The show debuted in March 1999 and the plot was simple, if altogether outlandish. A pizza delivery boy, Phillip J. Fry, is tasked with delivering a pizza to Applied Cryogenics near midnight on New Year’s Eve. He recognizes the delivery is a prank once he arrives and sits back to eat the pizza and “celebrate” the New Year. He leans too far back in his chair and tumbles into an open cryo-pod, which freezes him for 1000 years. Upon awakening, Fry is confronted with a world vastly different than the one he knew, and it becomes the viewer’s journey to see Fry acclimate to this strange future.
Of course, looking back on that first episode, long-time viewers can sit and count the various things that are, essentially, Easter Eggs to future events within the series. But the journey quickly pulls us into this new world. There is the one-eyed Career Assignment Officer, Turanga Leela, who becomes every bit the integral cast member that Fry is. There is Fry’s great(x30)-nephew, the 150-or-so-year-old Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (he’s also Fry’s great(x31) grandson, but that’s another story for another day). There’s the acerbic, alcoholic robot Bender (full name: Bender Bending Rodriguez). We later meet the entire crew, including Amy Wong, Hermes Conrad, and Scruffy the Janitor.
On September 4, 2013, the “series finale” played out on Comedy Central. I write “series finale” in quotations because this is approximately the fourth series finale that Futurama has undergone. However, unlike the previous ones, I walked away from this episode feeling satisfied.
For a plot summary: Professor Farnsworth reveals that he has invented a ‘time-button’ that will reset the universe to a moment ten-seconds earlier (and then takes ten seconds to recharge), carrying back only those protected in the time bubble.. Fry, facing the prospect of losing Leela, decides to ask her to marry him. He steals the time-button in order to make the moment perfect. After a few mishaps, Fry gives Leela a massive diamond ring (which he gained through nefarious means and the “time button”) and tells her not to answer then, but to meet him atop the Vampire State Building (yes, you read that correctly) with her answer. When she doesn’t show, Fry jumps from the building in sadness. On the way down, he sees Leela coming in and realizes his watch was fast from all the time-jumping he’d done. He hits the button, but finds himself caught in a loop of falling. The rest of the crew shows up, and the Professor is killed trying to rectify the situation. Bender deploys an airbag and Fry is relieved from the loop, but upon falling to the ground his breaks the time-button, freezing all time except for himself and Leela. They take note of the now-frozen world, stage their own wedding and recite vows,
On Comedy Central, the pilot episode immediately began to play after the finale ended. I was struck with this impending sense of something “Dark Tower”-esque going on. This show has been reborn a few times, but this is the first time I’ve really felt a sense of finality to it all. I actually hope it doesn’t go into production on Netflix, or some other online service. Personally, I think they wrapped it up nicely. It was emotional, but not as emotional as other episodes. It was funny, but not as funny as other episodes. In short, it was kind of a microcosm of the series as a whole. I’ve only watched it once, but I think it could find its way onto a list of my top ten favorite episodes.
That said, what are my ten favorite Futurama episodes?
10. War is the H-Word (Season 2, Episode 17)
Synopsis: [Brain Ball]“The elders tell of a young ball much like you. He bounced three meters in the air, then he bounced 1.8 meters in the air, then he bounced four meters in the air. Do I make myself clear?” [Henry Kissinger’s head] “Mister Ambassador, our people tell the same story.”
Futurama pays tribute to every war show and movie they can in one episode. There are obvious parallels to StarshipTroopers and a lovely montage set to the M*A*S*H theme song. There’s even a not-so-sly reference to Mulan. Fry and Bender enlist in the military just to get a 5% discount off some ham-flavored chewing gum. Moments after enlisting, Earth declares war on Spheron I and a race of ‘balls’, leading the boys to have to go to war. Leela tries to enlist as well, just to protect them, but the military has a “men-only” policy. She disguises herself and sneaks in. Bender later throws himself on a grenade to save everyone, and is taken to a medical hospital. At the hospital, Bender is unknowingly fitted with a bomb that will destroy the enemy when Bender says his favorite word (starts with an “A” and follows “Bite my shiny metal…”). He is then sent to a summit with the enemy and with Henry Kissinger’s head. Fry and Leela stop the bomb from going off, but bender takes control of the planet, forcing the balls to leave. Later, Professor Farnsworth tries to remove the bomb but can’t, so he changes the word that will set it off.
9. Meanwhile (Season 7, Episode 26 – Series Finale)
Synopsis: “This is all so sudden…after thirteen years…”
The true series finale, as described above, serves to encompass the entire show, and while stating that they are starting over, it leaves the viewer with a sense of final accomplishment.
8. Obsoletely Fabulous (Season 4, Episode 14)
Synopsis: “Oh lord, he’s made of wood.”
