Futurama Season 4 Episode 2
Sandi Loisel
The American animated science fiction sitcom Futurama, created and developed by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company, originally aired from March 28, 1999, to August 10, 2003 before being effectively cancelled. Starting in 2007, 20th Century Fox Television released four straight-to-DVD Futurama films. These films were subsequently reconfigured into four episodes each and were broadcast on four separate nights in 2008 and 2009 on Comedy Central as a fifth season.[1][2][3] This was followed by a sixth and seventh season airing from 2010 to 2013 when the show was cancelled again.[4][5] In February 2022, Hulu revived the series with a 20-episode order for an eighth season that began airing on July 24, 2023.[6][7] On November 2, 2023, Hulu renewed the show for a ninth production season consisting of 20 episodes,[8] which will air through 2026.[9][10] New episodes are slated to return on July 29, 2024.[11]
The original 72-episode run of Futurama was produced as four seasons, however Fox broadcast the episodes out of the intended order, resulting in five aired seasons (though the first season was aired entirely in order).[12] As consequence, the show's continuity is disrupted by the broadcast order. For example, the episode "Fry and Leela's Big Fling" follows on from the ending of the previous episode in production order (which is "T.: The Terrestrial"); however, the episodes were not aired consecutively. Each of the show's 26-episode sixth and seventh seasons on Comedy Central was split into two 13-episode halves and broadcast effectively as four separate broadcast seasons over four years. Some of the episodes of those seasons were also aired out of production order, though episodes always aired within the half-season they were produced. Moreover, different regions and networks use different ordering for the episodes. Some countries broadcast the original 72 episodes in the four-season production-order. In the UK, the first 13 episodes of the series' sixth (production) season were released on DVD/BD as "season five".
This list follows the season box sets, which feature the episodes in the original production season order, ignoring the order of broadcast. The original run was released on Fox and its first revival was on Comedy Central. The second revival is domestically on Hulu, while internationally it is on Disney+, and it has alternatively been titled the eighth season (production),[13] and the eleventh and twelfth seasons (broadcast).[14][15] The ninth production season will also be considered as Futurama's thirteenth and fourteenth broadcast seasons.[8]
Included on the DVD release of Bender's Big Score is a full-length 22-minute episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, titled "Amazon Adventure", based on the fictional show produced by Hypnotoad. "Amazon Adventure" begins with an establishing shot of a house, before immediately cutting to Hypnotoad hypnotizing the audience. Other establishing shots and advertisements are interspersed throughout the episode.
The Futurama video game was released shortly after the airing of the 72nd and final episode of the Fox's run of the series in August 2003. The game's story and dialogue were written by J. Stewart Burns, and the voice direction was by David X. Cohen. According to Cohen, the half-hour's worth of cutscenes in the game were originally written as "the 73rd episode of the original series."[141] These cutscenes were compiled together (along with footage of the video game being played) and released as a bonus feature on the DVD release of The Beast with a Billion Backs. Renamed Futurama: The Lost Adventure, the episode tells of how the Planet Express crew prevented Mom from using Earth to take over the Universe.
Futurama Live! first aired on July 11, 2012, on Comedy Central following the original broadcast of the episode "Zapp Dingbat", the public were given the chance to participate in a live chat with the Futurama cast and crew. Several previews of upcoming Season 7 episodes were shown during the live stream, and several details about the season were revealed, including: returning appearances by the characters Guenter and Dr. Banjo in an episode of broadcast season 10, the debut of Lrrr's son, an episode about the origins of Scruffy, a three-part episode featuring 1980s-style animation, the status of Mars, and the possibility of "Mbius strip clubs".[142] One lucky fan even won a prize.[143]
A second episode of Futurama Live! was aired as a live Internet webcast event broadcast on September 4, 2013, on the Comedy Central website and the Nerdist YouTube channel as part of the Futurama series finale. It was broadcast in two parts, the first part was the pre-show hosted by Chris Hardwick and featured creator Matt Groening, series showrunner David X. Cohen and voice actors Phil Lamarr and Lauren Tom. The second part was the post-series finale webcast again hosted by Hardwick with Groening and Cohen and actors Maurice LaMarche and Billy West discussing the series finale and different aspects of the show.[144][145][146]
Radiorama is a special podcast episode of Futurama made for the Nerdist Podcast to help promote Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow reuniting the entire Futurama cast as well as special guest star Chris Hardwick as the villain, Klaxxon. The podcast was released on September 14, 2017. The episode was written by David X. Cohen, Ken Keeler and Patric M. Verrone.
