I have been a huge fan of The Simpsons for my entire life. When I learned that Simpsons showrunner Matt Groening had another show, I was very intrigued, but its sci-fi setting discouraged me a bit. Yet, a few of my friends loved the show, and when I saw that it had seven seasons, perfect for a weeks-long binge, I knew I had to check it out. I couldn’t have made a better decision — Futurama is an excellent television program.
Synopsis: Philip J. Fry is a pizza delivery boy in the year 1999 in New York City. On New Year’s Eve, right before the clock strikes midnight, someone orders a pizza to be sent to a cryogenics lab. Fry arrives at the lab at 11:59, but sees that the name on the order is “I. C. Wiener” and realizes that the order is just a prank. In celebration of the new millennium, he opens the pizza himself and cracks open a beer from the order, causing him to fall backwards into a cryogenic pod that freezes him for the next thousand years. He wakes up on New Years Eve in “New New York City” in 2999, and from then on the series is set in the 31st century.
Fry then finds his closest living relative to try to gain a foothold in his new life. His distant nephew, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, runs an intergalactic delivery company, Planet Express, and Fry decides to work there. On that New Year’s Eve, he meets Bender, a foul-mouthed kleptomaniac robot, and Leela, a skillful and strong cyclops, and they follow him to Planet Express. Most of the episodes follow the adventures of Fry, Leela, and Bender as they deliver packages all across the galaxy.
They work at Planet Express alongside Amy Wong, Professor Farnsworth’s rich intern, Hermes Conrad, a Jamaican bureaucrat, and Dr. Zoidberg, a lobster-like alien who works as the team’s medical professional despite knowing nothing of human anatomy.
Hallmarks: The 31st century is filled with wild technologies and new species of aliens, but retains many of the cultural tropes of the 20th and 21st centuries, like global warming, ineffective governance, and the importance of alcohol and drug use. The show uses this platform to satirize the issues of the early 2000’s and the science-fiction genre at the same time.
Futurama, much like The Simpsons, is famous for its opening sequence. The show opens with a title screen and a joke caption that changes from episode to episode (like “You can’t prove it won’t happen!”); the Planet Express ship then flies around New New York next to a number of recurring characters; finally, the ship crashes into a large screen showing a clip from a classic cartoon, a new clip for each episode.
Favorite Episode: I really enjoy season 3, episode 20 Godfellas and season 4, episode 12 The Sting. Jurassic Bark (season 4, episode 7) is an extremely good episode, but it is also a bit heart-wrenching. If you can handle that, it may be the best of the entire series.
I would recommend Futurama to anyone who enjoys The Simpsons or anything sci-fi related. The humor isn’t super similar to that of The Simpsons, but Matt Groening is still the same Matt Groening as he was back in the mid-1990’s.
Frankly, even if you don’t like sci-fi, this is still a fantastic show to watch, especially if you’re looking for something to binge. I’m not a huge sci-fi fan and I love to binge TV shows, and Futurama is one of the best binge shows out there.
Featured Image: from https://www.slashfilm.com/futurama-cancelled-again/