"Lock the doors and close the blinds -- we're going for a ride..."

I'm always a sucker for films and television shows that take place in the future.   Not the distant future -- I don't care as much about what life is like after 100,000 years. Nor does the notion of life way deep in outer space in the future -- at least not as much as it does when it's something on Earth (or nearby).

And, because of this, I'm a fan of oozing cheesiness when it comes to it. "Demolition Man" with Sylvester Stallone looks at "San Angeles" a few decades from now.  "Back to the Future II" shows Hill Valley in 2015 -- with flying cars and hover boards. "Total Recall" takes place both on Earth and on Mars -- and suspends reality enough to try to make you believed that Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an American construction worker married to Sharon Stone.  Hell, even the Jetsons have always been a guilty pleasure to me.

Mostly I like the social-anthropological commentary involved within these stories.  Especially the funny, throw-away bits. Like every restaurant in "Demolition Man's" future being a Taco Bell. Or the utilization and value of discarded trash as tools in "Waterworld" -- including a cameo by the Exxon Valdez. The overpowering use of DNA-typing in "Gattaca." And even the role of Jude Law's gigolo character and the virtual "wizard" in "A.I."

Perhaps this is why I really enjoyed "Futurama," the Matt Groening animated-series which was his follow-up to "The Simpsons." And why I'm looking forward to it's return later this year or early next year. It follows a guy named Fry who accidentally gets cryogenically frozen in the year 2000 and wakes up about 1,000 years later in "New New York." Sure -- there's a lot of travel to exotic planets and encounters with aliens and robots. But I prefer the ones which take place closer to home.

My favorite overall joke from the series.

Fry:  Do you take Visa?
Clerk:  Visa has not existed in 300 years.
Fry:  American Express?
Clerk:  600 years.
Fry:  Discover Card?
Clerk:  I'm sorry; we don't take Discover.

... which is a joke that a lot of you won't get. But trust me. It's very funny.  And a good social commentary on the Discover Card.  If not a social commentary, then at least a good joke.

(The runner-up joke, by the way, is one which was spoken in a robot fraternity house at Mars University: No, Bender, wait. We're the lamest frat on campus. Even Hillel has better parties than us. Please, you've gotta stay and teach us how to be cool!  But I like this one because (a) I'm an ex-Hillel employee; and (b) it's nice to know that Hillel continues to exist through the millennium.)

Oh -- I almost forgot -- I also enjoy seeing pictures of landmarks and skylines we know today which have been altered to fit the future. And I don't mean simply a Mad Max type car driving by the Washington Monument in Timecop.  I'm taking about a completely rusted out Washington Monument and US Capitol building in Logan's Run.  With vines overtaking everything. And full of cats.  I even like the last scene of the original Planet of the Apes" with the Statue of Liberty.  For me, the only redeeming quality of the film Bicentennial Man was the view of a double-decker Golden Gate Bridge.

There had been a few TV shows which never gained much success -- some of which never aired or only aired for a few episodes -- which  are set in the future not as a space exploration-type program, but rather tackling other issues instead. Mercy Point (starring Joe Morton) comes to mind -- a medical drama akin to ER which was set about two centuries in the future at an outpost in space. Most of the patients and medical staff were human, and they dealt with similar types of issues. The show was on UPN and lasted about three episodes.

CBS had a show called Century City set in 2020 or so -- in a law firm. They dealt with civil and criminal cases of the time -- including issues of cloning, anti-aging procedures and the like. It was also pulled off the air very quickly due to poor ratings.

And there were two shows in 2003 and 2004 which never got to air -- NYPD 2069 is similar to Demolition Man in that a cop from the present gets frozen and then works for the NYPD in the future; and Future Tense,which I know very little about except that Christopher Titus was supposed to star in it.

I'm writing this as a two-part entry. Stay tuned for my next Blog -- where I give you a review of Idiocracy and the social commentary within.