Matt Groening's Futurama is one of the most absurd and goofy animated shows on television, with the futuristic setting and comic sensibilities creating a world where almost anything can -- and will -- happen. But throughout the its seven-year run, it was the human relationships that grounded the show, like how a simple friendship grew into a romance.
One of Futurama's best storylines involved Fry and Leela's evolving relationship. Although hints of a romance were always there, the pair had to choose to become the kind of people they wanted to be in a relationship with first.
Leela was one of the very first people Fry met when he awoke from a thousand years of cryogenic slumber in the show's pilot, "Space Pilot 3000." At the time, Leela was working with the cryogenic company, helping give new citizens their career chips and ensuring they fit into the roles society has assigned them. Fry's reluctance to become another delivery boy despite his chance at a whole new life surprisingly spoke to Leela, who eventually decided she wanted to make her own choices in life as well. For the first two seasons of the show, both characters had their own love interests and became close friends -- with occasional hints that they may harbor some romantic feelings for each other, even coming close to kissing in Season 1's "A Flight To Remember" and Season 2's "Xmas Story."
After Fry's intelligence and physical attributes were enhanced by a race of worms taking residence in his body in Season 3's "Parasites Lost," Fry gained the confidence to profess his feelings to Leela, revealing that this new-found clarity had convinced him he'd been in love with her since he arrived in the future. Although Leela was interested in this capable and confident version of Fry, he feared she was choosing to be with him because of the worms and nothing else, leading him to eject the worms from his body. It was a vital distinction that Leela choose to be with him and not an idealized version of him, reflecting the importance of free will in their possible future. Unfortunately, the still immature and often crude regular version of Fry didn't impress Leela nearly as much.
Fry spent the rest of Season 3 and much of Season 4 trying to prove himself to Leela. He was occasionally successful, such as when he helped reunite her with her parents. Leela admitted that she cared for him but continued to doubt his longevity as a partner. She got the chance to see the full extent of his potential when he gained the Robot Devil's hands in Season 4's "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings." The show's fifth season -- which was originally released direct-to-video -- saw Fry and Leela find romance with others while trying to remain just friends. But the man Leela almost married, Lars, turned out to be an older time-duplicate of Fry and served as a reminder of how Fry could continue to grow.
By the end of that season, Fry and Leela decided that if they were going to venture into a wormhole and try to remain free, they wanted to do it together. The following seasons casually saw the pair establish a romance, with many episodes diving into the trials, tribulations and triumphs of their time together. Throughout it, Fry continued to mature, slowly becoming the kind of person Leela wanted to be with without ever entirely losing touch with who he really was.
It all culminated in the series finale, "Meanwhile." After trying to propose to Leela, Fry inadvertently is caught in a time-loop of constantly dying. Leela manages to save him but, in the process, breaks the time-continuum and freezes the rest of the universe around them. With the entire world at their disposal, Fry and Leela choose to spend their lives together. They stage a small wedding and roam the world hand in hand, growing old together and exploring the planet. And when Professor Farnsworth figures out how to fix everything at the cost of erasing their time together in this life, Fry and Leela choose to live their romance again.
It's an incredibly sweet romance that blossomed naturally over the course of the show. Leela's heart was not won with just grand gestures, but Fry's willingness to grow as a person and become someone Leela could see as more than a friend. It also allowed Leela the chance to open up and actually be with someone, something the character often wished for in earlier seasons. Overall, Fry and Leela's romance gave the sci-fi comedy a genuine, heartfelt story that was the perfect grounding element for Futurama.