Throughout Futurama's storied run, there have been numerous cancellations and revivals. It's happened so many times that Futurama actually has 4 series ending within the series. Though the final episode to air, Meanwhile, is by far the most perfect ending Futurama could possibly have.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Oh, Bender, I always thought me and her would grow old together
0:05
You gotta live in the moment, baby. Futurama is one of those shows that simply refuses to die
0:10
It's been canceled and renewed so many times that the series actually has four proper finales
0:16
with at least one more on the way. Whammy, wham, wham, wazzle! With the franchise's return to Hulu now imminent
0:21
it's time to take a look back at Futurama's fourth, and what was supposed to be final, series finale
0:27
and accept that it was the perfect end to this beloved sci-fi comedy
0:31
When animated sitcom royalty Matt Groening and David X. Cohen were tasked by Fox to create another cultural juggernaut
0:38
in the same vein as The Simpsons, they settled on a whip-smart sci-fi workplace comedy
0:42
and packed the writer's room with enough PhDs to staff the Academy of Inventors
0:47
The first episode of Futurama aired in March of 1999 and quickly found success due to its familiar retro-future aesthetic
0:54
cast of incredible characters voiced by superstar talent, commitment to its sci-fi premise
0:59
and its heart of gold under layers of biting satire. Bite my shiny metal ass
1:05
The show got shuffled around onto various networks through its 13 years of syndication
1:09
but would find itself on Comedy Central for the last two seasons of its lifespan
1:13
Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence
1:20
The fourth finale, season seven, episode 26, meanwhile, was intended to be the very last episode
1:26
after Comedy Central decided to cancel the show for largely unknown reasons
1:31
Writer Ken Keillor was battling against himself here. Having written all three of Futurama's
1:35
other fantastic finales, meanwhile, had a pretty high bar to live up to
1:39
The premise of the episode is pretty classic Futurama. After Leela suffers a near-death experience
1:45
Fry decides to propose because he can't live his life without her. After messing around with the professor's new
1:50
10-second time button invention all day, the button is broken, And thus the entire world is frozen except for Fry and Lila who decide to get married and travel the world together The episode ends with the professor showing up in a time tunnel to bring them back to before the time button was invented But with one caveat none of them will remember anything that happened
2:10
We get what might be the most heartfelt exchange in the entire show. What do you say
2:15
Want to go around again? And then we fade not to black, but to white
2:19
Laying it all out there like that might make the episode sound pretty unremarkable
2:23
Plenty of Futurama episodes have had more intriguing premises. Even some of the finales are arguably more interesting plot-wise
2:31
But the robot devil is in the details. Oh, what an appallingly ironic outcome
2:36
To understand what makes Meanwhile so incredibly good, we have to understand what makes for a solid TV show finale in general
2:43
Most people would agree that the end of a series should include a tying up of loose ends
2:47
the resolution to important plot elements, and a proper emotional send-off for characters that fans have grown to love and care for
2:54
bonus points for any not obtuse callbacks to previous episodes or fandom in-jokes and more
3:00
ambiguously a finale should stir up some kind of emotions in its audience by the time the credits
3:06
start rolling all of these goals can only be achieved through a thorough understanding of the
3:10
tv show in question the substance of the show is intrinsically linked to what kind of finale is
3:16
expected it would have been really weird if say breaking bad ended its run with a feel-good montage
3:21
of heartwarming moments between Walt and his family, or if Adventure Time decided to end with the destruction of OO
3:27
without some wistful positivity to bring things back around. Futurama is, at its core, a winking science fiction comedy
3:34
with an emotional throughline full of love, loss, and found family, and it deserved to end in a way that honored its legacy
3:41
Luckily, Keillor's grasp of the fundamentals of the show and what makes for good TV viewing overall
3:46
resulted in not only one of the greatest episodes of Futurama ever created
