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Space. It seems to go on and on forever and then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you.

–Fry [first words of the series].

"Space Pilot 3000" is the pilot episode and the first episode of Season 1 of Futurama. It was originally broadcast on March 28, 1999. The episode introduced pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry and the story of how he came to the year 3000.

Plot[]

Space Pilot 3000 (Prologue) - 37

Fry makes his debut.

The series premiere opens on December 31st, 1999, with pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry playing the video game Monkey Fracas Jr. at his workplace: Panucci's Pizza. Fry loses the game and is then sent out to his next delivery at Applied Cryogenics. On his way, he sees his girlfriend Michelle Jenkins in a cab with another man, Charles Constantine. Michelle tells Fry they are over, and as the cab is driving away, she proclaims she left Fry's stuff on the sidewalk. As Fry is riding his bike, he complains "I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life." He makes it into the lab and chains his bike to a newspaper stand. As Fry is entering the building, a guy breaks the bike chain and says "Happy New Year!" as he rides away on the bike. Upon arriving at the Cryogenics chamber and looking for I.C. Weiner, the pizza's intended recipient, Fry realizes he's been duped and was sent on a prank delivery. Sitting down in a chair at the desk, he balances onto its back legs, opens a beer and says, "Here's to another lousy millennium" before taking a sip. The entire world is counting down from 10 and as the countdown hits "one", Fry blows a party horn to celebrate the millennium, and immediately after, Fry's chair falls, causing him to fall backward into the Cryogenic Pod. The pod shuts as Fry is in there and the timer goes to 1000 years, freezing Fry. Over the course of the next 1000 years, Earth is destroyed by invading aliens, rebuilt to another medieval stage, re-destroyed by invading aliens, and re-rebuilt to what it is now as Fry waits in stasis. On December 31, 2999, Fry's pod timer ends and he wakes up. After getting out of the chamber, he walks by a big window, sees he is in the future and realizes he will never see his family, friends, coworkers, or girlfriend again. Fry then lets out a loud "YA-HOO!"

Terry, an Applied Cryogenics employee, enters the room and welcomes Fry to "the world of tomorrow." Fry is escorted to the Fate Assignment Officer, where he meets Turanga Leela, a woman with only one eye, who tells Fry it is December 31, 2999 when he sees a blimp that reads "Happy New Year 3000". She imagines it must be upsetting for Fry, but he tells her the 20th century didn't hold anything for him and he feels optimistic about the future. After an encounter/examination on the Probulator, a DNA scan reveals Fry's one living relative is his many times great nephew, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth.

Fry starts to make himself a promise that with his "second chance", he's going to make the most of his life and not mess things up again. As Leela reveals she's found Fry his permanent career assignment as delivery boy, Fry begs for any other job, but Leela says he's been assigned the job he is best at, and he will be fired out of a cannon into the sun if he refuses. Fry reiterates that he does not like being a delivery boy, but Leela says people do their jobs, even if they don't like it, and quotes a poster that says "you gotta do what you gotta do." She then tries to implant a career chip that will permanently label Fry as a delivery boy, but he runs away. Giving chase, Leela ends up falling into the cryogenic chamber Fry was in, which sets itself for 1000 years again. Fry then leaves her to be frozen there, but out of the goodness of his heart, decides to reset the timer to thaw in 5 minutes, says "You owe me one", and leaves the lab.

Space Pilot 3000 (Main Episode) - 38

Fry and Bender in the suicide booth.

Fry walks around New New York, seeing how much it has changed over the centuries, and takes the Transport Tubes to Crosstown Express. Later, Fry notices a phone booth decides to get in line and call his nephew. Fry meets Bender Bending Rodríguez as he gets in line behind him. It turns out, the phone booth is actually a Suicide booth and Bender is eagerly awaiting his death. When Fry goes inside the booth to make the call, Bender says he is in a hurry and tries for a twofer, and puts a quarter in the slot before yanking it back out with string. The machine asks for mode of death: quick and painless or slow and horrible, but when Fry requests to make a collect call, the machine hears him select slow and horrible. As the weapons aim toward them, Bender impatiently waits to die and introduces himself to Fry. Fry pushes himself and Bender to the side of the booth as the weapons charge out, and they survive.

