Thoughts on 7ACV26 - Meanwhile + Futurama Live events - SPOILERS!

[#40 :]

I didn't really like the part where Leela was flung out into space; how could she possibly survive that?

[#41 :]

People on Facebook comments bring up a good point.

Where's the open-ending? I don't think there is one because they lost the memories of this entire episode, and the whole series is at a entire loop now.

[#42 :]

Wow, what an episode. Funny and sad at the same time. The best this season definitely. The whole episode was just so good from start to finish. Really can't think of one bad moment. I am a little confused with the end. In the end when The Professor has fixed the time button, does he send him, Fry and Leela back to the moment when Fry broke the button or somewhere else. I think it was the moment when Fry broke the button, but I was a little confused by that.

Anyway, I don't know how to rank this among the other series finales. I will have to watch it a few more times for that.

Giving this episode a 10/10

Thank you Futurama for 13 years of tears and laughter. Hope to see you again.

[#43 :]

I didn't really like the part where Leela was flung out into space; how could she possibly survive that?

Stuffed animals and balloons.

Go ahead, try it! Futurama is known for trustworthy, reliable science!

[#44 :]

The Professor has fixed the time button, does he send him, Fry and Leela back to the moment when Fry broke the button or somewhere else. I think it was the moment when Fry broke the button, but I was a little confused by that.

He said "moment before I conceived of the time button".
So, they'll go back before it was built.
The phrase "we won't remember anything" implies they will also not have learned their lesson, and the professor will build the button again.
(Of course -should the show be renewed- they will either forget about that, or show some "How to get out of the long running loop" plot).

[#45 :]

I'll put my reaction with Krusty's words...what the hell was that?

[#46 :]

I.....this.....what....I..... I'm speechless. I laughed, I cried, I even vomited. Just a bit.

10/10.

Rest In Peace Futurama.

[#47 :]

Um...I know I'll probably get a lot of flak for this, but this episode didn't do a whole lot for me. It was beautifully-animated and wonderfully-scored, and it valiantly attempted to provide closure for Fry and Leela's thirteen-year long love story...but, despite all that, I think I'd take "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" or "Into the Wild Green Yonder" or (though these are not would-be series finales) "The Late Philip J. Fry" or "Fun on a Bun" over "Meanwhile" in terms of the emotional resonance of the story and its conclusion. Hell, even "Overclockwise"--which overall I did not prefer to this episode--had a more tear-jerking ending.

This one just seemed like a rehash of the whole "Fry and Leela will be together forever" idea, and to be honest, shipper though I may be, I don't know that I needed to see them live out their lives together. It was romantic and sweet and all that, sure, but it does not really give me some profound sense of closure or the warm-and-fuzzies or anything else that the aforementioned episodes gave me. It actually left me feeling sort of, well, unmoved. I think part of the problem is that, for 52 episodes, the writers ostensibly could have explored Fry and Leela's relationship in ways that this episode only hinted at--allowing them to get married, to go on their honeymoon, to move in together (but not to have kids; I appreciated Fry's oblique reference to abusing any potential offspring). I almost would have wanted to see these things play out in the long term, as opposed to being glossed over in a (beautiful, to be sure) growing-old-together montage. I know this critique directly contradicts my statement that I didn't need to see Fry and Leela be all lovey-dovey for years at a time; I guess what I'm saying is that, if given the choice, I would have rather the writers developed the relationship over the past four Comedy Central seasons, instead of trying to cram it all into the series finale and expecting some huge emotional response.

Griping aside, however, this was still a perfectly enjoyable episode. The first act in particular was great--I loved the callback to "The Series Has Landed"--and the time travel aspect was handled pretty well. I was kind of bothered by the Professor's anti-climactic, barely-acknowledged death, and I didn't really care to see Fry exploding ten times (though I did love Leela's surprise at how much blood a skinny guy can hold); in fact, I kind of feared that the episode was going to end without any sort of resolution or hope for the frozen-in-time characters. So, like, I guess I should be thankful that this episode ended less ambiguously than it could have. I actually thought the ending was pretty straightforward: as the Professor explained, they will return to the moment right before he invented the button, and everything will more or less play out as it would have anyway, and as Fry and Leela have already lived it...although hopefully without the button ever coming into being and Fry consequently breaking it and dooming the rest of mankind.

