Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Future Man (Season 3)


I recently received news that an app I like, Job Spotter, is shutting down, likely permanently.  It was the one app that I had made the most money with.  I was even looking forward to using it once we could all go back out again.  Alas, it’s not to be.  I’ll get over it, of course.  There will be other apps I can use to get a little extra money.  I’ve even had this happen when Epinions shut down.

It’s sort of the same with finding out that a TV show you like won’t be coming back.  You feel that the show could have gone on for years.  Sometimes, it’s the right call.  It’s better to go out on top,

When I heard that this would be the last season of Future Man, it wasn’t that much of a shock.  Each season, I had to wonder what they’d be doing for the next set of episodes.  The show is known for having some wild humor.

The first season dealt with saving the future of humanity from biotics.  Josh Futturman became the savior of humanity by being the first to beat a video game.  Wolf and Tiger came from the future to enlist him, which he reluctantly agreed to.

In the second season, it became clear that the problems were a bit bigger.  Biotics still existed.  It was a whole new timeline, yet little had changed.  It was eventually discovered that messing with time travel that many times created a lot of timelines with a lot of problems.

The third season picks up where the second season left off.  Josh, Tiger and Wolf are still held prisoner by Susan in the year 3491.  For crimes against time, they’re sentenced to the DieCathalon, where they’ll fight all sorts of creatures.  Josh actually manages to escape, leading the trio on a whole new adventure.

The third season isn’t as reliant on cultural references as the first two seasons.  It’s also shorter.  (There are 8 episodes instead of 13.)  There are really three main acts.  First is Josh leading the escape from the future.  The second is the trio running through time and being caught for introducing an anachronism.  Finally, Susan offers them freedom in exchange for leading him to Haven.

Haven is what it all comes down to.  It’s a place outside of time and space where many historical figures and celebrities exist.  Gandhi and Jesus are there, as well as Picasso and Marilyn Monroe.  To make matters worse, time is collapsing in on itself.  If something isn’t done, all timelines will be sucked into Haven.

This puts the trio on the offensive rather than the defensive.  The show manages to pull this off without really changing the dynamic of the characters.  It’s exactly the kind of ending that the show deserves.  Everything is resolved.  We even get to see what happens to them.

I suppose a fourth season or a spinoff series is possible.  While the vortex responsible for Haven and time travel was destroyed, there’s no reason it couldn’t be recreated.  We could also have a show with just Wolf or Josh, showing their exploits after the show ended.  Susan was even shown trying to drive a bus.  We could have something with Susan and his family roaming the country.  (Susan is a man’s name in the far future.)

Then again, maybe it’s best to leave it alone.  The show is great as is.  There’s plenty of crude humor to go around without being offensive.  Each character comes to a level of awareness necessary to complete their respective story arc.  I think to have a fourth season of Future Man would be a bad call.  It would be better to do something with all or mostly new characters, even if it’s set in the same reality.

That being said, the show’s not going to be for everyone.  By this point, if you’ve seen the first two seasons, you probably have already finished the third season.  If you haven’t seen the first two seasons, what are you waiting for?





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