When Does Disenchantment Take Place in Futurama's Timeline?

[on:]

As you're probably aware, you can see The Professor, Fry and Bender in their time machine from "The Late Philip J. Fry" in an episode of Disenchantment, suggesting that the show is -- at least as far as Disenchantment is concerned -- set within the same world and continuity as Futurama -- just in a different time period.


"I Know What You Did Next Xmas" has just confirmed that Futurama reciprocates this idea (unlike, for instance, "Simpsorama", which is canon as far as The Simpsons is concerned, but non-canon as far as Futurama is concerned). But it throws up some major confusion regarding how everything pieces together.

Some people always assumed that Disenchantment was set in the distant future after the events of Futurama. I always assumed it was supposed to take place in the second Medieval period after civilisation is destroyed by aliens (Bender) but before Earth is destroyed by aliens a second time as seen out of the window when Fry is frozen in "Space Pilot 3000".



But in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas", The Professor is travelling backwards and he sees, in this order:
- the future periods depicted in "The Late Philip J. Fry"
- a giant Bender punching a hole in Planet Express and walking away
- Disenchantment

- Earth being destroyed by eyeball monsters
- the events of "I Know What You Did Next Xmas"

On the face of it, that means that, at some point after this episode, Earth is destroyed by eyeball monsters, then the events of Disenchantment take place and, THEN, Planet Express is somehow rebuilt exactly as it used to be and a giant Bender punches a hole in it. That doesn't make much sense at all.

While I'm sure the placement of this where it is is an error on the part of the crew making this episode -- most likely they just figured Disenchantment should come at the very end of the things we see for the sake of pacing and "saving the best for last", we can sort of headcanon our way around it if we want.

Perhaps The Professor saw giant Bender and went to stop the time machine, but accidentally overshot things ever so slightly (as he's prone to do) meaning that Disenchantment is set earlier than Futurama.

Perhaps those eyeball monsters are actually the aliens that destroyed civilisation the first time. Because of Bender's Big Score, we know that Bender is actually to blame specifically for destroying those buildings outside of the cryogenics lab window, but that doesn't account for Earth civilisation being destroyed to the point that they rebuild it with Medieval buildings. So perhaps the alien eyeballs also invaded at roughly the same time and destroyed everything else.

Then Disenchantment is the resulting civilisation that pops up in its place.

Then, at some point, that civilisation is also destroyed by an alien invasion and the world of Futurama that we're familiar with -- New New York, etc -- is built in its place.

The Professor saw all of this and, realising he'd gone a tiny bit too far into the past again, nudged the controls ever so slightly to the right to bring himself back to the correct time. This took place in the brief instance during the cut from the shot of him inside the time machine to the shot of the machine appearing inside Planet Express.

Or can someone else make this make more sense?

[Reply #1 on:]

In one of the Steamland episodes someone states they’re in the 13th Century. That could either mean what we call the 13th Century, or a far off future that calls their current age the 13th Century.

Giant Bender I just took as a reference to an upcoming episode. Probably like you said, rearranged so the Disenchantment cameos could be last, but likely just taking place in 3023/24.

I initially liked the idea of Dreamland being the medieval world we see in Space Pilot, but trying to think how that world could be created/destroyed in less than 800 years seems too implausible.

- - -

Here’s a question: would anyone want to see an entire Futurama episode dedicated to a Disenchantment crossover? Their equivalent of what Simpsorama was for Futurama after it was cancelled in 2013? If so, what would you want it to be about?

[Reply #2 on:]

If Disenchantment takes place in Futurama's future, maybe the flying purple Eloi analogues evolved from the elves in Disenchantment, and the elves are a mutant evolutionary offshot of humans?

[Reply #3 on:]

I initially liked the idea of Dreamland being the medieval world we see in Space Pilot, but trying to think how that world could be created/destroyed in less than 800 years seems too implausible.

You're not wrong, but I think it would be easily explained with alien technology, etc.

[Reply #4 on:]

What if it takes place in the past?

[Reply #5 on:]

I initially liked the idea of Dreamland being the medieval world we see in Space Pilot, but trying to think how that world could be created/destroyed in less than 800 years seems too implausible.

You're not wrong, but I think it would be easily explained with alien technology, etc.

Or magic. But what's shown is that Disenchantment takes place later than Futurama, so it's not the mediaeval civilization that we see. Also, the PX building and Dreamland castle are in roughly the same place, except that there's this giant fucking hole that the river pours into to get to the sea at the time of Disenchantment. So geography has altered significantly. That wouldn't necessarily be easy to fix so that NNY and NY have roughly the same geography.

Additionally, it follows that since Dreamland Castle is built on the PX building's ruins, some of the underchambers are the limestone caverns that Bender waited out the events of BBS in.

I am therefore a little disappointed that there were no Bending Unit parts (or heads, or whole Bending Units) visible in the rock tunnels of the Trogs all the times that we saw Bean and her friends running from pursuit down there.

[Reply #6 on:]

So it takes place in Futurama's Futurella?

[Reply #7 on:]

Or magic. But what's shown is that Disenchantment takes place later than Futurama

No, what's actually shown is that Disenchantment takes place in between episodes of Futurama. But obviously that doesn't make any sense.

[Reply #8 on:]

Or magic. But what's shown is that Disenchantment takes place later than Futurama

No, what's actually shown is that Disenchantment takes place in between episodes of Futurama. But obviously that doesn't make any sense.

Later than any canon episode's presence in the main continuity of roughly one thousand years from "now" as a relative construct. Better?

[Reply #9 on:]

Not really, no.

Not because of anything you've said, but just because it clearly doesn't make sense on any level.

[Reply #10 on:]

Disenchantment's a version of the Futurameverse with literal magic, and God is a 40-watt light bulb. Of course it makes no sense.

Futurama has also made less and less sense, to be honest, with each revival of the show.

They're both spiritual descendants of Life In Hell, which was specifically constructed in the spirit of monetizing Gary Larson's whole schtick (without needing to pay him for it).

Matt Groening's whole deal seems to be built on a solid foundation of saying something like "by the way, this dude is an anglerfish in a trenchcoat and his daughter is a werewolf in reverse, so she's only human three days a month, and only the cashier at the local gas station knows, but the show is really about their hamster's side job at a spaceship design company and how the company is being bought out and gutted by a collection.of the fourteenth floor windows who have gained sentience and are angry they don't get washed very often. Also the janitor is a minotaur, and the hamsters nephew's friend is invisible, and we've given the nephew a terrible secret that he will reveal to his school librarian in season five."

And then he goes and hires a bunch of former Simpsons staff to put it together while he gets drunk with Mike Judge and plans how he's going to spend the merchandising rights payments.

And at this point I'm not looking for sense as much as an acknowledgement to the audience that they know they should be making more of it.

[Reply #11 on:]

I think he's always been like that. But in the past, he surrounded himself with people who'd shoot the bad ideas down. As I'm sure you're aware, Marge Simpson was always supposed to be secretly a giant, humanoid rabbit, for instance. But someone (I'm guessing James L. Brooks) told him he was a maniac and they thankfully never incorporated that idea into the show (beyond some sprites in the old Simpsons arcade machine, that is).

[Reply #12 on:]

The giant humanoid rabbit thing would have been a decent idea if it had been subtly hinted at for the first few seasons, finally revealed, and then been ignored entirely by the Springfield population because it's just not interesting.

They could always bring it back though.