So, yeah, I didn't love this episode. And, goddamn it, I really wanted to. I think I'd give it somewhere around an 8/10, which by no means makes it my favorite episode of 7B, or of all time, or anything ridiculous like that. It was a perfectly fine way to end the series, yes, but I'd say such an ending has been done more deftly at least twice before.

[#48 :]

Man, this episode was really good!  One hell of a lot better than Overclockwise, that's for sure!  9/10

[#49 :]

Gah, Matt Groening the teenager! Quick, he's here to warn of the shows multiple cancellations.

I saw "Teen MG" in the first segment when he was behind another person asking a question and for a moment I thought he was Jack Black. :P

Anyway, for the episode...I liked how everything was stuck in time and we watched fry and leela grow older, but I was wondering why they didn't have a few kids appear as they jumped ahead in time.  As for the rest of the episode, I loved it!  Fry going kersplat was a shock and watching Fry and Leela actually being married, despite the situation, was great.  Overall, I'd say it was a 5/5.

I have a feeling this IS it outside the Simpsons x-over.

[#50 :]

I.....this.....what....I.....I'm speechless. I laughed, I cried, I even vomited. Just a bit.

10/10.

Rest In Peace Futurama.

I'm glad to hear you got to watch it.

That episode was so good, I DVRd the midnight showing. I look forward to watching it again tomorrow.

[#51 :]

I kind of agree with Gorky. Although I did enjoy seeing Fry falling and dying all those times. It was pretty funny. The ending was just so odd in my opinion. And this wasn't exactly a ending that leaves the series open, because nobody remembered the events of this episode. And wait, how exactly do Fry and Leela relive their lives again? It's confusing and frustrating for the most part. The series is an an endless loop. Nothing more than that. Fry pretty much destroyed the Universe. The End.

[#52 :]

I kind of agree with Gorky. Although I did enjoy seeing Fry falling and dying all those times. It was pretty funny. The ending was just so odd in my opinion. And this wasn't exactly a ending that leaves the series open, because nobody remembered the events of this episode. And wait, how exactly do Fry and Leela relive their lives again? It's confusing and frustrating for the most part. The series is an an endless loop. Nothing more than that. Fry pretty much destroyed the Universe. The End.

Watch the episode again.  They only go back in time to the beginning of this episode not all the way back to the beginning of the show.

[#53 :]

Still, did Farnsworth say how he would destroy the button or if he could somehow remember everything that happened, or are they just kind of stuck?

[#54 :]

But they still don't remember what happens in the episode. It's just like Futurama The Game.

And how does that tunnel thing bring Fry and Leela back to the beginning of the Ep if the professor has been using it to dig around the frozen time...?

It's funny. Fry saved the Universe. And then he destroyed the universe.

[#55 :]

Let's all agree it was a very confusing ending.

[#56 :]

It was nothing. There is no finality in the series finale at all.

[#57 :]

Well, I didn't hate this one. I'll give it 8/10.

As with many S7 episodes, it felt a little bit like a rushed, almost deus ex machina ending. But the meat of it was good, and in that it's reminiscent of the back half of S7B, rather than the front half, and S7A. Which is good.

Sadly, it didn't feel like a real conclusion to the series. Fry and Leela had a happy ending, but it's been erased (and the events of the episode seem likely to keep repeating, too). They won't remember it, and overall it's a pretty shallow relationship they had. Without any real struggles to face, and without anything to provide dramatic tension, their relationship was a romanticised ideal rather than a real marriage with ups and downs and fights and making up and everything that goes with trying to build a life together whilst the universe does its best to screw up your best laid plans. There was nothing to bring them closer together than they were at the beginning. That's no indication of how their marriage would have been without the time button having gotten smashed. It feels a little hollow.

