Season 1

Production Season 1 was the first season of Futurama during the original run. It consisted of 13 episodes, making it the shortest production season so far. It is also the only season to be aired exclusively before the year 2000.

Broadcast wise, the first 9 episodes are considered part of broadcast season 1, while the remaining episodes of the production season are considered part of broadcast season 2, along with episodes from season 2.

There are numerous references to Star Wars in this season listed here.

Plot development
Production season 1 deals with perhaps the most important plot development in entirety of Futurama, yet it only takes place during the cold opening of Space Pilot 3000. Philip J. Fry being frozen and waking up a thousand years later in 2999 sets the setting for the entire show.

Fry meets the people who are to become his closest friends, even if their friendship are largely complicated, Turanga Leela and Bender Bending Rodríguez. Luckily, he has a distant relative in the future, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, who owns a package delivery company, Planet Express. He gets a job there along with his newly found friends. And the setting for the rest of the show is placed.

In the following episode, we meet the rest of the regular cast, Amy Wong, Dr. John A. Zoidberg and Hermes Conrad.

Leela makes the mistake of sleeping with the famed captain Zapp Brannigan, but on a cruise on the Titanic, Amy manages to start a communication with Kif Kroker, something season 3 would later deal with. In addition to that, season 3 also picks up on Bender's dreams.