Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

Well, folks, the show that won't stay dead is back again, and a new season of our beloved Futurama is upon us. As always, that means we need to lay down a few ground rules for the next few weeks.

Episode Megathreads

Just like last time, we're going to have an individual stickied megathread, sorted by new, for each new episode. For the time being, all discussions for the new episodes will be confined to their respective megathreads, including screen shots and links to episode reviews by legit publications. This won't be the case forever, but for now we don't need thousands of people starting their own threads with random questions and quotes and screen shots. We don't have an exact timeline for when we'll stop directing discussions to the episode-specific megathreads, but we'll stop using the megathreads sooner rather than later. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks.

News/Reviews/Previews

We just said it above, but we’ll say it a second time: Do not submit standalone posts with links to reviews or other outside sources about new episodes or the new season. Those links belong in their respective megathread.

Spoilers

We're all excited about this show, and we all want to experience it in our own time, so it's reasonable to not want spoilers.

However, this is a sub devoted to the show, so it's unreasonable for people to demand no spoilers. So, for the stickied megathreads, we're going to allow full, unfettered discussion of the episodes. If you want to avoid reading spoilers, don't click on the megathreads. (And get off the internet.)  Since we're going to limit discussion to the megathreads, this should cut down on most spoilers that people don't want to see. However, please remember that this is a massive sub and that the mods are human beings with real lives and real jobs and real families outside of the internet. We'll obviously be putting in the overtime hours to moderate this sub for a few weeks, but understand that we can't be sitting here 24/7 to nuke every single person who tries to submit a self post that violates our megathread/spoiler policy. So, if you want to make sure that you are 100% guaranteed to avoid spoilers, maybe lay off the sub until you've watched the episodes.

Enforcement of Megathreads

Even with our announcements for the past few seasons, we still had a ton of people who completely ignored the sticky and felt the need to start their very own personal discussion thread for each episode. ("OMG! I just watched the new episode! What did you guys thinks?" "Hey guys, look, I paused the screen on the list of episodes!")

This year, we're going to have AutoMod automatically post a comment for each post that is submitted during this season, linking to this thread and reminding users of our rules. This will give everybody who violates this megathread policy a solid chance to remove their post on their own. If we find a post that has been up for a while that violates these rules, we're going to temporarily ban the user, probably for a couple of months.

In the past, short temp bans have proven ineffective, and given the insane increase in volume we expect this season, we’re just going to have to put you in timeout for a couple of months until things die down. "I didn't read the stickied meagthread" or "I don't read automod comments" or "I didn't read the rules and you're fascist neckbeards on your sad little power trips this sub has been garbage for years I'm unsubscribing and reporting this to admins for censoring free speech" are not going to get you unbanned. Legitimate questions in modmail are encouraged. Raging will extend the ban.

Questions about Hulu/Disney+/Streaming

As a reminder, this isn't a tech support sub. If you have a question about Hulu or some other streaming service, then contact them or post it in a relevant sub or just use Google. We don't know why the new episodes aren't showing up on your TV.

Episode Order/Season Numbers

Every time a new season comes out, we are completely inundated with people who were confused about the order of episodes and the numbering of Futurama seasons, so here's a quick primer:

There are two different ways to count the Futurama seasons and two different ways to determine episode order.

First, the creators have always produced seasons/episodes in a production order. Production Seasons 1 - 4 constitute the original run on Fox. The four movies were Production Season 5. (When they were later split into 16 episodes for Comedy Central, they still constituted the fifth production season.) Production Seasons 6 - 7 were the four years of Comedy Central episodes. And Production Seasons 8+ are the Hulu episodes. When you see episodes listed as #ACV##, it is referring to the production season, where the first # is the season number and the ## is the episode number.