3:50
but one of the most memorable finales of any television show ever put to screen
3:55
Beginning with the very first scene where the Planet Express crew go to the moon and Fry remarks Yeah but it also where we came on our very first delivery together We know we in for a love letter to the franchise We see side characters from previous episodes
4:09
and one of them even serves to aid in the plot when Craterface makes a balloon Leela
4:13
which she later uses to save her own life in space. And that sets up the rest of the episode, as well as the emotional crux it hinges on
4:21
We get a perfectly in-character Fry moment later on, when he leaps to his doom after Lila fails to show up to the Vampire State building on time
4:29
But it turns out that Lila was actually on her way and she was on time. Fry's watch was running
4:35
fast from all his messing around with the time button earlier that day. This is such a great
4:39
example of the writer's understanding of the show's characters and allowing them to drive
4:44
the plot forward in a natural way for the finale. Often when writers and showrunners have a particular
4:50
ending in mind, it can be tempting to alter a character's motivations, or even their whole
4:55
personality, to get them to that final destination. Futurama's Fry, on the other hand, has always been
5:01
a bit of a bumbling, if not well-meaning idiot. Pizza delivery for, uh, icy wiener? Oh, crud
5:09
He makes little mistakes all the time, so it makes sense for him to have gotten the time wrong
5:13
and landed himself in this predicament during Meanwhile's runtime. But where Meanwhile really
5:18
shines is after that time button breaks, leaving Fry and Leela alone in the universe. The montage
5:24
audiences are treated to is equal parts heartwarming, satisfying, and hilarious as the
5:30
couple drags their frozen friends and family into a church to witness their wedding, visit fan-favorite
5:35
side characters and locations, and grow old together with smiles on their faces. Montages
5:41
like this aren't easy to pull off. Plenty of TV shows have fallen on the trope of literally
5:46
replaying clips of old episodes during their finales as a lazy way to hearken back to the
5:51
good old days. Futurama's meanwhile avoids this problem by literally walking us through little pastiches
5:58
fans may or may not remember. If you do recognize a particular character or location then it enhances the experience If you don nothing is lost It a fresh and elegant approach to a familiar idea It all brilliant But that final moment
6:12
when the professor turns up, the full reset of the universe is the apotheosis of Futurama
6:17
an incredibly intelligent, fully self-aware science fiction comedy, ending its run by using
6:23
a sci-fi staple concept like time travel to not only give its audience an emotional catharsis
6:28
through Fry and Leela's relationship, but simultaneously allow the series to narratively
6:34
loop and leave it open for continuation when it would inevitably be picked back up again
6:40
is just, well, it's funny, it's smart, it's tonally consistent, and it's the reason why
6:45
Futurama's finale is absolutely perfect. That loop is perhaps the best invention of Ken Keeler
6:51
While he absolutely knocked it out of the park with his other finales, particularly the Devil's
6:55
hands are idle playthings, the way he managed to both wrap up and informally continue Futurama
7:05
with Meanwhile's ending is unmatched. The only thing fans could really have asked for more was
7:11
more involvement from the rest of the core cast, but the role they do play is so quintessentially
7:16
in-character that it's hard to be mad at how they were used, and seeing them all frozen in joy at
7:22
Fry and Leela's wedding was, once again, absolutely perfect. It's clear that after a decade with this world and characters
7:28
the creators and writers of Futurama had a firm hold on what made the show special in the first place
7:34
Unlike a lot of other TV show finales, meanwhile hit all the beats the audience expected
7:40
in really rewarding ways. By the time those credits roll, you'd have to be a monster from the planet Omicron per CIA
7:46
to not feel something. Surely it says love. No, Wav! This concept of Wav confuses and infuriates us
7:55
Even if that's something, it's just the compulsion to start the series over again
8:00
So, with Hulu's revival coming up fast, we just have one last question for you
8:05
Wanna go around again? I do. I do
#Film & TV Industry
#TV Shows & Programs


