The Simpsons’ “Days of Future Future”: still a sci-fi misfire 12 years on

“Days of Future Future,” the Season 25 Simpsons episode that aired on April 13, 2014, ended up as one of the show’s most argued-over future-set stories. It throws a lot at you: Homer Simpson dies and comes back as a series of flawed clones, Lisa Simpson gets stuck with zombie Milhouse Van Houten after a cosmetic procedure goes horribly wrong, and Bart Simpson is left in a busted future with Jenda and their child. For plenty of fans and critics, that whole pileup felt more exhausting than inventive, with the dark comedy, sci-fi parody, and family drama all pulling in different directions at once.

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Then the episode reveals that much of it was only a simulation inside Bart Simpson’s mind, which takes a lot of the air out of it. Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club called it “a pile of leftover Futurama jokes,” and when you put it next to “Lisa’s Wedding” or “Holidays of Future Passed,” it’s pretty easy to see why so many viewers felt the problem wasn’t the weird science fiction itself. The story just never comes together.

If you’re looking for Simpsons sci-fi with some real emotional grounding, this probably isn’t one to revisit. Looking back, the show seems to have taken the hint and saved its wilder ideas for self-contained episodes or Treehouse of Horror, never going back to this timeline, while most of the talk about its legacy stayed confined to English-language criticism.

You can watch it on Disney+.

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