Hulu’s new season of Futurama owes a lot to the show’s past finales

“It just won’t stay dead!” reads the subtitle of Bender’s Big Score, the bombastic return to the feature length of Futurama after it was canceled in 2003.

Looking back, the label seems like a statement to make since it was only canceled once. The show would eventually come to an end again in 2013, having once again come out of the mud after its initial cancellation. FuturamaGraveyard and screen tours have become something of a 21st-century tradition, with the latest renewal arriving on Hulu on Monday.

Despite being taken out with a loaded shotgun on two occasions, each cancellation carried a silver lining — the show’s creators were able to create definitive finales each time, bringing The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Games, In Between, and the full-length straight-to-DVD. In the wild green there, which was produced when the series was in limbo between syndication deals. (Another potential finale, “Overclockwise,” aired at the end of season six.)

The end of a show should try to find a resolution to the show’s major tensions by providing one last dose of what gave the show its core identity. ABOUT Futurama, this meant the resolution of the tennis match between Fry and Leela, in the middle of a sci-fi adventure. Every finale is shot for that exact balance, but not all of them hit it head-on — though they all show love for a certain thread Futuramahis identity.

All roads lead to Fry and Leela

Image: 20th Century Fox Television

The show did a lot of work to ensure that Fry and Leela’s romantic tension lasted throughout its run, often having to depart from previous endings or come up with creative solutions to why they’re still not together. Some are more successful than others—Leela’s declaration that “you’re a boy, I’m a girl, we’re so different” stands out as one of the most wonderfully silly reasons to prolong their unresolved tension.

Although each finale sees Fry and Leela finally find their way back to each other, this story isn’t always central to the plot. However, the most effective finales in this regard – “Meanwhile” and “Devil’s Hands” – revolve around the couple. The former sees Fry’s time off completely, giving himself and Leela eternity to travel the cosmos and exploit their love for each other. The latter is more of a depiction of Fry’s friendship as he makes a deal with the literal devil (the robot) in hopes of pleasing Leela.

“Hands of the Devil” turns out to be a bit of a no-brainer, ending with Fry getting carried away in his big performance, his audience abandoning him, except for Leela, who claims she’s “going to hear how it ends” as the series fades to black. It’s touching, and its open ending stops the finale from feeling like it’s winding down. “Meanwhile” delivers more of a concrete result, with the couple growing old together in a frozen universe, something deeply romantic and satisfying to watch after a decade spent with these characters.

In the wild green there sees a grand kiss as Fry and Leela stand on the brink of certain death. The film has an undercurrent that depicts their relationship as they occupy opposite sides of a political issue and eventually find their way to each other – a microcosm of these two characters’ journeys. They started the series separated by 1000 years, but still ended up together.

“Beyond the Clock,” in its overarching plot, finds time to give Fry and Leela a quiet, hilarious, poignant moment where they read a letter detailing their fate created by the simulations of a godlike Bender. Futurama found closure in multiple forms, never running out of creative ways to finally create that lifelong bond between Fry and Leela. Each ending also suited the time: “Hands of the Devil” being representative of a show with more story to tell, but no time to tell it; there being a climactic ending to a feature film; “Overclockwise” is a quiet, sweet moment that works as a season finale as well as the series as a whole; and “Meanwhile,” which stopped time to deliver what appeared to be the ultimate finale.

How the Futurama Finale Changed Sci-Fi Trends

Image: 20th Century Fox

Sci-fi can be used for extraordinary spectacle as well as deeply intimate character studies. It’s a staple of the genre to take a small technological concept like overclocking or a modern conflict like climate change and apply it to the elevated world of tomorrow.

In the Wild Green There uses science fiction as a vehicle for political satire, seeing Leela, Amy and a group of female activists seek to stop Amy’s father from building his interplanetary “giant mini golf” course, which would end up destroying the habitats of various planets. Its environmental message takes precedence over many of the characters here, making it a great farewell to the show, but one where it no longer holds true. Futurama sometimes. there and “Overclockwise” share this flaw, leaving behind the character in the name of the spectacle.