Technically, there wasn't anything wrong with the episode. Well drawn, well voiced, well scored, and well paced (up until the last minute or so, at least), this episode just didn't have that little spark that allowed it to transcend being the mere sum of those components. Which is slightly disappointing, but I'm happy that at least it ended without doing anything incredibly dumb.

There wasn't a lot of "background content", but there was more than enough meat on the main plot to ensure that this wasn't a problem - most of my attention was taken up by the surface details, and I didn't really get distracted enough to be checking every ancillary detail in every frame. So that balances out, I suppose.

I guess that my final impression of it is the same as the majority of people's: Better than Overclockwise. Easily the second-best of S7 (behind F&LBF), and definitely one of the top five (if not four) from the new run overall.

[#58 :]

So the shows ending is that it never ends, only repeating the same things they've already done before indefinitely? Now that's what I call a metaphor. So sad, yet so fitting.

[#59 :]

It was a good series finale (again) for Futurama. Had little bit of everything; laughs, sci-fi and heart. It is still open ended, yet had some sense of closure.

Farewell Futurama and thanks for all the years of fun, tears and wonders .

[#60 :]

Ill admit, it was a hell of alot better than Overclockwise.

Did I mention that Overclockwise sucked?

[#61 :]

I'm trying to re-watch the episode to see if I missed any important details about the time-travel. How exactly does the Professor know that neither he nor Fry and Leela would not remember the events that transpired in the frozen universe? And for that matter, how does he even know that they would return to the instant that he thought up the idea of the time button?

[#62 :]

After watching it again.... an 11/10.

This episode is beyond all time!

[#63 :]

Sadly, it didn't feel like a real conclusion to the series. Fry and Leela had a happy ending, but it's been erased (and the events of the episode seem likely to keep repeating, too). They won't remember it, and overall it's a pretty shallow relationship they had. Without any real struggles to face, and without anything to provide dramatic tension, their relationship was a romanticised ideal rather than a real marriage with ups and downs and fights and making up and everything that goes with trying to build a life together whilst the universe does its best to screw up your best laid plans. There was nothing to bring them closer together than they were at the beginning. That's no indication of how their marriage would have been without the time button having gotten smashed. It feels a little hollow.

I agree completely; very well-said, sir. You have articulated quite nicely what I was trying to say in my own review: The third act of this episode, though sweet in its own way, was rather pat because it just played off the preexisting "Fry and Leela are meant for each other and aren't they so sweet?" mentality that much of this season's shippy episodes (excluding "Fry and Leela's Big Fling," which provided genuine tension between the two and gave them a problem to work out together) have run on. No real progress was made in the relationship; rather, Fry and Leela had a great life together simply because Fate Says So. Which is kind of lame.

I think that's why I would have preferred the writers to have developed their relationship more fully over the past few seasons--and, again, they did this a few times, most notably with "The Prisoner of Benda" (first time they sleep together), "Overclockwise" (first time they genuinely commit to one another...albeit, because Fate (via Bender) Says So), and "Fry and Leela's Big Fling" (first time they confront problems keeping the ol' romance alive)-- instead of giving us a few minutes at the tail end of the series to show us how happy the two of them will ultimately be together. I mean, their inevitable happy ending was more or less confirmed at the end of "Overclockwise," so why bother rehashing it in "Meanwhile"...and in such a superficial way?

[#64 :]

Im speechless
Plus futurama live is now private on YouTube anyone got a different link

[#65 :]

Plus futurama live is now private on YouTube anyone got a different link

It's not available anymore. I think CC will re-upload it later, in better quality.

[#66 :]

So what happened to the 10 dollar bill?

[#67 :]

No real progress was made in the relationship; rather, Fry and Leela had a great life together simply because Fate Says So. Which is kind of lame.

No, Fry and Leela had a great life together simply because they were not interfered with by outsiders. Hate to sound like some Fry-psycho, but when a relationship is under the scrutiny and criticism of others, that's when "reality strikes". And reality is not too welcoming of anything.

[#68 :]

So what happened to the 10 dollar bill?