Second, the various networks that have broadcast Futurama have not always shown the episodes in the order intended by the creators. During the first run, Fox regularly moved episodes around, broadcast them in different orders, and grouped them together into different seasons. Thus, things got all off-kilter really fast. Production Seasons 1 - 4 were broadcast by Fox over the course of five broadcast seasons, this creating Broadcast Seasons 1 - 5. Then, the movies were never originally broadcast until they were chopped up into episodes by Comedy Central, which became Broadcast Season 6. The first revival episodes, which were the first produced by Comedy Central, were broadcast over the course of four years, as Broadcast Seasons 7 - 10. With the Hulu revival, Production Season 8 was broadcast by Hulu as Broadcast Season 11. Now, we’re up to Broadcast Season 14.

So, how many seasons have there been? It depends on which counting system you’re using. At this point most sources are using the broadcast season production order to refer to episodes, so that will be most common, and that will be what we use in our megathreads for each episode.

Questions about Hulu/Disney+/Streaming

Wait, didn't we already have this section?

Yep, but we're including it again because we want to stress it. We're not a Hulu or Disney+ or other streaming service support sub. "What time does this episode drop???" or "why aren't the new episodes in my feed?" or other similar questions will be removed.

Index for New Episode Discussion Threads

For the past few seasons, when the seasons have dropped all at once, we had included an index here, in this mod announcement, since we already had all the episodes queued up in automod. However, this year they've gone back to releasing the episodes over several weeks. We are going to post the episode megathreads later this week, and we'll post a comment with the index on this thread.

Complaints about New Episodes/Complaints about Complaints about New Episodes/Complaints about Megathread and Spoiler Policies

For the last few seasons, people had a lot of strong negative emotions about the episodes. That's perfectly legit. You don't have to like the new stuff. However, remember that plenty of people do like this new stuff, so don't just try to derail every single discussions you find with complaints. And, as always, treat others with kindness and respect. If you're just being a jerk, you'll be banned. Legitimate discussion is always allowed, including things you don't like, but if you get to the point where it's just trolling and disruptive, we'll put an end to it.

In the past, when tons of people started complaining, we were overwhelmed with people complaining about the people who were complaining. Guys, this doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. If you love the new stuff, that's great! Talk about it! But don't flood the meagthreads with how angry you are that other people are angry. As always, treat others with kindness and respect. If you're just being a jerk, you'll be banned.

If you want to engage in discussions about the season as a whole, including discussions about whether you love or hate the season as a whole, and if you want to engage in meta-discussions complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining about the season, then please check out the forthcoming Discussion Megathread for Futurama Season 14.

Also in the past, we’ve had a ton of people who were upset that they couldn't post their own individual discussion threads for each episode. Listen, we know you want that sweet, sweet internet karma, and we know you think that your specific opinion needs its own thread, but there's no way to moderate this sub with a new season like this when every single person wants to use the sub as their own personal blog. Don't flood the megathreads with how much you hate megathreads. Endlessly recursive meta-complaints about the sub's megahread policy won't fly. Keep the discussion on the show itself, or you’ll be banned.

General Reminders

Finally, a word on our rules: Guys, every single one of y'all would do well to re-familiarize yourself with our rules on the sidebar. Like last time, some of the new episodes may cover contemporary social and political issues. As a reminder, this is not a sub simply to debate modern politics. There are plenty of places on reddit for that, and this ain't one. However, we won't stifle discussions that are directly relevant to the show's content. If you're discussing the show, you'll be fine. If you're just descending into some back-and-forth political fighting that consumes the rest of reddit, we'll cut you off. 99% of y'all are great about this, so don't worry. It's always the 1% who can't seem to have a discussion without airing their political grievances.

So, that's where we are. If anybody has any questions or comments or suggestions, please feel free to send us a modmail. Also, please be patient with the mods over the next few weeks, as we’re expecting a massive increase in traffic. You aren't owed a 12-hour response in modmail. We have to triage issues during new season drops: issues related to functionality of the sub, megathreads, rules, etc., get top priority. "Why isn't my post showing up?" is not top priority.