When I saw the Futurama season 12 episode titles, my eye was drawn to one in particular, and it immediately made me think of my favorite episode and made me hope that it's going to be revisited in the coming run. Futurama has made use of almost every sci-fi trope there is, but there's one that it has barely touched upon. Hopefully, if I'm right, an upcoming installment will rectify that issue while also giving me a blast from the past. I've been waiting for the show to return since Futurama season 11's ending, and with any luck, it'll be worth the wait.
With Futurama season 12's release date now revealed as July 29, speculation surrounding the next run of episodes can begin in earnest. The Futurama season 12 trailer reveals many exciting new locations for the Planet Express crew to visit, but there's nothing to stop Hulu from bringing back characters and plots from the show's storied history. I have several theories that I've formulated by looking at both the trailer and the episode titles, but one of my hypotheses gets me far more excited than the others.
Futurama season 12, episode 5, "One is Silicon and the Other Gold," may seem like a strangely encoded title to some fans of the show, but it immediately brought to mind my favorite episode. The title is a play on a line of dialogue from Futurama season 5, episode 10, "The Farnsworth Parabox." The multiverse episode has the main members of the Futurama cast meeting various versions of themselves, but spending more time in one alternate reality than others. When the show's main Bender bids farewell to his golden counterpart, the duo share a poetic farewell.
The delivery is hilariously earnest considering the character(s) uttering their emotional goodbye(s), and it always stuck in my mind. While the line is a reference to an old folk song adapted from a 19th-century Welsh poet named Joseph Parry, Futurama season 12 could be eating its own tail with a nod to its past. If so, the "One is Silicon and the Other Gold" could mean a return to the multiverse, or at the very least, a comeback from the golden Bender from "The Farnsworth Parabox."
The decision to drop "silver" from the title and replace it with "silicon" makes me think that something will happen to Bender to account for the word being swapped out. One of my most salient theories is that Bender will become an organic, silicon-based lifeform rather than a robot. If so, it weirdly wouldn't be the first time Futurama has transformed Bender into a living being. Futurama season 4, episode 3, "Anthology of Interest, Part II," included a short story called "I, Meatbag," that showed what would happen if Bender became human.
Interestingly, the events of "I, Meatbag" and the episode at large aren't technically canon. The characters merely watch Bender's hypothetical human existence on Professor Farnsworth's "What-If Machine." So, if Bender were to transform into a silicon-based lifeform, it could have a greater impact on the larger Futurama universe. That being said, the What-If Machine is made of gold. Therefore, my theory about "One is Silicon and the Other Gold" being about Bender's transformation could also tie into Farnsworth's invention.
I love Futurama's sense of humor, and I love multiverse stories, so "The Farnsworth Parabox" is the perfect combination for me. In addition, the show has revisited other sci-fi tropes like time travel, robots, and space travel time and time again, and yet the multiverse has been used incredibly sparingly. So, addressing the multiverse concept in Futurama would be a brilliant way to honor the show's history while also essentially keeping things fresh.
There's also the matter of multiverse stories being very popular at the moment. As well as the MCU being in the middle of a huge multiverse saga, other standalone stories like Apple TV+'s Dark Matter make full use of traveling between different versions of the same world as the narrative unfolds. So, in a way, it could be argued that "The Farnsworth Parabox" was ahead of its time. That being said, multiverse stories predate the episode by a long way, but that doesn't mean Futurama season 12 shouldn't embrace the trope once again.
Continuations of the series after its original Fox cancellation have never quite captured the magic of that initial run, but they still managed to be a great deal of fun with some truly emotional moments, and season 11 is no different. I screened the first six episodes of the upcoming 10-episode run, and as long as you've enjoyed the Comedy Central seasons of the show, you won't be disappointed. The adventures of Professor Farnsworth (Billy West), Phillip J. Fry (also West), Bender, Leela (Katey Sagal), Hermes (Phil LaMarr), Amy (Lauren Tom), Kif (Maurice LaMarche), and Dr. Zoidberg (also also West) are still a total blast, with the occasional heartfelt moment sandwiched between topical humor and poop jokes. All is as it should be.
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