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Futurama's 10 most confusing time travel paradoxes & plot holes.

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• Futurama explores 10 major time travel paradoxes and plot holes throughout the series, showcasing its fascination with complex sci-fi concepts.
• The show introduces paradoxes like Fry being his own grandfather and Bender causing the destruction of New York, which raise intriguing questions.
• "I Know What You Did Next Xmas" creates a major timeline paradox and plot hole, and also contradicts the events in "The Late Philip J. Fry."

Futurama is a series that frequently uses time travel, and because of this, there are 10 major time travel paradoxes and plot holes throughout the show. Futurama is no stranger to dealing with complicated sci-fi concepts, with plenty of Futurama jokes requiring a degree to understand . Because of this, Futurama has attempted to set up and play around with time travel paradoxes, and here are the biggest ones from throughout the series.

Futurama is finally back, with Hulu reviving the beloved Matt Groening series for an all-new batch of episodes. Futurama season 11 has already reintroduced tons of storylines from the original series, with season 11 containing sequels to episodes like "Parasites Lost" and "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch." Futurama season 11, episode 6, "I Know What You Did Next Xmas" acts as a sequel to "The Late Philip J. Fry," with the episode bringing back the show's unique form of time travel. However, this episode creates a major timeline paradox and plot hole, something that Futurama has done plenty of times before.

10 Fry Is His Own Grandfather

Futurama 's most famous paradox is introduced in the episode "Roswell that Ends Well," with the story tackling the famous Grandfather Paradox head-on. In the episode, Fry goes back in time and sleeps with his grandmother, giving birth to his father, who in turn gives birth to Fry. This is a classic time travel paradox, as it creates a cycle in which Fry has to give birth to his father in order for his father to give birth to him. This odd time travel situation has opened up a litany of questions in the Futurama universe, completely messing up Fry's family tree.

9 Bender Caused The Destruction Of New York

One of the most significant events in Futurama 's timeline is the First Destruction of New York, with the city being destroyed while Fry was frozen in the year 2308, leading to the creation of New New York. The movie Bender's Big Score reveals that the First Destruction of New York was actually caused by a time-traveling Bender, but this creates another paradox. Without Fry, it is doubtful that Bender would be at Planet Express in order to be sent back in time, but without Bender destroying New York and leading to the creation of New New York, the Applied Cryogenics scientist wouldn't be around to preserve Fry's cryogenic tube.

Related: 8 Controversial Futurama Storylines That Hulu's Revival Can Fix

8 Farnsworth Created Robot Santa While Trying To Stop Him

Futurama season 11, episode 6, "I Know What You Did Next Xmas" creates an all-new paradox surrounding the origins of Robot Santa. In the episode, Farnsworth travels back in time to when Robot Santa was created and reverses his Naughty and Nice meter, fixing him. However, Farnsworth eventually discovers that he actually caused the Naughty and Nice meter to be off in the first place, creating the killer robot. However, if Santa didn't start out evil, Farnsworth would have had no reason to go back in time and change the meter to the wrong position, creating a massive Xmas paradox.

7 “I Know What You Did Next Xmas” Negates “The Late Philip J. Fry”

Robot Santa's connection to Farnsworth isn't the only time travel problem created by "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," as the episode actually opens up a plot hole by contradicting "The Late Philip J. Fry." In the episode, Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth use a time machine that can only go forward, with them going into the future until a backward time machine is made. However, Farnsworth repairs the time machine so that it can go backward in "I Know What You Did Next Xmas," meaning that characters from "The Late Philip J. Fry" would only have had to travel to season 11's point in the timeline.

6 Bender Has A Missing Time Machine

Futurama and The Simpsons famously had a crossover in the episode "Simpsorama," in which the Planet Express crew travels back in time to Springfield. Fry, Leela, and the rest of the gang are able to arrive in Springfield by using a wormhole in Bender's stomach, but it is never shown how Bender got to the past. Bender presumably had some kind of time machine, although it is never explained how he got it or why he didn't use it to get back to the 3000s. This is one of Futurama 's biggest time travel plot holes, as a fully functioning time machine could have played into tons of storylines.

