Paula Hammond - Features Editor“In all three seasons, at some point, I had to attach a penile prosthetic to myself… Something I never dreamed I would do coming into this business.” If one quote can be used to sum up the entire spirt of a show, then this quote, from Josh Hutcherson, should pretty much tell you all you need to know about Future Man.
Anarchic, gross, and—on more than one occasion— just plain odd, Future Man won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, if you don’t find oversized genitals, mass projectile vomiting, or random sexual encounters laugh-out-loud silly, then this isn’t the show for you.
Airing on Hulu from 2017-2020, this absurd comedy from executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express, This Is The End) is a crude and clever sci-fi adventure series starring Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games), Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings) and Derek Wilson (Preacher).
Josh Futturman (Josh Hutcherson), is a world-ranked gamer, who still lives at home with his parents, Gabe (Ed Begley Jr) and Diane (Glenne Headly), and has a dead-end job as a janitor at the sexual disease research centre. His social ineptitude, low self-esteem and inability to interact with women is only matched by his unparalleled prowess at The Biotic Wars— a dystopian video game where his character, Future Man, has world top ranking. When he becomes the first and only person to beat the elusive final level, he’s visited by the game’s ‘fictional’ characters, Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Wolf (Derek Wilson), who prove to be all-too-real warriors sent back in time from a desecrated future with the task of recruiting him to save humanity from invasion from a super-race (accidentally created by a herpes vaccination).
With nods to pretty much every sci-fi film from the last 40 years, and a ‘why the hell not?’ attitude to story-telling, Future Man is gleeful geek TV, with all the stops pulled out. Think Lexx, but with less New Romantic posturing.
Future Man is very definitely NOT family viewing. But it does manage to be big, bold, and utterly irreverent television while never losing sight of its ultimate aim: to entertain. The college-boy humour may wear-thin on occasions, but there’s plenty of genuine heart to buoy you along.
The Complete Series box set includes every episode from all three seasons.
