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The Future is Then

“Bad news everyone!”

This week marks an important milestone in the world of New New York of the Year 3000.

Not only did I purchase Volume 2 of Futurama on DVD today, but this past Sunday gave us the series’ premature final episode.

The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings was the 72nd episode aired by Fox, but certainly not what the show’s creators (including Simpsons guru Matt Groening) hand in mind as the show’s swansong.  With four season in the can, the creators were told by Fox that no more episodes were needed and to shut down production.

Plagued by scheduling issues and a seemingly complete lack of support from the Fox executives, Futurama should be glad it lasted the 4 seasons it did, I suppose.  But in this age of reality television, Law & Order clones, and substandard sitcoms, _Futurama_ was one of the few shows I went out of my way to watch.

Covering issues such as racism, pollution and litter, religion, commercialism, and sexuality (“I don’t want anyone thinking we’re robosexuals””), it delivered consistent levels of humour and high quality entertainment throughout its run.  Even from the beginning it was as funny, clever, and relevant as the Simpsons was during its best years, and all of the cynicsm we came to expect from Groening was there as strong as ever—but one thing Futurama had that The Simpsons never did was an innocent sense of wonder in the characters’ surroundings as fish-out-of-water Fry cut through the cynicism and saw things around him for the first time just like us.  Imagine a world where anchovies have been hunted to extinction, owls have replaced rats as common street vermin, the severed heads of long-gone 20th century celebrities live on in jars on the shelves of museums, and one’s miseries can be put to an end with a visit to the nearest corner Suicide Booth.  Oh, the magnificent world of tomorrow!

One can only hope that another network might want to pick up the show as ABC did when Fox dropped Jon Lovitz’s The Critic in 1995, but until then I can at least watch my DVDs ad infinitum.

So long, Fry, Bender, Zoidberg, Leela, Farnsworth and Zapp Brannigan!  I leave you with my favourite quote from the series:

(Professor Farnsworth has just invented the Smelloscope.)

Farnsworth: You’ll find that every heavenly body has its own particular scent.
Fry: As long as you don’t make me smell ‘Uranus’! Ha! Ha!
Farnsworth: I’m sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed ‘Uranus’ in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh.  What’s it called now?
Farnsworth: Urectum.