5 Futurama’s The Simpsons Crossover Time Travel

The time travel in "Simpsorama" connects Futurama and The Simpsons ' universes, creating some major timeline problems. For example, all of the humans in Springfield are yellow, and all of the humans in New New York have normal skin tones, with this contradiction never being explained. Furthermore, The Simpsons is established as an in-universe TV show in Futurama , with the timeline in "Simpsorama" contradicting this as well.

4 Fry’s “Bender’s Big Score” Tattoos

The Bender's Big Score movie's heavy use of time travel has caused some major Futurama problems, and Fry's tattoo is one of the biggest. In the film, a tattoo of Bender that is present on Fry's butt contains a time code that allows people to travel backward in time. During the episode, a paradoxical duplicate named Lars is created, with him also bearing the butt tattoo. At the end of the episode, Bender takes the tattoo from Lars' butt and puts it on the original Fry, explaining its origins. This causes a time loop surrounding the tattoo, as Fry gets it from Lars, and Lars gets it from Fry.

3 Fry’s Backstory Should Be Completely Different Because Of Lars

Lars' Bender's Big Score story causes another major problem in the Futurama canon. Throughout the series, it is mentioned that Fry's family members spent their lives looking for him after his disappearance in 1999. However, Lars (an alternate version of Fry) stayed in the past and lived as Fry until 2012. This would mean that Fry's family had an extra 13 years with him, something that the show has tried to correct, although it has only made things more muddled.

2 Travers & Nixon’s Paradoxical Presidential Election

The Futurama episode "Decision 3012" follows a presidential election between Richard Nixon's head and a newcomer senator named Chris Travers. Chris Travers eventually wins the election, but he soon begins to fade away, revealing that he is actually from the future. As it turns out, in the original timeline, Nixon ruined the future, with Travers being sent back in time to stop him from being elected. However, since Nixon didn't win the election, Travers never existed, meaning that Nixon would have won the election, causing Travers to exist, and so on.

Related: Futurama Season 12: Is The Reboot Getting Another Season & Everything We Know

1 Futurama’s Time-Paradox Duplicates

On top of all the time travel paradox storylines in Futurama , the series also features multiple time travel paradox duplicates. Lars Fillmore is the most popular one, but duplicates of Nudar, Hermes' dead body, and hundreds of Benders also exist. Having all of these paradoxical people running around would definitely mess up the show's timeline, making it one of the biggest paradoxes in Futurama .

New episodes of Futurama release Mondays on Hulu.

• Futurama (1999)

What You Likely Never Noticed About The Binary Code In Futurama

There's no denying that " Futurama " has some impressively deep references hidden throughout its episodes. With one of the most highly-educated writing staffs of any cartoon in history (via Nerdist ), the series spares no expense in calling back to literature, science, science fiction, and math. They even went so far as to develop two different ciphers in the form of alien languages (via The Infosphere ). Any time viewers see alien text in the series, they can actually decode what it says with little to no effort.

However, the two alien languages are just the tip of the Easter egg iceberg. As it turns out, just because the "Futurama" writing staff made their own cipher, doesn't mean it's the only language they are liable to use. Bender, along with other robot characters in the show, frequently use binary code. What you likely never noticed about the binary code in "Futurama," however, is that it often means something.

The hidden messages of Futurama's binary

Likely the best example of a binary message in "Futurama" comes in the episode "The Honking," when the Planet Express crew sees bloody binary text appear on the walls of Bender's haunted family mansion. The text reads "0101100101," which as Bender says is "just gibberish" when translated into English. Backwards, however, the message translates to " 666 ," causing Bender to freak out when he reads the message in a mirror.