It went into an unknown spot in time. I doubt anyone but Zoidberg is going to look hard for it.

[#69 :]

No, Fry and Leela had a great life together simply because they were not interfered with by outsiders. Hate to sound like some Fry-psycho, but when a relationship is under the scrutiny and criticism of others, that's when "reality strikes". And reality is not too welcoming of anything.

But if the relationship is strong enough in its own right, it ought to be able to stand up under the pressure of that scrutiny and criticism. I'm not complaining that Fry and Leela had such an effortless and fulfilling life together--I'm just saying that it would have been more dramatically satisfying for me as a viewer if the writers had allowed the relationship to progress over many episodes, and for us to see Fry and Leela deal with the trials and tribulations that even couples who love each other a great deal go through (and ultimately triumph over).

I recognize that my complaint here is really more with the series as a whole than with this particular episode; I can certainly appreciate what "Meanwhile" was trying to accomplish with Fry and Leela's relationship, and I think it did a fine job of it. I guess I'm just slightly annoyed that this is all we're going to get of Fry and Leela growing old together, particularly because in theory the writers had ample time to flesh the relationship out in seasons six and seven, without all the unnecessary resetting and such. But I digress.

[#70 :]

So what happened to the 10 dollar bill?

It's stuck in the alternate continuum (an orthogonal time that runs at right angles to this one) that the Professor was tunnelling through for decades, unless he found and pocketed it.

Fry and Leela had a great life together simply because they were not interfered with by outsiders. Hate to sound like some Fry-psycho, but when a relationship is under the scrutiny and criticism of others, that's when "reality strikes". And reality is not too welcoming of anything.

Without the interference of the universe at large, they were never challenged and never managed to grow stronger as a couple. They never did anything other than have copious amounts of carefree sex, take a lifelong vacation without queues or delays or stressful schedules to keep, and generally enjoy themselves without needing to think about consequences or be responsible adults or feel a moment of doubt or unhappiness. It was literally a very, very, very, long honeymoon the entire time.

No bills to pay, no kids, no responsibilities or workload, no stress. Those are circumstances under which almost any two people with a superficial attraction could have a few wonderful decades. Without any outside interference, Fry and Leela never needed their feelings to become any deeper than they already were, and they never developed any of the additional bonds strengthened by mutual adversity that bring couples closer over the years.

That "scrutiny and criticism" is a vital storm for a couple to be able to weather if they're going to be together in the real world, and since Fry and Leela lacked it, their married life together wasn't exactly a testament to the durability of twoo wuv.

Basically, what Gorky said whilst I was typing this.

[#71 :]

I don't know, everyone's critique has kind of left it hollow to me as well. Fry & Leela alone in the universe is very... easy for them, as has been said, but not a bad ending. What I now DON'T like is the fact that all of that WAS FOR NOTHING. NADA. BACK TO WHEN THE TIME BUTTON APPEARED. I wanted FINALITY. It doesn't feel final and leaves way for a possible third revival (wow, I just wrote "third revival") and if that doesn't happen in a few years down the track, Futurama will forever be an unresolved story now.

If it were picked up again say next year, or in 3 years, it will begin at the moment the time button was broken. We'd then see a proper Fry/Leela wedding, as Leela at that point has accepted the proposal. Then we'd be able to see them really be a dynamite couple in contexts of different episodes and scenarios, which I think is important.

So basically, if you want the above to happen, it's time to light our torches and get our pitchforks out and implore another shot at Futurama.

[#72 :]

I joined this forum as Futurama was airing its final episodes on FOX. Those days are a very nostalgic time for me. I can't believe it's been ten years. I've grown a lot since then, and in that time, I was blessed enough to see my futuristic friends return for a few more adventures. I guess it's time now, for me to make my big return and give my thoughts on the finale.

.....

I liked it!

[#73 :]

I think it definitely would've been better if Fry, Leela, and Farnsworth had kept their memories. It would've made the whole thing a tad more meaningful.

I decided on an 8/10 rating, by the way.

[#74 :]

The thing is that we did see Fry and Leela's relationship throughout the last run of episodes and they were together just not married.

