The episode was written by series creators and developers David X. Cohen and Matt Groening,[1] and directed by Rich Moore and Gregg Vanzo.

She joins Fry and Bender as fugitives in tracking down Farnsworth, founder of an intergalactic delivery company called Planet Express.

Executive producer David X. Cohen claims that from the very beginning the creators had plans to show a larger conspiracy behind Fry's journey to the future.

[4][5] At the end of the episode, Professor Farnsworth offers Fry, Leela and Bender the Planet Express delivery crew positions.

The professor produces the previous crew's career chips from an envelope labeled "Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach".

In Futurama, this technology makes it possible for the characters to interact with celebrities from the then-distant past, and is used by the writers to comment on the 20th and 21st centuries in a satirical manner.

[2] In the DVD commentary, Matt Groening notes that beginning any television series is difficult, but he found particular difficulty starting one that took place in the future because of the amount of setup required.

[7] In their original pitch to Fox, Groening and Cohen stated that they wanted the futuristic setting for the show to be neither "dark and drippy" like Blade Runner, nor "bland and boring" like The Jetsons.

[8] The creators gave careful consideration to the setting, and the influence of classic science fiction is evident in this episode as a series of references to—and parodies of—easily recognizable films, books and television programs.

In the earliest glimpse of the future while Fry is frozen in the cryonic chamber, time is seen passing outside the window until reaching the year 3000.

[10] In addition to the setting, part of the original concept for the show was that there would be a lot of advanced technology similar to that seen in Star Trek, but it would be constantly malfunctioning.

[8] The automatic doors at Applied Cryogenics resemble those in Star Trek: The Original Series; however, they malfunction when Fry remarks on this similarity.

[16][17] In a review by Patrick Lee in Science Fiction Weekly based on a viewing of this episode alone, Futurama was deemed not as funny as The Simpsons, particularly as "the satire is leavened with treacly sentimental bits about free will and loneliness".

[19] In 2013, IGN ranked it as the 17th best Futurama episode, writing that it "deserves some recognition for successfully introducing us to a massive universe in just a scant 22 minutes, while also making it funny".