Good News Everyone!

Futurama is back tonight.  There are times when I like it better than The Simpsons, probably because Futurama is centered on a workplace rather than a family.  I think I appreciate the characters and their world more because they feed a part of my soul that's so often dissatisfied--the idealist who holds down a job in an industry that pretty much defines itself by failing to achieve its ideals.  (If anyone ever actually executed a perfect project, there'd be no Phase Two and we'd all be out of a job.  Lucky for us, truly indisputable successes are rare.)

 

But I think the real appeal to me is the vision of the future.  I love any fiction that speculates about the future--and I have no opinion of whether it should be good or bad.  I love Star Trek, which, for all the desperate attempts to be gritty, is sometimes cloyingly utopian.  (I had a friend who used to joke about the first season of TNG, "Captain's Log:  Today, we learned the meaning of friendship!")  Even when it's a little sappy, I love the utopian vision--as Browning said, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"  But dystopias hold a special place in my heart, too.  Not a day goes by at work when I don't think with affection about Brazil.  And how could you not love Blade Runner?  Futurama's approach is to avoid either and to assume that humanity will be pretty much where we are now, doing pretty much the same things, and making the same mistakes--which is the perfect basis for great satire.  It's our world, but at just enough distance that you can tell the truth and still create funny stories.

 

Here's hoping the future is as much fun as I remember....