Disclaimer: I didn't cancel Futurama.

At a chintzy singles bar in New New York, a slender, three-eyed alien with smooth black hair gazed wistfully into the distance while nursing a Löbrau. Pop music from the 2980's played over the speakers. Shortly a slim, muscular, blond man stepped up to her, grinning with eagerness. "Hey there, gorgeous," he said in a silky tone. "Better call Charlie, he's missing an angel."

"You don't want to have sex with me," said the alien woman flatly.

"Not until I've properly introduced myself, anyway," said the man, stroking her shoulder. "My name's Beau Hunter."

"It's nice to meet you, Beau," said the woman with a hint of a smile, "but trust me, you don't want to have sex with me."

"You're right, I don't," said Hunter as he pulled himself a bit closer. "Not right here and right now, that is."

The alien woman sighed. "All right," she said in defeat. "We'll go to your place."

In the dim light of Beau Hunter's penthouse, the suave seducer made an unpleasant discovery. "Hey, those are fake! You're a man!"

"Wrong again," said the raven-haired alien with glee.

"What the…"

"We will return to Androgyny and the City after a message from our sponsor, Mom's Friendly Robot Company," droned the announcer.

It was a Friday night. Fry and Bender, not wanting to spend the evening alone, had decided to relax in front of the TV together. They barely noticed the sun sinking below New New York's concrete horizon, or the fiery comet that was hurtling directly toward the recently rebuilt Nouvelle Montreal.

"This sucks," Fry remarked out of the blue.

"Yeah," his robot buddy concurred. "If it weren't for All My Circuits, I'd stop watching Fox altogether. I mean, Switching Bodies with Celebrities? That is so totally a copy."

"No, it's not that," said Fry. "It sucks that TV hasn't changed at all after a thousand years of suspended animation. Here we are staring at a tiny little screen, when we could be inside the set, interacting with artificially intelligent characters."

"Intelligent characters?" said Bender incredulously. "You're watching the wrong network, pal." Picking up the remote control with his three corrugated fingers, he switched the channel to PBS. "Here's something you can always count on to deliver quality—public television."

"Hello, I'm Simon Cowell's head," stated the show's disembodied host. "Welcome to Siegfried Idol, where you, the audience, will choose the next great opera star."

"Oh, man, I hate opera," Fry grumbled. "There's never any sex or violence."

As Bender changed the station again, the automatic door slid open, allowing Leela to enter. "Hi, guys," she greeted them. "You're not watching Androgyny and the City, are you?"

"No way," Fry assured her. "That's a chick show."

"I thought it was a guy show," said Leela.

On the screen, Morbo and Linda reported the latest world news. "Only two Ewoks survived—a male and a female," said Morbo in his gruff alien voice. "They were promptly sterilized. Over to you, Linda."

"This just in," said the blond newswoman. "The president of the world, Richard Nixon's head, has signed into law the much-debated Kennedy-Kennedy Act. The bill's most controversial provisions include a ten percent increase in funding for water drilling on Mars, a decree requiring all mutants to live in the sewers, and a program intended to…"

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Leela, her eye widening in horror.

"Quiet, Leela!" said Fry sharply. "I think she just said something about mutants. It may be important."

To be continued