Futurama is evergreen. Just like its sister series, The Simpsons, the show has always had something to say about current events.
Thanks to its sci-fi underpinnings, however, Futurama is able to take a timely issue and make it into something grander, more fantastical, and far more silly. The periodically-cancelled series has been around since 1999, which means its social commentary runs the gamut from parodies of FedEx to the rise of iPhones; making it something of a time capsule for the advance of the digital age.
What year is Futurama set in?
The sci-fi series is set 1000 years in the future. The first episode sees Philip J. Fry (Billy West) get frozen while on a pizza delivery to a cryogenics service. As it happens, he’s chilled at midnight on January 1, 2000, and awakens on the day of December 31, 2999.
Unlike The Simpsons, characters regularly acknowledge the passage of time (though they still don’t seem to age). Barring episodes in which the cast time travels, the series always takes place a thousand years into the future. So, the events of Bender’s Big Score took place in 3007 because that film was released in 2007, while the current reboot is set in the year 3023.
Where and when can I watch new episodes of Futurama?
Futurama has recently been revived by Hulu, where the series is streaming in its entirety. The show airs new episodes weekly on Mondays. The current season is actually addressing the 10-year gap between the show’s last finale and its current revival head-on; in the premiere, titled “The Impossible Stream,” it’s revealed that the cast was stuck in a time loop for several years.
When they’re finally freed, Professor Farnsworth (West) pokes fun at the crew’s lack of aging in the meantime, exclaiming that science doesn’t have all the answers. Of course, he then admits that science does have all the answers and proclaims the year to officially be 3023.
The newest episode, “Children of a Lesser Bog,” also follows up on a plot point from 20 years ago. Way back in “Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch”, Kif (Maurice LaMarche) and Amy (Lauren Tom) became parents. Kif’s species, however, only reunite with their parents in 20 years’ time. Now that it’s been two decades in real-time, it’s time to check in on their brood.