'Futurama' finale airs on Comedy Central

Futuristic delivery guy Philip J. Fry (voice of Billy West) finally gets his happy ending with the lovely Leela (voice of Katey Sagal), albeit with dire consequences for the rest of the universe, as "Futurama" ends its long run tonight at 10 on Comedy Central.

"We wanted to push the Fry and Leela relationship to its conclusion," explains executive producer David X. Cohen, who co-created "Futurama" with Matt Groening of "The Simpsons." "If this really is our last episode, we wanted to have a payoff for this story that has been bubbling on and off for the last 13 years. We decided to give fans Fry and Leela's wedding, although, of course, in a twisted, sci-fi way."

If Cohen sounds a little uncertain whether his show is really ending, you have to cut the guy some slack. He's been here before, but this animated series -- which premiered on Fox back in 1999, then found new life via direct-to-DVD movies before eventually landing at its most recent home on Comedy Central in 2009 -- has come back from the brink before.

"It's never that good a sign if you've gotten really good at writing series finales," Cohen says, laughing. "That means something has gone wrong, and this is literally the fourth episode that we have written with the expectation that it was going to be our series finale. We probably have the most experience at writing series finales as any show."