Summary
When I saw theFuturamaseason 12 episode titles, my eye was drawn to one in particular, and it immediately made me think of my favorite episode and made me hope that it’s going to be revisited in the coming run.Futuramahas made use of almost every sci-fi trope there is, but there’s one that it has barely touched upon. Hopefully, if I’m right, an upcoming installment will rectify that issue while also giving me a blast from the past. I’ve been waiting for the show to return sinceFuturamaseason 11’s ending, and with any luck, it’ll be worth the wait.
WithFuturamaseason 12’s release datenow revealed as July 29, speculation surrounding the next run of episodes can begin in earnest. TheFuturamaseason 12 trailerreveals many exciting new locations for the Planet Express crew to visit, butthere’s nothing to stop Hulu from bringing back characters and plotsfrom the show’s storied history. I have several theories that I’ve formulated by looking at both the trailer and the episode titles, but one of my hypotheses gets me far more excited than the others.
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I Think “One Is Silicon And The Other Gold” Is A reference to “The Farnsworth Parabox”
The golden Bender from Futurama season 5 could be coming back
Futuramaseason 12, episode 5, “One is Silicon and the Other Gold,” may seem like a strangely encoded title to some fans of the show, but it immediately brought to mind my favorite episode. The title is a play on a line of dialogue fromFuturamaseason 5, episode 10, “The Farnsworth Parabox.” The multiverse episode has the main members of theFuturamacastmeeting various versions of themselves, but spending more time in one alternate reality than others. Whenthe show’s main Bender bids farewell to his golden counterpart, the duo share a poetic farewell.
“It’s like I always say: make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.”
The delivery is hilariously earnest considering the character(s) uttering their emotional goodbye(s), and it always stuck in my mind. While the line is a reference to an old folk song adapted from a 19th-century Welsh poet named Joseph Parry,Futuramaseason 12 could be eating its own tail with a nod to its past. If so, the"One is Silicon and the Other Gold" could mean a return to the multiverse, or at the very least, a comeback from the golden Bender from “The Farnsworth Parabox.”
Futurama’s numbering system for its seasons and episodes can be interpreted in different ways. This article uses the system on Hulu.
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The decision to drop “silver” from the title and replace it with “silicon” makes me think that something will happen to Bender to account for the word being swapped out. One of my most salient theories is thatBender will become an organic, silicon-based lifeformrather than a robot. If so, it weirdly wouldn’t be the first timeFuturamahas transformed Bender into a living being.Futuramaseason 4, episode 3, “Anthology of Interest, Part II,” included a short story called “I, Meatbag,” that showed what would happen if Bender became human.
Silicon-based life may seem a bit too complex to include in an animated sitcom, but theFuturamawriters often base their stories on real-life scientific concepts.
Interestingly, the events of “I, Meatbag” and the episode at large aren’t technically canon. The characters merely watch Bender’s hypothetical human existence on Professor Farnsworth’s “What-If Machine.” So, if Bender were to transform into a silicon-based lifeform, it could have a greater impact on the largerFuturamauniverse. That being said,the What-If Machine is made of gold. Therefore, my theory about “One is Silicon and the Other Gold” being about Bender’s transformation could also tie into Farnsworth’s invention.
Why Futurama Revisiting Its Multiverse Is A Great Idea
Alternate realities are currently being used in several movies and TV shows
I loveFuturama’s sense of humor, and I love multiverse stories, so “The Farnsworth Parabox” is the perfect combination for me. In addition, the show has revisited other sci-fi tropes like time travel, robots, and space travel time and time again, and yet the multiverse has been used incredibly sparingly. So,addressing the multiverse concept inFuturamawould be a brilliant way to honor the show’s historywhile also essentially keeping things fresh.
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There’s also the matter of multiverse stories being very popular at the moment. As well as the MCU being in the middle of a huge multiverse saga, other standalone stories like Apple TV+‘sDark Mattermake full use of traveling between different versions of the same worldas the narrative unfolds. So, in a way, it could be argued that “The Farnsworth Parabox” was ahead of its time. That being said, multiverse stories predate the episode by a long way, but that doesn’t meanFuturamaseason 12 shouldn’t embrace the trope once again.
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Beauty and the Bug
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One is Silicon and the Other Gold
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Attack of the Clothes
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Futurama
Cast
Futurama is an animated science fiction series that follows Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from late-20th-century New York City. He is accidentally cryogenically frozen for a thousand years and becomes an employee at Planet Express, a delivery service in the retro-futuristic 31st century.
