Anyone who's even watched a single episode of Matt Groening's new Netflix show Disenchantment can tell the similarities between it and Futurama. The relationship between Elfo and Bean is pretty similar to Leela and Fry. The characters look similar, the voices are all recognisable. It's all very familiar, but it's set in some medieval fantasy world.
Now, one week after Disenchantment dropped on Netflix, fans have already developed a pretty convincing theory about the show existing in the Futurama universe. A new Nerdist video points to a brief scene in Disenchantment where Eric Andre's character, Luci, is using a crystal ball to rewind time in a specific room in the castle. For one brief moment you see Futurama's Fry, Bender, and Professor Farnsworth in a time machine from the episode "The Late Philip J. Fry," where the three of them get into a time machine that only goes forward in time. Here's the scene in question:
So why would they see Futurama characters using a tool that rewinds time? Well according to this theory, Disenchantment actually takes place in the future. Nerdist actually narrows down the time somewhere between the year 2,000 and 3,000 when we see human civilisation get destroyed and then rebuilt into medieval times. When Fry, Bender, and Professor Farnsworth are traveling forward in time, they go so far that eventually they reach the end of the universe, where it then starts over. Their trip forward in time goes through the year 2,000 and back to the 3,000s.
Yes, it's kind of a headache, but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for the crazy geniuses at Futurama.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