That one line, delivered by Leela, pretty much sealed the deal on this episode making my list. Bender falls into deep jealousy and anger at a new office robot, and when he goes to get an upgrade, he breaks out of the facility and sails off on the ocean. He finds himself on an island with obsolete robots. He builds himself a wooden body to bond with those around him and they eventually launch an attack on technological society. Bender’s friends get caught under the ship and nearly burned, but Bender orders the new office robot to save them. We then learn that all of the story is a vision that Bender is having during the upgrade.
7. How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back (Season 2, Episode 11)
Synopsis: “Sweet something of…someplace.”
Hermes receives a notice that he is going to be inspected by the Central Bureaucracy. He is placed on paid vacation from his role as office bureaucrat at Planet Express after a the inspection finds his office wrecked (after Bender was beaten up by fellow poker players for cheating). Hermes is replaced by Morgan Proctor. She immediately begins to shape up the office, but her clean style is hiding that fact that she is attracted to the slovenly Phillip J. Fry. Bender discovers the pair, but Morgan removes his “mind” and sends it to the Central Bureaucracy office. Zoidberg sends Hermes and his wife to Spa 5, a sauna planet for relaxation, only to learn it is a forced labor camp. Hermes puts his bureaucrat mind to work and reorganizes the camp, leaving only a single Australian man to do all the labor. The crew proceeds to break in to the Central Bureaucracy office to retrieve Bender’s mind. They discover that the “mind” is lost somewhere in the Master In-pile, a mountain of Central Bureaucracy pneumatic-tube cases. Hermes is awarded his job back, if and only if he can sort the In-Pile before closing time (about five minutes or so). Hermes “requisitions” a beat and begins to sing while sorting. He sorts the entire pile and finds Bender’s mind in the last case. He is restored to his original Bureaucrat rank, but instantly demoted for finishing a few seconds early, as a good bureaucrat never finishes early. He then exposes Morgan proctor for a fraud by revealing a form from her prom date that she only stamped four times instead of the Bureaucrat-standard five.
6. Time Keeps on Slippin (Season 3, Episode 14)
Synopsis: “I knew I should’ve checked that showboating Globetrotter algebra…”
A day in the park turns into a terror-filled afternoon as the Harlem Globetrotters descend from the Globetrotter home world and challenge Earth to a game of basketball with no stakes other than bragging rights. Professor Farnsworth takes up the challenge and grows a team of atomic supermen. He sends the crew to a region of space rich in chronotons, or elements of time. They return with the chronotons, which he feeds to the baby supermen, thus speeding up their growth. At the game, the atomic supermen are winning until a time skip causing on them to be killed. Fry inserts himself into the game, which Earth leads by a wide margin and less than two minutes to go. Time skips again and we see the Globetrotter win by nearly 200 points. Fry is blamed for the loss, but the bigger concern is time skipping in random places. Of course, the time jumps lead to funny moments, as we see Fry and Leela getting married (which confuses everyone) and then see them getting divorced and fighting over NFL dishware. The Globetrotters help determine that it is a result of the misused chronotons. The Globetrotters and Professor Farnsworth determine that realigning some starts would balance out the time flow. It doesn’t work. An adventure to deep space later, we learn Fry had studied piloting and using the gravity ray to move stars, spelling out “I love you, Leela.” The entire sappy message has to be destroyed by one of the professor’s doomsday devices in order to halt the random time jumps. It works. All throughout the story, though, Bender has been trying to become a Globetrotter. He sulks away, somberly whistling the Globetrotter theme.
5. Jurassic Bark (Season 4, Episode 7)
Synopsis: “Let this abomination unto the Lord begin!”
One of the most emotional episodes ever…Fry visits a museum piece about life in the 1990s, only to find the fossilized remains of his dog, Seymour. We’re then shown a series of flashbacks about Seymour being part of Fry’s life. Fry begins to treat the fossil better than he treats Bender. Bender grows jealous. During this time, the professor determines that he can clone Seymour, as there is a gooey nucleus of DNA within the fossil. Bender, though, wants his friend back, and throws the fossil into a lava-filled crater. Fry, devastated, falls on the ground crying. Bender has a change of heart and dives in to the lava to save the fossil. Once he retrieves the dog, Professor Farnsworth informs everyone that Seymour was about 15 years old, which is old for a dog. Fry decides that Seymour led a long happy life after Fry went missing, and he proceeds to destroy the cloning machine, irritating the professor. The episode ends with a montage of Seymour returning to the pizza shop and waiting for years for Fry to return, and finally laying down his head and closing his eyes. Cue the crying from the audience.
