Last week I was so relieved to find out that the episode was bringing back Futurama’s core aspects – that of humor and heartfelt moments which really draw us into the show. Futurama is quite unique in that i can really truly grasp on our heartstrings and have us feel for the characters. This week is another episode in that tradition.
In this episode, Fry is doing his best to get to a dinner with Leela for her birthday, but due to constantly being late for work, the Professor forces him to stay late to help test a brand new time machine. The idea is that they will go one minute in time forward, but the Professor falls and they end up going almost 7,000 years in the future. With no way back and only the ability to go forward, the Professor, Fry, and Bender are left to try and figure out a way home.
As a note, some spoilers are discussed, but I think it’s safe to assume you’ve all seen the episode by now, so let’s just go for it.
This episode pretty much has classic Futurama written all over it. It’s filled with self referential humor (when they time travel through Planet Express is particularly hilarious) and one-liners. The idea of traveling forward in the future pretty much left the writers set up for thousands and thousands of possibilities with different time streams, and it all came out incredibly well. You’ve gotta love going to a future where robots are killing everyone and having Bender get incredibly excited about it.
It also uses a device that made the first Futurama movie, Bender’s Big Score, a success. The episode is juxtaposed with a sequence of what happened because everyone thought that Fry, the Professor, and Bender had died. Leela takes over Planet Express and turns it into a profitable organization, all the while being upset at Fry for not showing up to her dinner and instead dying. However, when the time traveling card hits her in the back of the head, it leads to the sequence I posted at the bottom and top of this entry. It’s moments like this between Fry and Leela that keep us so enamored with the couple, and now that they’re actually “dating” it makes their interactions more endearing when coupled with Fry’s buffoonery.
Ultimately, this is a definite return to form for Futurama. This week and last week remind us why the show was so great once it got away from it’s need to comment on everything and focus on actually having a story. If Futurama stays like this for the rest of the season and never does an episode about social commentary, I’ll be the happiest fan alive. And hey, with the next episode focusing on cat’s taking over the Earth, I can only assume I’ll be this happy next week about the show.
