Good news, everyone… Bender is back, baby!
The beloved series Futurama has had a tumultuous TV run to say the least. This sci-fi animated comedy first premiered on Fox in 1999, where ran for 72 episodes before being canceled in 2003. The series returned with four direct-to-DVD films between 2008 and 2009. The success of these films led Comedy Central to revive it for 52 more episodes in 2010. There it ran until 2013 when it finally ended for good… Or so we thought.
Now Futurama is back and better than ever, with a staggered release set to begin on July 24th. The new season, which will be streaming on Hulu, will feature a staggering 20 episodes, half of which will be ready to view this summer. The new series will focus on everything from Covid to Crypto, with episode one entitled “The Impossible Stream.”
Updated July 20, 2023: If you’re a fan of Bender’s shiny metal backside, then you’ll be glad to know this article was recently updated with ongoing content by Amanda Minchin.
Back in 2013, the series finale, “Meanwhile,” saw Fry and Leela living their lives as the universe stood still around them thanks to a freak accident with Professor Farnsworth’s latest invention. While the episode was intended to serve as a cap on their relationship and the series as a whole, it also left open the door for a potential revival.
Just how will Hulu’s revival take advantage of this opportunity? Let’s take a look at how Futurama’s series finale could successfully serve as the jumping-off point for the newest revival.
What Happened in the Futurama Series Finale?
Let’s recap what happened in the series finale, titled “Meanwhile.”
After an accident where Leela is almost killed, Fry decides that he cannot live without her and makes a plan to propose. At the same time, the Professor simultaneously invents a “time button” that will send the entire universe (minus the person who pushed the button) back in time by ten seconds. Of course, Fry steals this button with the intention of using it to keep reliving the moment he proposes to his lady love.
At the proposal dinner, a rom-com-esque mix-up makes Fry think that Leela isn’t going to show up. He throws himself off the roof of the Vampire State Building (New New York’s nod to the Empire State Building) in response. It turns out he’s used the device so much that his watch is no longer accurate. As he falls, he sees Leela coming right on time. He pushes the time button to reset himself to the roof. However, since he’s been falling for more than ten seconds, the button returns him just short of safety. Since it takes ten seconds to recharge, Fry is stuck in an endless loop of falling and resetting.
The Professor arrives with the rest of the crew in their “time shelter,” which shields them from the effects of the button. Before they can try anything, the Professor steps outside the shelter just as the button is reset, seemingly killing him by shredding him across the timelines.
Bender, meanwhile, figures out a way to cushion Fry’s fall, and the group celebrates their supposed victory. While celebrating, Fry lands on the time button and destroys it, which freezes time throughout the universe for everyone except him and Leela. Now, as the last two people in existence, they live their lives together for years in this state, checking off items on their bucket lists with a montage that covers all of their activities as they reach old age.
Back at the Vampire State Building, for old times’ sake, the Professor suddenly reappears. He explains that he was not killed but rather shifted to a parallel timeline. He offers to repair the button and modify it to take them back to just before he conceived of the machine, meaning none of Fry and Leela’s decades alone together will have ever happened. The two are ok with this and agree to “go around again” with each other.
Why We Need a Futurama Revival
On the surface, it seems like this episode was the perfect send-off for the series. Fry and Leela finally got together, and the audience was able to see their entire lives play out as the only two people on Earth. Yes, the episode was good, but only Fry and Leela had their arcs resolved. Everyone else remained frozen in the same age/position they were in. They would have stayed that way for eternity had the Professor not intervened.
None of this diminishes the fact that “Meanwhile” was one of the series’ strongest episodes per both critics and fans alike. It worked beautifully as a series finale, and would have perhaps done the same as a series finale were it not for the many unanswered questions about the rest of the cast. The ultimate fate of the Planet Express crew was still up in the air by the series’ presumed end.
Frankly, what made this series successful were its iconic characters, one of which almost never returned for the reboot. John DiMaggio, who voices the robot Bender, was in negotiation for better pay for what felt like an eternity.
For a while, it seemed like the reboot would either go on without Bender or not go on at all. Plans were put in place to replace the foul-mouthed robot with a new voice every episode, a plan which would have been in direct conflict with the long-running heads in jars gag. Fortunately, this has since been resolved, and now the whole cast is back in action, ready and raring for the new season.
How Could the Finale Set Up the Revival?
So, how can “Meanwhile” help the transition to the revival? First, the episode’s ending establishes that the next time we see the characters, the story will be reset. None of what happened with the proposal, the time button, or the universe freezing over will ever exist. However, this does not mean that everything will be the same as it was before.
One hint at a change may have come from the Professor himself. When he fixes the time button, he says that he will reset the universe not to when he invents it but to just before he conceived of the idea. To say this is open-ended is an understatement. It isn’t clear as to when this was, a fact that could mean a completely clean slate for the series. If the writers do choose this method, they’ll have to be careful not to alienate long-standing super fans in the process.
The time button having already been invented at the beginning of the episode means the new season will likely occur prior to Fry’s proposal to Leela. This would mean that in the reset timeline, Fry may still want to propose to Leela but has not yet done so. Given that she said yes the first time, we could expect that she would say yes a second time should the question be asked. This would still allow viewers to see them live their lives together again, but this time, with the rest of the Planet Express crew that we all know and love in tow. Essentially they would have lived two lifetimes together, even though the first was erased.
How would their new life be different? Will it still have the same end result? It’s unlikely that the revival would tackle all of this right away, but each episode could build to the eventual conclusion. Simply put, after resolving their years-long romance in the initial finale, viewers could see Fry and Leela take their journey together all over again, making “Meanwhile” the perfect episode to lead into a revival.
What we do know from the newly released trailer is that Professor Farnsworth isn’t done with time travel. The trailer shows the staff gathered, ready to ingest the news of having survived a massive disruption to the flow of time itself. Is this a reference to “Meanwhile”‘s time jump or a new and daring adventure? Fans will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, perhaps the title caption said it best – “Avenge Us”. Fans are hoping the new series will do just that.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