4. The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings (Season 4, Episode 18)
Synopsis: [Professor Farnsworth, then Zoidberg, singing] “I can’t believe the Devil is so unforgiving.” “I can’t believe everybody’s just ad libbing.”
The original “series finale.” This episode was written to serve as a series finale in the event Fox did not renew the show. Fry enters a contest with the Robot Devil and wins the Devil’s hands (thus the title). He proceeds to learn the holophoner, an instrument so complicated that only a few people know how to play it, and they’re not even good at it. Fry, though, crafts a master opera to proclaim his love for Leela. The Robot Devil, though, uses Bender to inadvertently deafen Leela. At the opera, Leela strikes a deal with the Devil to get the ears of a robot so she can hear the opera. During the opera’s final scenes, the Robot Devil appears and he and Fry begin a back-and-forth operatic duel like nothing we’d ever seen before. The entire audience gets in on the singing. Only then do we learn that the Devil had tricked Leela into marrying him so that she could hear. He’ll only go back on the deal if Fry returns the Devil’s hands. Fry laments his destiny but his love for Leela is too strong. He gives back the Devil’s hands and the opera is declared a miserable failure. Leela remains in the auditorium to hear how it ends. Fry plays for her, and the holophoner displays an image of a crudely drawn Fry and Leela kissing and then walking off into the sunset.
3. Game of Tones (Season 7, Episode 23)
Synopsis: “Is it you?"
Yes, this episode just aired a few weeks ago, and yes, I feel confident putting it at number three. The dream sequence in which Fry tries to remember where he heard the sound that is threatening to destroy Earth is solid, but it’s truly the interaction of Fry with his parents, and more importantly his mother, that makes this a great episode. The way everyone else rushes him to find the sound, even though he just wants to spend time with his mom once again is heart-rending. He eventually relents and they track down the source of the sound. Nibbler, who has been a kind of after-thought the last few years, tells Fry that his people will reward Fry for once again saving the Earth. He implants Fry into one of Fry’s mother’s dreams, giving them time to talk and closure. To me, this is a greater emotional gut-punch than Jurassic Bark.
2. The Farnsworth Parabox (Season 4, Episode 15)
Synopsis: “Buddha! Zeus! God! One of you guys help me! Satan, you owe me!”
Professor Farnsworth screams that line as the lab half-way explodes. He then calls a meeting and reveals his latest invention…a box. No one may look in the box, though. He assigns Leela to protect the box, and she gives up an entire night of her time to do so. At the end of the night, she flips a coin to determine if she should open the box or not. She gets the coin’s blessing and opens the box, only to learn that within the box is a portal to an alternate dimension, populated with the exact same people as the main dimension, just with subtle differences. Bender is gold instead of “foghat gray,” Fry and Leela are married, the professor has removed and replaced his brain. They all go through a long adventure and finally stop Hermes from throwing the box into the sun. At episode’s end, the Professors Farnsworth manage to swap boxes, meaning that our universe now contains a box that contains out universe. Mind. Blown.
1. Three Hundred Big Boys (Season 4, Episode 16)
Synopsis: “To induce vomiting, that was the solution…”
I still consider this one of the finest half-hours in television history. After defeating the Spiderians of Tarantuon VI at war, President Nixon decides to take the spoils of that war and give everyone on Earth a $300 tax rebate, in the form of a Tricky-Dick Fun-Bill. As each character decides what they are going to do with their money, we learn that Fry is going to drink 100 cups of coffee. He embarks on his quest, and a tiny coffee-cup-shaped counter appears in the bottom corner of the screen. Kif buys Amy a watch, but it is dropped into a whale tank. Leela, in a twist of plot, has an appointment to swim that very same whale. She packs her bathing suit full of rotten fish and the whale eats it, getting sick, vomiting, and spewing up the watch. Kif jumps into to get the watch, but is promptly arrested for stealing ambergris. Bender wants to buy a nice cigar, but it is $10,000…so he buys a $300 set of burglar’s tools and asks the shop owner what time he closes. At a soiree to show off the Spiderian’s artwork Kif presents Amy with some of the ambergris to make a nice perfume. Bender lights up his cigar. The party is then crashed by Hermes and his son, who are trapped in some novelty stilt-shoes. They’ve lost control of the shoes and began to knock people over, sending Bender’s cigar onto one of the highly flammable silken artworks. In the ensuing chaos, Fry single-mindedly rushes to the drinks table muttering “coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee.” He pours a cup and drinks, at which point a giant “100” floats onto the screen. Fry turns around to one of the most beautiful scenes this show ever produced. Everything has slowed down (actually Fry has entered some kind of ludicrous speed). He watches a hummingbird flap its wings. He calmly walks around and saves everyone before returning to put out the fire. Finally the police catch Bender and beat him down, as he exclaims, “Finally…closure.”
