000 years, but still ended up together.

“Overclock”, in its outsized plot, finds time to give Fry and Leela a quiet, hilarious, and touching moment where they read a letter detailing their fate, generated by the simulations of a divine Bender. Futurama found closure in multiple forms, never without creative ways to finally form that eternal bond between Fry and Leela. Each ending also fit the times: “Devil’s Hands” is representative of a show with more stories to tell but no time to tell it; Over there be a climax to a feature film; “Clockwise” is a calm, sweet moment that works as an end to a season and to the series as a whole; and “Meanwhile”, which stopped time to give what appeared to be the final finale.

How sci-fi trends changed Futurama’s finales

Image: 20th Century Fox

Sci-fi can be used for immense spectacle, as well as deeply intimate character studies. It’s a staple of the genre to take a small technology concept like overclocking or a modern day conflict like climate change and apply it to the augmented world of tomorrow.

In the wild green yonder uses sci-fi as a tool for political satire, seeing Leela, Amy, and a group of female activists trying to stop Amy’s father from building his interplanetary “giant miniature golf course”, which would eventually destroy the habitats of several planets. The ecological message takes precedence over many of the characters here, making it a grand farewell to the show, but one where it doesn’t really feel like anymore Futurama sometimes. Over there and “Overclock” share this flaw, leaving character in the name of spectacle.

From the moment that Futurama first ending in 2003 until the airing of “Overclocked” in 2011, nerd culture had burst from behind the pop culture curtain to establish its dominance. During the day FuturamaDuring its first run, things like comic book movies still felt like outsiders’ obsessions. This could be why the show’s first run ends with “Devil’s Hands,” a well-known play on “deals with the devil” stories, rather than the more technical stories of future finales after sci-fi emerged as a mainstream force.

These changing methods of storytelling showed how Futurama was able to weave sci-fi into stories of varying scale. While it often led to stories that were perhaps too grandiose for their own good, the most recent finale, 2013’s “Meanwhile,” struck gold.

The A plot is more Fry/Leela drama: after Leela faces death, Fry fears she will be taken away from him and decides to propose. In a subplot, the professor invents a button that sends time past 10 seconds, as well as a bubble that protects the user from the effects of the button. Thinking that Leela rejected him, Fry jumps off the Vampire State building, an immediately regrettable decision. He remembers the professor’s time dial and searches for a way to cheat death, only to find that he has been falling for more than 10 seconds. The resulting time loop ends with Fry destroying the button while he and Leela are in the protective bubble. All the time around them comes to a standstill.

It’s the perfect marriage of sci-fi and romance, with a take on each genre we barely see, but one that blends beautifully together. Fry and Leela embark on a romantic odyssey when they decide to spend eternity as the only two living beings in existence. They travel the cosmos, the only beating hearts in a frozen universe. “Meanwhile” is a beautiful dedication to how the rest of the universe is insignificant when you hold the hand of the person you love.

True to Futurama’s roots

Image: 20th Century Fox

Saying goodbye to a show should be an emotional experience. A finale can be flawed, but it can’t negate the spirit of the show. Futurama‘s reputation for comedy, tender character work and creative sci-fi ideas are hurled into every finale.

Picking up after “Devil’s Hands” and “Overclock” were easier tasks, as they are episodes that retain their sitcom DNA, with everything more or less back to normal by the end of the episode. This makes sense for the latter, an episode designed as a contingency finale in case another cancellation was imminent. However, “Devil’s Hands” feels like something open-ended due to the creators’ feeling that they had more to say after only four seasons. The show’s cult status and the deep connection felt by its creators meant that Groening and company always fought for the show’s return.

Over there had to do with the characters moving towards their demise, resulting in the convoluted, somewhat nonsensical “Rebirth” at the start of the following season. We see the Professor come up with a bleak device that breathes life into the corpses of the entire Planet Express crew, except Leela. The quest to replace her involves many robot duplicates in an attempt not to solve death with a death undoing machine. Over there is a classic case of writing yourself into a corner, as it was seen as a long last hurray for the series. Each episode would struggle to undo a fall to death.

The first episode of the Futurama revival on Hulu is tasked with following up on “Meanwhile”. While often considered a perfect ending to the show, it refuses to be diminished by future installments; “Meanwhile” stands immune as a parallel universe story. But that doesn’t mean the Hulu incarnation of the series won’t once again be tasked with fleshing out its own identity: The new season must take into account the passage of nearly a decade in which adult animated sitcoms such as Rick and Morty found dominance in Futuramaonce undisputed sci-fi niche. In many ways, the modern animated landscape for adults owes a lot to futurama, extend his basic ideas in several ways. But Rick and Morty has been at the forefront of a multiverse fad and is a show licensed to push its sci-fi concepts deeper into fantasy.

Even animated shows like BoJack Rider have adopted Futuramathe ability to give an emotional underbelly. During the first two runs Futuramacontemporaries, such as Family Guy, Bob’s BurgersAnd American father, were never this innovative with the sitcom format. This worked to create Futurama‘s core fanbase, but alienated it from a truly mainstream audience. The modern landscapes of Solar Opposites, Rick and MortyAnd last space are not afraid to experiment. The things that made Futurama unique in the 2000s are not so rare anymore.

The past finales and adult animated shows weigh heavily on the life of Futurama‘s latest resurgence. But that’s the problem with this show – it just doesn’t stay dead.