Days of Future Future (S25, E18-548)

Bart, sampling various failed sketches for "Fry's girlfriend for an episode".

Plot Summary
Homer's bad eating habits catch up to him and he dies.  At his funeral, a grieving mass becomes relieved when Professor Frink reveals he's saved Homer's memory and brain patterns, and has transferred them into a new body, essentially getting a second chance at life.  When that body dies the same day, Frink presents a second clone of Homer, and thus a cycle of Homer dying and 'reviving' over and over again starts up, a cycle that lasts 30 years.

Now 30 years in the future, Homer dies again, and in the now ho-hum ceremony Frink reveals that all of his clone bodies have been used up, and Homer is now forced to live on in a flash drive as data.  Marge quickly becomes sick of this nonsense and after an hour of dealing with Homer bopping around screens at home, she kicks Homer out to live with her deadbeat son, Bart.

With this episode essentially being a sequel or, more likely, an alternate version of Holidays of Future Past, Bart's shattered relationship with Jenda is revisited, with Bart living in the no-longer-in-use elementary school and Jenda having custody of their two kids.  Lisa is also having marital problems with Milhouse, as Lisa's charity work at the zombie shelter makes it hard for the two to see each other.  Making matters worse for Bart, Jenda is now seeing Jerry, some kind of alien, and Bart's attempt to find a new woman in life is met with self sabotage.  Milhouse tries to confront Lisa at the zombie shelter, but his racism towards zombies causes one to bite him, turning him undead.  Meanwhile, Bart sees a clinic where people can have their memories altered to help them move on from unfavorable experiences.  Bart requests to get help moving on from Jenda, and the worker there is more than happy to oblige.

From there, Bart has no trouble talking to, and having sex with, multitudes of women of various ages, races, and alien species.  The next time Bart meets with Jenda, Jenda quickly falls back in love with Bart and his newfound optimism, but when they attempt to get back together, things fall apart again quickly.  Meanwhile, Milhouse has become a zombie, but is receiving shots to cure him from it, which will take a couple of weeks to complete.  However, zombie Milhouse is more aggressive and alpha than living Milhouse, which really turns Lisa on and she faces a dilemma as to whether she should keep the brand new dead Milhouse, and return to the alive yet wimpy one.

At Moe's bar, Bart and Lisa meet up to discuss their respective problems when they learn Marge is behind them.  She tells them that once they've made their choice in life romantically they should do anything they can to stick to it.  Then she electrocutes herself so that she can join Homer in the virtual world for a brief moment before the two supposedly turn themselves off, I guess?  Resolute, Lisa decides to have Milhouse finish his cure while Bart decides to break off from Jenda again once and for all.

Suddenly, Bart wakes up, having just finished up his memory alteration, with everything he experienced past that point being a dream used to help cope with his new change (a plot point used from a Futurama episode).  Bart feels great, though, and returns home to find Homer in a new robot body with a personality upgrade, and Milhouse still a zombie because the idea of a zombie cure existed only in his dream.

Quick Review
With the oddness that is this episode, it turns out to be really boring.  Not a whole lot of material turns out to be all that funny, and the zaniness factor coating what is a triple-threat marriage episode makes for a worthless combination for humor.  Its one of the season's weaker episodes and, amazingly, the weakest flash-forward episode of the few that exist.

Final Score: 6.0

Holidays of Future Passed (S23, E09-495)

I don't think Grampa was this out of place ever again.

Plot Summary
The family just finished Thanksgiving dinner, so now its officially Christmas season.  Marge hurries everyone to take their annual Christmas photo.  Bart and Lisa find it difficult to understand why they need to do this, but Marge insists they'll understand once they have kids, which Lisa wonders if that will even happen.

A montage of Christmas photos then begin, each year for the following 30 years showing that Bart flunks out of college, Lisa 'experiments' while at college before graduating and eventually marrying Milhouse and having a kid with him, Maggie getting into electric guitar before leaving to become a popular rock singer, and Bart eventually kicked out of the house for being a bum.  The last few years see Homer and Marge, finally empty-nesters, visiting all sorts of places, but in the final photo Homer and Marge are back home holding up photos from their other kids: Milhouse and Lisa with their daughter; Maggie performing at a concert, and Bart and his ex-wife Jenda along with their two boys.

In a Christmas season 30 years from now, the elementary school becomes an apartment complex, which Bart lives in.  Jenda teleports the two boys over to Bart to spend time with him during the holiday, but Bart decides to just drop the two off at his parents' place in part because he and his kids don't get along.  Meanwhile, Lisa laments the attitude of her daughter, Zia, who spends all of her time hooking herself into the "Ultranet".  Milhouse has come down with Christmas-related allergies so Lisa decides to go to her parents' place with Zia in hopes that Marge can help the two become closer as Milhouse goes to the now Sharia Michigan to avoid his allergies.  Lastly, Maggie has become pregnant, though nobody is quite sure who the father is, and decides to go to her parents' place for Christmas.

As Bart and Lisa arrive with their respective kids, Maggie isn't able to use a teleporter in her condition, and has to go back through the lawless skies.  Homer, who has stopped drinking, spends time with Bart's boys and the three have fun.  As Zia continues to jack onto the Ultranet, Lisa asks for help from Marge, but Marge's advice to simply relax only angers Lisa further.  One night, Lisa and Bart go up to the old treehouse for a talk.  Both somewhat drunk on whine, the two decide to find a way to connect with their kids.  Lisa apologizes to Marge for her behavior and decides to adopt her passive parenting techniques for Zia.  Bart tries to spend time with his boys, but Homer has taken them elsewhere again.

