Futurama: 10 Things It Did Better Than The Simpsons
9. Character Development
If you watch a season one episode of The Simpsons and shoot forward to the 29th season, the characters are pretty much the same. Homer is still a loving idiot, Bart is a rambunctious pre-teen, Lisa is smart, Marge is the caring matriarch, and Maggie hasn't uttered more than a couple words.
One of the reasons The Simpsons has been so successful is that the characters remained familiar after almost 30 years. Sure, Lisa's a vegetarian now and a few things have changed, but the family today is still the family it was in 1989.
Futurama handled character development far differently from The Simpsons. Zoidberg may still be a disgusting lobster monster from outer space, but his story evolved to tell the tale of a sensitive man who cared deeply for the people close to him.
Fry and Leela's relationship was the most developed of all the characters' interactions. Their "will they or won't they" mashup finally came to be in a series conclusion that not only offered a full lifetime of development, but the opportunity for them to go back and do it again. Compared to The Simpsons, Futurama's devotion to character development places it in a league of its own.