Another famous example of binary code in "Futurama" comes in the first film , "Bender's Big Score," as the secret Machine Time Code tattooed onto Fry's butt. There are many unique properties for this message, including the fact that it is a palindrome and can be read both frontwards and backwards, but when translated into english it reads "1'¡·" (via Fandom ). This appears to be a reference to Fry's one-eyed love interest, Leela, though this is not officially confirmed.

Finally, Bender's binary apartment number translates to a dollar sign, which is a more-than appropriate choice for the greedy robot. Unfortunately, that's the final major binary reference in "Futurama." However, it's not the only computer science language that the writers know or use. Episodes like "Hell is Other Robots" and "I Roommate" make puns in the programming language BASIC, though only very rarely.

As cool as the coding language jokes are, the show's writers were still more keen on using their own alien language to make their hidden jokes.

Time sphere

The time sphere is a green, shimmering sphere that allows a user to travel into the past . However, it is a one-way trip—the sphere cannot be used to return to the future—and can only be summoned if the binary time code is spoken out loud. The time sphere is apparently under the stewardship of the Galactic Entity (and may in fact be the reason for its existence). When a summoner jumps inside, time goes slower, while they tell where to go.

• 1.2 Appearances
• 1.3 See also

Additional Info

• The only known people to have ever used the time sphere are Nudar , Bender , Chris Travers and Fry . Since it is a "one-way" trip (meaning that one can go backwards but not forwards in time), these four characters have different ways to combat this. Fry freezes himself in a cryogenic tube, Bender waits for thousands of years under the Planet Express building, Nudar simply lives for 24 hours (he only goes backwards by one day), and Travers just stayed where he was, as was planned so he could become President of Earth in 3012 .
• It should also be noted that all four interacted with their time travel duplicate; Nudar went out with his, Bender instructed his to wait for Fry, Fry argued with his, and Chris Travers helped with his own birth.

Appearances

• Machine language time code
• Time travel

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The Late Philip J. Fry

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The Late Philip J. Fry is the 7th episode of the 6th season of Futurama and premiered on July 29th, 2010.

• 1 Short Plot Summary
• 2 Detailed Plot Summary
• 3 Time Travel Metaphysics
• 4.1 Fry & Leela

Short Plot Summary [ ]

Professor Farnsworth invents a time machine that can only travel forward in time, but not back again, hopefully to avoid creating confusing and disgusting paradoxes. This causes Fry , Bender , and Professor Farnsworth to be stuck in the future when the Professor accidentally turns the lever way too far.

Detailed Plot Summary [ ]

Bender keeps Fry up all night, therefore Fry oversleeps and arrives at Planet Express – around the time he is supposed to meet Leela at Elzar's Fine Cuisine for her birthday lunch. When he finally arrives, Leela has already eaten both of their meals, she then leaves Fry the bill and storms out.

Leela stood up inside of Cavern on the Green.

Fry tries to make it up to her and tells her he will meet her for dinner at the Cavern on the Green – although this means he will miss Hedonismbot 's "Girls Gone Wildest" bachelor party. Just as Fry wants to leave (on time) to meet Leela, the Professor makes him try his new one-way time machine. Fry has gotten Leela a record-a-message card and says he'll just have to film it in the machine. They are supposed to go one minute into the future but the professor slips and they go 6,990 years instead, during which Fry's card flies out the machine's window. Later that night (in the year 3010 ) everyone at Hedionismbot's party but him dies due to an atomic powered hooker bot meltdown. Leela, having been stood up again, thinks Bender, the Professor and Fry were at the party. She is "sad.. but still angry... is it possible to be both?"

