You'd be forgiven for thinking Fox would've figured out this method of scheduling was doing nothing but hurting the show's prospects by the time the final season was airing on the network, but Futurama still had an unpredictable, erratic airing schedule up until its last episode on the network.
Irregularly timed sporting events, which were a huge money-maker for Fox, made it even harder to anticipate when Futurama would air each week. This up-and-down scheduling had a majorly disappointing consequence: Fox held on to episodes of Futurama made for the third and fourth seasons and reserved them for a fifth season Fox never formally canceled Futurama — not in the way that television series are usually axed nowadays.
The network simply stopped purchasing new episodes of Futurama , and the series went out of production ahead of the fall broadcast season. Six years later, Comedy Central picked up Futurama. The series lasted seven years on the network before it ended in In a interview , Groening offered his candid thoughts on the situation: "The people at Fox didn't ever support the show and it wasn't to their taste and, in my opinion, they're out of their minds.
After years of successful syndication on Adult Swim, Comedy Central revived the series by backing the creation of four new straight-to-DVD films , which are now considered to constitute season 5. The venture was standalone, however, with no guarantee of continuation, so the last film, Into The Wild Green Yonder , served as an open-ended finale, with all of the main characters flying the Planet Express ship into an unknowable wormhole. Comedy Central eventually decided to see what was on the other side, following the films with a full sixth season.
Again, the future of the partnership was uncertain, so the season 6 finale, "Overclockwise," was written as a potential series finale, its last moments giving an ambiguous but hopeful look into the future of Fry and Leela's relationship.
The series was ultimately renewed for a seventh season, but this would be its last before Comedy Central dealt Futurama its second proper cancellation, making "Meanwhile" the current holder of the "series finale" title.
And a worthy holder it is, combining some of the show's best elements by using a deceptively simple time travel puzzle to give Fry and Leela a long, happy life together before bringing the story back around to the beginning. Cohen announced that Futurama is set to return — only not in the way you might expect. According to Groening, Fox seemingly never really wanted Futurama to succeed.
Futurama was canceled at Fox because the network spent years — essentially from before the show even hit television sets — walking it down the road to the chopping block. Fox and Groening butted heads over Futurama from the very beginning.
The language can be crass, there are allusions to sex, characters drink and make drug references, and there is some cartoon violence.
This shifting around made it difficult for fans to anticipate when the show would air, and the sporting events airing on Fox at the time made it even harder. By , Fox had slowly let Futurama slip from its grasp. Fox had planned for a Season 5, holding on to episodes meant for Seasons 3 and 4 to create it; however, that season never came to fruition. Futurama wasn't canceled in the traditional way -- rather, the network simply stopped purchasing episodes and it faded into obscurity.
Groening was very outspoken about Fox's mistreatment of his show. In an interview with Mother Jones , he talked about his frustrations with the people in Hollywood, calling them "babies" and "bullies.
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