Goodbye (Review)

Series: Futurama
Episode Title: "Meanwhile"
Episode Grade: B+

Futurama has a strong history with purported finales. "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings," the finale of the show's original run, was one of the finest episodes in the show's august history. "Into The Wild Green Yonder," while nowhere near that level, was the best of the four movies the show's team created in the interregnum between the end of Futurama's original run and its resurrection.

"Meanwhile" will never be mentioned in the same breath as "The Devil's Hands...," which is probably one of the finest episodes of television in recent memory. But it hits the right notes, and if those notes were predictable they were also sweet and perfectly appropriate for the end of the show.

It's sort of interesting how little plot there really is in this episode and how strong the focus is on Fry and Leela. And while Futurama has always boasted a strong supporting cast, this was the right decision for the finale of a series that has achieved some of its greatest moments in exploring the Fry-Leela relationship.

There are two basic elements to "Meanwhile:" First, Fry has decided to propose to Leela. Second, the Professor invents a "Time Button," a device that can send the entire universe 10 seconds into the past. And like most of Professor Farnsworth's absurd inventions, this one nearly destroys the world.

Having asked Leela to meet him on top of the "Vampire State Building" at 6:30 if she decides to marry him, Fry, who stole the Professor's Time Button in an effort to make this moment last forever, grows distraught when the appointed hour passes and Leela doesn't show. Opting for suicide with impressive celerity, Fry throws himself off the building.

But as Fry approaches the ground, he spots Leela and presses the Time Button. Fry's realization that he's been falling for more than 10 seconds and is doomed to repeat his fall for eternity or die is played as one would expect Futurama to play it: for laughs, but with a realization of the situation's horror.

The rest of the Planet Express gang eventually make their way to Vampire State Building Plaza and concoct a plan to save Fry (Bender has an airbag, naturally). This works, but Fry lands hard on the Time Button, and through the magic of Narrative Causality this freezes time for the entire universe, save Fry and Leela.

This stretch of the episode, with Leela and Fry living a happily married life in the frozen universe, is sweet, charming and refreshing. The two are rapturously happy with each other. There's no angst about the situation (as there was when The Twilight Zone, among other programs, ran with this plot), just the simple happiness of two characters we care about finally getting to live their lives together.

The series ends where time stopped, at the Vampire State Building, with the Professor, who had earlier been wiped out of existence, finally digging his way through the material between the dimensions and happening upon Fry and Leela enjoying the glass of champagne he had set out before breaking the button.

Farnsworth fixes the button, and alters it so that the universe will become un-stuck before the button was invented in the first place. No one, not even Fry and Leela, will remember what happened after that point.

The series ends simply and perfectly, a reminder of the hope and sense of possibility that always lived at the core of Futurama:

Fry: So, what do you say? Wanna go 'round again?
Leela: I do.