The involuntary time-travelers try to go forward in time until they reach an era where humanity has developed a backwards time-machine. Meanwhile, in 3030 , Leela misses Fry and hits on Cubert for his (perceived) similarity to Fry. Meanwhile Fry, Bender and the Professor, after visiting several eras in Earth's future, involving several parodies of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine , a third Ice Age in 105105 , ostrich-riding knights in 252525 , a dystopian New New York , an era of humanity enslaved by giraffes in 1,000,000½ , then come to a future where robots enslave/destroy humanity in 10,000,000 and of course Bender immediately likes it. Fry and Hubert, however, are not impressed by the mountain of skulls (nor by the gorgeous view over the blood lake) and push the machine forward to 50,000,000 , a future where there are beautiful women , the few males are in high demand (even the dumb and old ones) and backwards time-travel has been developed. Bender, still angry at Fry and Hubert, activates the time-machine again to get even.

40 years after Fry's 'death' in 3050 , Planet Express has developed into a big and successful company. Leela has found that Cubert is not really like Fry at all and has divorced him after an he had affair with Cyborg-Amy . Suddenly, Fry's birthday card appears out of thin air as the time machine shoots through time, revealing that that was when it flew out the window. Leela learns that she was angry at Fry for no reason and that while he is alive somewhere in the future (with Hubert and Bender), they won't meet again.

She goes to the Cavern on the Green and leaves a message for Fry by shooting holes in the ceiling. The water dripping from the holes will form stalagmites, making the message visible and Leela hopes that perhaps at some point in the future Fry will see her message. Meanwhile, in the year 1,000,000,000 , all life on Earth has become extinct. Fry finds Leela's message and seems content with his life. He suggests to skip even further forward in time and watch the end of the universe, Hubert and Bender agree.

After all the stars explode and the last proton decays, the group gets bored. Surprisingly a new big bang occurs and a new, identical universe is created. They watch the creation of the Sun, Earth and Moon, evolution, dinosaurs, "history" (Hubert also takes the opportunity to vaporize Adolf Hitler ) and finally arrive back at the time they left. The Professor slips again, however, so they have to "bring her 'round again." So they take a second trip through time (this time Bender takes the controls, causing Hubert to miss Hitler and hit Eleanor Roosevelt instead) and on their second approach on the destination time they accidentally crush their alternative selves. Fry rushes off and makes it in time to the Cavern on The Green . As the two stand on a bridge, with Bender burying their time-paradox duplicates underneath, Fry apologizes to Leela for losing her card. She tells him that it is okay, because what she will always remember is their time together. They both look up at the stars together while Bender buries the corpses of the Fry, Bender and Hubert from the New Universe.

Time Travel Metaphysics [ ]

After ending the lives of Bender, Fry and Professor Farnsworth from the final universe they travel to, Professor Farnsworth mentions that they have inadvertently settled a time travel paradox. This is because the original trio skipped over one universe. Just as the trio from the original universe (Uni 1) skipped one universe on their journey forward through time, the Fry, Bender and Professor Farnsworth from the skipped universe (Uni 2) will also skip one universe (Uni 3/the Universe the original trio landed in and crushed their counterparts) to land in a potential fourth universe (Uni 4) in which they should crush their Uni 4 counterparts, ending the time travel paradox.

To further explain the paradox, take note that due to the events in Uni 1 in which Leela goes on to build up Planet Express into a major corporation and later leaving a message for Fry to find at some point in the future, It can be safely assumed that no version of Fry, Bender, or Professor Farnsworth landed in Uni 1 from a previous universe. This means Uni 1 is the beginning of the time travel paradox. This also means that no version of Fry, Bender and Professor Farnsworth should arrive in Uni 2 since the original trio from Uni 1 do not stop until Uni 3. Therefore, Uni 2 Leela should commit the same actions as Uni 1 Leela, and Uni 2 Fry will also find the same message that Uni 1 Fry found.

If the trio from Uni 1 were to arrive just after the trio from Uni 3 departed, due to normal continuation of Uni 3 with the Uni 1 trio taking the Uni 3 trio's place, then Uni 3 Leela would not follow the actions that would lead to her leaving the message for Uni 3 Fry to find, potentially altering the course of the Uni 3 trio's journey and disrupting the established pattern. Possibilities are infinite and could disrupt the temporal flux of the SpaceTime Continuum to the point that all Universes are destroyed.