Maggie is on her way, but is forced to the hospital when her contractions begin, and Marge at least is able to make it to see her younger child go into labor.  Meanwhile, Lisa can no longer be idle and decides to log onto the Ultranet herself to see what Zia is doing.  Finding Zia's personal space within, Lisa finds a small room dedicated to Zia's upstanding role models, including her mother.  Zia has always looked up to her mother and the two reconcile, though Zia has less noble intentions going on nearby.  Homer takes his grandsons to a cryogenics lab in the graveyard, where ol' Grampa has been frozen for most of these last 30 years because of an illness that hadn't been cured at the time, but now has but Homer hasn't told Grampa because this method is cheaper than the retirement home.  After waking Grampa just to be yelled at for a minute, Homer serves a message to the young boys: fathers always seem like a jerk to their sons, but when you get older you realize how much you love him.  Bart finally catches up with them, and promises to be a better father to them, and they reconcile.  Then Homer unfreezes his father again and they reconcile.

Maggie finally arrives home with her new baby girl, and they along with Homer, Marge, Grampa, Lisa, Zia, Bart and his boys take their annual Christmas photo.

Quick Review
I had missed watching this episode in its initial airing but I was aware that it was met with wonderful reviews, calling it the best the show has been in a long time.  I had worried that these reviews were glowing over the episode's emotional factors and not its humorous ones, and after watching I can say that those fears I had were realized.  Its not that funny of an episode.  Its decent, I'll give it that, but once again the "storytelling or comedy" method shows up to prevent the episode from really hitting a comedic stride.  Its the best episode of the season thus far, but that's not saying much at all.

Final Score: 7.0

Future-Drama (S16, E15-350)

Some things will never change.

Plot Summary
Bart and Lisa get into an argument, and roll into a house's basement.  The owner, Professor Frink, actually was expected Bart and Lisa (and Maggie, but lets just pretend he didn't), and displays the means in which he predicted their arrival: an astrology machine that supposedly predicts and broadcasts the future.  Before Bart or Lisa can say or do anything, Frink shows them what they'll be like eight years in the future.

Its prom night, and both Bart and Lisa are close to graduating (Lisa graduating two years early).  Lisa is also going to Yale thanks to the Monty Burns Scholarship (something Burns had to offer as punishment for successfully stealing Christmas).  Further, its learned that Homer and Marge have separated after Homer spent their life savings on an underwater home that Marge refuses to live in.  Soon, Bart and Lisa's dates arrive.  Lisa is going out with Milhouse, buffed hardcore and getting this opportunity after saving Lisa from a house fire (that he started).  Bart's date is a girl named Jenda who shares his wild streak.  After the prom, Bart and Jenda go off to go all the way, but before they do Bart attempts to propose to Jenda.  After Jenda confirms that Bart has no good plan for their future, she breaks up with Bart.

The next day, Bart talks to Homer about what happened.  Homer takes Bart to Moe's to forget his troubles, but after nearly getting intimate with an aged Mrs. Krabappel, Bart decides to get his act together.  Later, Bart talks to Lisa (who broke up with Milhouse the previous night as well), and she tells him that Bart needs to show Jenda he wants to be successful.  Bart goes out and gets a job... at the Kwik-E-Mart, where he's tasked to deliver a package to Mr. Burns.  Upon arriving, he catches Snake trying to nab a diamond, but is able to knock Snake out.  Burns offers Bart a reward for the rescue, but won't give Bart the diamond.  Instead, he offers Bart his scholarship, which would mean Lisa would no longer have it.  Bart decides to take it, believing that Jenda will come back to him if he's going to Yale.  Jenda does, and Lisa is left devastated.

Milhouse realizes this, and get quick advice from Bart that Lisa will have to settle for Milhouse now.  Bart doesn't feel right, though, and on his way back with Jenda, he notices Frink's now abandoned house.  With Jenda becoming more frustrated with Bart's unwillingness to put out, Bart goes inside the house and activates the astrology machine to see what Lisa's future with Milhouse will be like, which ends up pretty bleak.  Bart readies to get Lisa, but Jenda has enough and gives Bart an ultimatum: leave Jenda now and his future will not feature her.  Regardless, Bart goes alone to rescue Lisa from a fate featuring Milhouse.  Later, Bart gives up his scholarship, and Lisa can go to Yale again.  Back in the present, Frink reveals that Bart does find the right woman, when Bart is 83 and he dies just a minute later.  They look back into the future one more time to see that Homer and Marge are starting to patch things up (after an incident between Homer and Krusty, who was dating Marge for a bit during the episode).

Quick Review
This is the third episode that looks into a future.  Its slightly better than the last attempt - Bart to the Future - but not by much.  As usual, the key to how good these future episodes are involves how various people across town have changed over the years.  Some things were interesting to see, mostly involving the now teenage kids.  Others were a bit more cringeworthy (none moreso than Smithers who, thanks to a serum he has to take every 10 minutes, gets to yell out "I love boobies" and actually mean it), but overall I felt underwhelmed by these potential outcomes.  The plot was okay, though it wrapped things up perhaps too hastily for its own good (plus, the Season 23 episode Holidays of Future Passed pairs up Bart/Jenda and Milhouse/Lisa anyway).  Basically, what I'm saying is, I didn't enjoy this episode all that much.

Final Score: 6.4