[#75 :]

I don't have a problem with the reset. Regardless of what happens (or happened) next, Fry and Leela were able to share their lives together once. If they kept their memories of the event going back to every-day life would probably be hell to them after forty years of not having to deal with all of the arbitrary rules and roles that society hands out. They'd have to go back to dealing with things like money -- which is inherently worthless -- and ownership.

It is a shame they didn't have more time to deal with how they got out of the problem. The Professor did feel like a deus-ex machine considering all of the decades of work he did were off-screen and in another universe. Overall, though, I feel the overall experience was worth the trip. I'm a believer in the 'it's the journey, not the destination' philosophy. Fry and Leela won't remember the events of the episode, but I will, and that would affect how I saw them in future episodes...if there will ever be any.

[#76 :]

The thing is that we did see Fry and Leela's relationship throughout the last run of episodes and they were together just not married.

Yeah, but there was no real progress made in the relationship between "Fry and Leela's Big Fling" (or, hell, I'd even say "A Farewell to Arms") and "Meanwhile." 7B has a lot in common with season four, in that respect; there were a lot of episodes that concerned themselves with Fry and Leela's relationship, but they did not do much to further the characters' connection to one another or place them in situations where their relationship might be challenged. Though, actually, I'd go so far as to say that season four does a better job of convincing me of how right Fry and Leela are for one another--and this is before they became an actual, full-fledged couple--than this past season did.

Don't get me wrong: I really liked 7B, and the rest of the new run, and I don't mean to complain about the abundance of shippiness it provided. I'm just saying that, you know, for as nice as it was to see Fry and Leela be all couple-y and cute for the past few seasons, very few dramatically weighty conflicts arose in the relationship, and very little mention was made of Fry and Leela's long-term prospects beyond the "marriage material" moment in "Zapp Dingbat." I stand by my earlier comment that Fry and Leela essentially wound up together because, well, why wouldn't they wind up together; moreover, I'd say that their friends-on-the-cusp-of-romance relationship from the original run was more rife with conflict (and perhaps more compelling to me personally) than almost anything we got in seasons six and seven.

None of this is to say that I am unsatisfied with the fact that Fry and Leela got married in this episode, or that I wish the show had waited even longer to put the two of them together. I'm simply saying that, once they did get together, the writers kind of stopped throwing as many roadblocks in their way, and that lack of conflict gives their relationship a kind of static feeling.

[#77 :]

As serene and peaceful as it is, i'm sure it's.....HEY! I just realized, this never cleared up "The other!"

[#78 :]

I liked this episode, it had a darker feel to the previous last-episodes-ever (what with all the dying), but it still had a lot of familiar Futurama finale themes (cool sci-fi concepts, shippiness, lots of callbacks).

One thing I liked about this episode was that the stakes seemed genuinely high. I found myself thinking "how are they going to get out of this?!" at several points during the episode.

As for the ending, I personally didn't see the thing with the Professor coming, although I assumed that glimmer was going to be something helpful in some way. Also, I kind of like the idea of Fry and Leela's marriage being a really long honeymoon, followed by a chance to go back and have a real marriage in the real world.

I'm fine with assuming that, when they go back to before the Professor created the time button, things happen differently and the time button doesn't get made, since that's probably what would have happened in the next episode, had they been renewed.

I don't know where to rank this against other finales but I found it to be a satisfying enough ending to the series.

I guess I would give it a 9/10 (I think I've used that one a bit for the last few episodes)

[#79 :]

I guess we can shut down the forum now. Bye everybody!

No but for realsies: I'm reading different interpretations of the end not just here but in other review sites. I'm in the boat that says that the reset doesn't go all the way back to the beginning but back to when the Professor made the button. Because I don't like the cop out of "they're not gonna remember anything in this entire series so we're stuck in an infinite loop". Plus I don't see why Fry, Leela, and the Professor wouldn't retain the memories of this. Even still I like to think Fry and Leela got to re-live their married life with their friends and family after spending an entire life living it with each other. That's just me.