Having failed at killing himself again, Bender invites Fry to get drunk with him at O'Zorgnax's Pub. Meanwhile, Leela's cryogenic chamber is timed out and she is unfrozen, Terry appears again telling her what he told Fry, and Leela tells him to shut up. After being yelled at by her boss for losing Fry, Leela is forced to continue her pursuit of him. Fry finds out that Bender wants to kill himself because of his programming of bending girders for suicide booths. Bender leaves to go kill himself again, but Fry tells Bender he is his only friend and wants him to stay. Leela spots them inside O'Zorgnax's Pub and requests backup, to which URL and Smitty respond. Bender takes Fry into the Head Museum, where the latter meets Leonard Nimoy's Head and asks him to do the Vulcan salute (which Fry calls "the thing" as he demonstrates), but being a head in a jar, he cannot. Leela catches Fry and walks toward him, but he backs into the U.S. Presidents, causing Richard M. Nixon's head to fall off the shelf and break. Nixon starts biting on Fry's sleeve like a dog and URL and Smitty start beating up Fry. Leela advises them not to use force, bu after Smitty tells her "Keep your big nose out of this, Eyeball", Leela takes offense to the nose insult (rather than her eye), beats up URL and Smitty, and tells them they were out of control. Fry and Bender hide in the Hall of Criminals, Fry asks Bender to bend the bars so they can escape, bit he is only programmed to bend for constructive purposes. Bender tells Fry he is "full of crap", but after his antenna touches the light bulb socket, electrocuting him, he changes his mind and agrees with Fry. After successfully bending 2 of the bars off, they make a break for it.

Fry and Bender enter a grate leading into the ruins of Old New York, where Fry relives old memories, including a flashback of ice skating with Michelle at Rockefeller Center on their first date. The memory of Fry and Michelle ice skating fades into a two finned beast which bursts out of what used to be the ice rink, now a fetid pond. After realizing everyone he ever knew is gone, Bender notices Leela found them by telling Fry "there's someone you know." After Fry asks her to leave him alone because of how miserable and lonely he is, Leela tells Fry she understands what it is like to be alone, revealing she is the only one-eyed alien on planet Earth and does not know where her parents are from. Fry gives up and resigns himself to becoming a delivery boy, letting Leela implant his career chip, but Leela instead removes hers and declares she's quitting.

Space Pilot 3000 (Main Episode) - 85

Fry meets Professor Farnsworth.

Fry, Leela, and Bender track down Professor Farnsworth, who doesn't believe Fry is his uncle until it is confirmed on one of his machines. As the Professor is showing them around his delivery company, Planet Express, the police knock on the door, having tracked them down. They manage to get away on the Planet Express Ship in sync with the countdown to the year 3000. As they prepare to take off, the police have cannons aimed at the building, ready to fire at them should they try to take off. As both countdowns reach zero, they blast off with the fireworks celebrating the new millennium.

Fry realizes that without jobs, he, along with Leela and Bender, will be fugitives forever. Farnsworth then asks them if they would like to be his new delivery crew. Fry is ecstatic, but Leela says they don't have the proper career chips. The Professor reveals he saved the chips from his old crew in an envelope labeled "Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach". Fry asks if they will "fly through space, fighting monsters and teaching alien women to love" and Farnsworth clarifies it as "transporting cargo." Fry asks what his job will be, to which the Professor answers as "ensuring that the cargo reaches its destination." Fry then confirms if that means he is going to be a delivery boy and Farnsworth says "exactly." Overjoyed with his new job, the Planet Express ship flies off into the cosmos as the episodes ends.

Ongoing Themes[]

Fry & Leela[]

  • Fry, and Leela meet for the first time. Fry is attracted to Leela from the start, though he is initially freaked out by her having only one eye. For her part, at first, she sees Fry as more than a client and she is annoyed by Fry's fixation on her eye.
  • Leela is initially uncomfortable with physical contact with Fry.
  • After Leela falls in the cryogenic chamber, Fry takes pity on her, changing the timer from 1000 years to 5 minutes.
  • When telling her boss about Fry, Leela says "he's just a nobody who doesn't want to be a delivery boy" and would rather not force him into being a delivery boy.
  • Fry and Leela sympathize with each other's loneliness.
  • Fry helps Leela to realize her wish to quit her job.
  • Fry and Leela hold hands and look upon each other with understanding, signifying the start of their friendship.
  • Fry is apparently yet to fall in love with Leela, though he would later go on to claim he'd always loved her, as he openly mentions his hope that part of his job aboard the Planet Express Ship would be 'teaching alien women to love' (although neither Fry and Leela knew she was actually a mutant).

Alienese[]

  • At 14:46, on the wall below the "Smart Sausages" sign, it reads "Venusians go home".
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