Since the time that Futurama First ending in 2003 with Overclockwise airing in 2011, nerd culture had burst out from behind the curtain of pop culture to establish its dominance. Tall FuturamaIts initial run, things like comic book movies still felt like outsider obsessions. This may be why the show’s initial run ends with “Hands of the Devil,” a familiar play on “deals with the devil” stories, rather than the more technical stories of future finales as science fiction emerges as a major force.

These varying methods of storytelling showed how Futurama was able to weave science fiction into stories of varying proportions. While it often led to stories that may have been too grandiose for their own good, the most recent finale, 2013’s “In the Meantime,” struck gold.

The Plot Is More Fry/Leela Drama: After Leela’s fatal blow, Fry fears that she will be taken away from him and decides to propose. In a subplot, the professor invents a button that sends time 10 seconds into the past, as well as a bubble that protects the user from the button’s effects. Thinking that Leela has rejected him, Fry jumps off the Vampire State building, a decision he immediately regrets. Remembering the professor’s time button, he searches for a way to cheat death, only to find that he had been down for more than 10 seconds. The resulting time loop ends with Fry destroying the button while he and Leela stay in the protective bubble. All time around them stops.

It’s the perfect marriage of sci-fi and romance, with a glimpse of each genre that we barely see but that fits together beautifully. Fry and Leela embark on a romantic odyssey as they decide to spend eternity as the only two breathing beings in existence. They travel the cosmos, the only beating hearts in a frozen universe. “Meanwhile” is a beautiful dedication to how the rest of the universe is irrelevant when you’re holding the hand of the one you love.

True to the roots of Futurama

Image: 20th Century Fox

Saying goodbye to a show should be an emotional experience. A finale may be flawed, but it can’t negate the spirit of the show. FuturamaHis reputation for comedy, tender character work, and creative sci-fi ideas revolves around each finale.

Picking up after “Hands of the Devil” and “Clockwise” were more straightforward tasks, as they are episodes that retain their sitcom DNA, with everything pretty much back to normal by the end of the episode. That makes sense for the latter, an episode designed to be an emergency finale in case another cancellation was imminent. “Hands of the Devil,” however, feels like something left without an end due to the creators’ feelings that they had more stories to tell after only four seasons. The show’s cult following and the deep connection to it felt by its creators meant that Groening and company were always fighting to bring the show back.

there had to deal with the fact that the characters were headed for their doom, resulting in the muddled, slightly nonsensical “Rebirth” at the start of next season. We see the professor conceive a grim construct that brings the corpses of the entire Planet Express crew to life, except for Leela. The quest to replace him involves a plethora of duplicate robots in an attempt not to solve death with a death-undoing machine. there it’s a classic case of writing yourself into a corner, as it was seen as a final artistic rush for the series. Each episode would struggle to undo a fall to death.

The first episode of Futurama revival on Hulu is slated to follow “Meanwhile.” Although often considered a perfect ending for the show, it refuses to be diminished by future episodes; “Meanwhile” stands immune as a parallel universe story. But that doesn’t mean the Hulu incarnation of the series won’t be tasked with establishing its identity once again: The new season must reckon with the passage of nearly a decade in which the animated adult sitcom as Rick and Morty have found dominance in FuturamaOnce an undisputed place of science fiction. In many ways, the modern adult animated landscape owes much to him futurama, expanding its basic ideas in numerous ways. But Rick and Morty has been at the forefront of a multiverse craze and is a show with the license to push its sci-fi concepts deeper into fantasy.

Even animated shows like Bojack the Knight have taken over Futuramaits ability to deliver an emotional punch to the gut. During the first two runs, Futuramacontemporaries, such as Family Guy, Bob’s BurgersAND American Dad, were never as innovative with the sitcom format. This worked to create Futuramahis core fan base, but alienated him from a truly mainstream audience. Modern landscapes of Solar opposites, Rick and MortyAND The final space they are not afraid of experiments. The things they did Futurama unique in the 2000s are not so rare anymore.

Past finals and adult present animated shows weigh heavily on longevity FuturamaS ‘ the last resurrection. But that’s the thing about this show – it just won’t stay dead.