Futurama Season 12 Will Loop Back Around To The 2013 Series Finale

The "Futurama" episode "Meanwhile" (September 4, 2013) was the third series finale, marking the show's third cancelation. "Futurama" debuted in 1999, and ran for four seasons, before being unceremoniously canceled in 2003. The show's first series finale, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" (August 10), involved the romantic possibilities for Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal) who teetered on the cusp of romance for years. Robot Devil (Dan Castellaneta) agreed to trade hands with Fry (!) so that Fry would be able to more capably play the Holophoner, a skill very impressive to Leela. 

"Futurama" returned for four straight-to-DVD features in 2008 and 2009. The fourth of the films, "Into the Wild Green Yonder," also served as a series finale, and also ended with a romantic moment between Fry and Leela. After the film's weird adventures, the Planet Express crew were on the run from Zapp Brannigan (West) and his military retinue. They flew into a wormhole, unsure as to where in might lead. Fry and Leela kissed. 

"Futurama" returned again in 2010, this time on Comedy Central. After two more seasons there, the show had a tertiary finale with "Meanwhile." That episode allowed Fry and Leela to marry and grow old together on a frozen Earth, thanks to a malfunctioning time-travel device. The episode's writers, however, cleverly found a way to reset the timeline at the end, allowing the series to return on Hulu in 2023. When it comes to writing series finales, the "Futurama" staff are deeply experienced. 

Series co-creator David X. Cohen recently spoke to SFX Magazine about the newest raft of "Futurama" episodes (set to return to Hulu on July 29, 2024) and mentioned that "Meanwhile" will serve as a jumping off point for an upcoming story.

"Meanwhile" is somewhat complex. Fry intends to propose to Leela on top of the Vampire State Building. He just happens to be equipped with a time-travel widget that allows him to go back in time ten seconds. Fry knows that if Leela doesn't arrive to his proposal site right at 6:30, she'll reject him. When Leela is late, Fry throws himself off the building in despair. On the way down, he notices that Leela is walking up. He jumps back in time ten seconds, but was still falling ten seconds earlier. If he wants to stay alive, he has to remain in a constant state of plummeting. A series of contrivances, however, allow the Professor (West) to figure out what's happening with time, and for Bender to save Fry. Unfortunately, the time travel widget is destroyed in the effort, freezing all time in the universe. Only Fry and Leela remain unaffected. 

Happy to finally have time together, the couple wander the frozen Earth for many years, transforming their lives into an endless, romantic encounter. They walk across the oceans, make romantic swings out of frozen companions, and become elderly. 

When Cohen and "Meanwhile" teleplay writer Ken Keeler were conceiving the episode, they loved it. They loved how optimistic it was, while still being a heady sci-fi story. Cohen, however, didn't think he'd have to revisit the episode. All of a sudden, Cohen had to ask himself additional questions about temporal mechanics: 

"Everybody seemed pretty happy with it and it was very touching. I loved it. [...] But it left many open questions, including some we had to roughly deal with when the show came back, [regarding] the time resets. What did they remember? What did they not remember?" 

If time reset, what then?

To clarify, Fry and Leela were rescued from the frozen Earth by a resourceful Professor who was able to puncture the temporal veil and invite them to return to the moment when time was frozen. In so doing, however, their minds and bodies would be "reset" to that time, and they'd lose the memories of the decades they had alone. In a romantic mood, Fry and Leela agree to return, feeling they'd have a chance to rekindle their romance afresh. It was a clever way to give Fry and Leela a happy ending while still returning "Futurama" to a recognizable status quo, just in case they would return. Which, of course, they did. 

This meant, of course, that Fry and Leela had no memories of "Meanwhile." Until, it seems, an upcoming episode. Cohen assured SFX Magazine that any technical questions one might have about "Meanwhile" will be answered in the upcoming season finale "Otherwise" (release date TBD). It seems that Fry will have some lingering, vague memories of the "Meanwhile" time freeze, and that the story of "Otherwise" will play heavily into that. Cohen continued:

"[Fry] starts to remember things that he shouldn't be remembering because time is sort of collapsing in on itself with the loops they've been through. [...] So this one does tie into some events of the last series finale."

Cohen wouldn't elucidate on the nature of the time-looping shenanigans of "Otherwise," but time travel skipping/looping/acceleration is common in "Futurama," so it would not feel out of place for the series to loop back around to one of its own previously established loops. It's this kind of temporal flapdoodle that keeps "Futurama" nerds coming back for more.