You all thought I was off my bullshit. But no, I'm back on it. And this bullshit is a well-sculpted hill I am prepared to die on (until the writers of the show change canon or continuity sufficiently to ensure I can no longer defend it).
Does Universe 5 ever get created though?
Sure. If time is cyclical, then Universe 5 is created after the end of Universe 4, even if no one from Universe 3 or Universe 4 ever travels there.
Maybe the characters from Universe 5 will travel to Universe 6 or Universe 7...
Nah, this isn't it.
For a start, you're describing a cycle of separate but similar, repeating
universes on a linear timeline.
For another, we know that time in the Futuramaverse is cyclical (and I can probably dig out the stuff that led me to that conclusion a few years ago if I can find sufficient motivation. It's all on a hard drive somewhere around here).
And cyclical
time gives us multiple iterations of
the same universe (positioned a few feet lower each time in order to conveniently resolve certain plot threads).
There are only three cycles depicted in TLPJF. The original departure of the timeship, the overshot, and the eventual resolution of the plot. The second play-through of the universe does contain a second set of departures, but since they will come back around again, they will land in the fourth cycle. This creates a stable loop of two cycles, with odd numbered cycles being identical save for the unfortunate circumstances of Elanor Roosevelt's death every second one, and even numbered cycles being identical save for the alternation in leaders of the Nazi party during the Third Reich from one even numbered cycle to the next.
Cyclical time makes sense within the framework of Futurama because (IIRC) BBS shows that the paradox of time duplicates must be resolved within the same timeline, meaning that split timelines and therefore separate universes are not a "thing". And changes to time that affect the future appear only within the context of a single episode during which multiple loops are set up which resolve themselves over the course of the episode to follow Fry's golden rule of TV (everything's the same as it previously was once the episode ends).
It's also one of the mechanisms that allow Fry to have been and always have been his own grandfather - this is not a predestination paradox if the timeline does not split, it's a causal loop (Fry seeks out his "grandfather" Enos, gets Enos killed, fathers Yancy, and Yancy fathers Fry. Fry then travels back, making a loop of the whole affair. Where did Fry come from? Yancy. Where did Yancy come from? Fry. It's a bootstrap paradox, but it doesn't violate the self-consistency principle, which is the important part in a cyclical time model).
So the overall progression of time on the circle from beginning to end is accounted for, and the tendancy of paradoxes to be corrected or resolved and events to therefore overall play out in the same general "shape" is due to temporal inertia.
This is the only model which preserves the continuity and canon of all of the time travel episodes (AOTPM being only slightly wibbly-wobbly here), and mainly saved by the virtue of the self-consistency principle having been preserved by the travellers in their trip to set events back on their original course. Here there is a clear example of an actual timeline split, and the events undertaken to push things back to their previous state as an example of temporal inertia at work.
Thus, in the fourth cycle of the universe, the timeship crew who set off in the second iteration will appear and squish their fourth-cycle counterparts. There will be another departure in the fifth universe, and these timeship voyagers will squish their seventh-cycle equivalents. Meanwhile, the travellers in the sixth cycle will come back to squish their eighth-cycle selves.
Yes, the cycle repeats in fours. No, these are not separate universes. Think of them as different performances of the same play, or different analog TV broadcasts of the same show - you'll get differences. Little ones here and there of absolutely no overall significance.
Static on the screen. Fuzz. Fizz. Fritz. But you can still see the picture. And the big bang is the place where the tape loops. It'll play through the same tape again, but the next broadcast will be received with a differing static pattern, making no difference but still being unique.
Odd numbered cycles thus form a loop within the cycle of four, and even numbered cycles form another. So we see another demonstration that time is cyclical rather than linear in that this is a double, overlapping loop (and the height differential is both a fun little dark joke and an easy way of resolving the problem created by the exclusion principle. Sure, they could have appeared and landed right after their original selves departed, but the dark humor is a staple of the show, so...).
Anyway, all of this means time has to be a circle in the Futuramaverse because in linear time, universes would be 100% deterministic to give the same outcomes to each universe rather than having any flexibility. That flexibility between outcomes, that static, means that we're looking at free will and a level of determinism that still allows for choices to be made. And so we don't see a runaway butterfly effect from "one universe" to the "next". Rather, from one cycle to the next, we see static in the picture but it's substantially
the same picture.
Which is the underlying principle that allows for an eventual escape from the conditions of
Meanwhile and a return to the normal flow of time for Farnsworth, Fry, and Leela. But that's a whole 'nother hypothesis for another day.
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