Since the trio from Uni 1 crushed to death and assumed the lives of the trio from Uni 3 after skipping over Uni 2, it can be assumed that the trio from Uni 2 will crush to death and assume the lives of the trio of Uni 4, settling the paradox as no forward travels will come from Uni 3 or Uni 4. This means that, assuming the universe continues to replicate, the cycle will start over with Uni 5 being the beginning of the next paradox block, repeating all events of Uni 1 to uni 4 within the time block of Uni 5 to Uni 8. This four universe block pattern could continue indefinitely. This repeating cycle is possible because while all matter in each universe eventually decays completely before the next universe is born into existence, time and space continue to exist through all universes indefinitely.

This means that every universe is five feet lower than the previous, as Universe 3 was found to be ten feet lower than Fry, Bender and Hubert's universe of origin (Uni 1).

It can be theorized that the reason the universe repeats itself during the trio's voyage is, in fact, their continued existence following their universe's collapse, even as a time-traveling anomaly, meaning their very presence affects the new universe's formation, namely in repeating the universal timeline resulting in their creation, life and circumstances leading to their flight (Hereby explaining why the universe is an exact duplicate). In this case, it would also mean that the cycle would not repeat past Universe 4.

Another possibility is that in Uni 2, due to the Uni 1 Hubert killing Uni 2 Hitler, the expected future was altered in such a way that the Uni 2 trio simply continue to exist, do not travel into the next universe, or may not even exist, necessitating that Uni 1 Hubert try to shoot Hitler on the second go around into Uni 3. This is because a trio from Uni 2 will not feel the inclination to take out Hitler because someone else already had. This means that if a trio from Uni 2 does exist and travels into the future universes, then it can be assumed that if they land in Uni 4, They would be landing in a universe in which Hitler lived, different from there universe of origin (Uni 2) in which Hitler was killed by the Hubert from Uni 1, creating a new paradox..

Their presence may also be the actual motivation for the formation of the universe. One thesis for the universe's end involves it settling into a "dark era", or losing all heat, hereby all energy and dying, but travelling through time in any direction requires near-infinite amounts of energy and if the machine's energy was discharged to the dead universe, it could very well have facilitated a second big bang (being a source of incredibly dense energy). Still, this is pure conjecture.

While also conjecture, the fact the universe repeats itself could also explain how Nibblonian civilization existed 17 years before the Big Bang.

This episode makes Fry even more of an anomaly in time and space than he has ever been before. He was his own grandfather in the universe he was born, gifting him with a lack of a Delta Brain Wave and making his existence cyclical and now the current Fry is living in a universe that he was not even born into, making him as a time traveler no longer subject to alterations in the time stream anywhere in the current universe. Additionally, Bender and Hubert are also not subject to alterations in the time stream.

Ongoing Themes [ ]

Fry & leela [ ].

• Leela consents to two dates with Fry in this episode, and - on the occasions when he is late, Leela is visibly disappointed.
• In the universe in which Fry does not make his dinner-date with Leela, and she assumes that he died in the explosion at Hedonism Bot's bachelor's party, Leela is greatly upset by his 'death'.
• In that same universe, she marries Cubert, due to his resemblance to Fry.
• In that same universe, she misses Fry throughout her life. When she realises that Fry has gone to the future, she sends him a message, speaking of how special she found their time together.
• When faced with a future filled with beautiful women, Fry's first thought is obtaining a backwards time-machine so that he might return to Leela. Although, he does not oppose the idea of sleeping with said beautiful women.
• Throughout the episode Fry is the most determined, out of himself, the Professor, and Bender, to return to his own time, and hence Leela.
• 1 Philip J. Fry
• 2 Turanga Leela
• 3 Bender Bending Rodríguez