Turanga Leela, known simply as
Leela, is a main character from the
animated television series
Futurama. Leela is
ship captain,
pilot, and head of all
aviation services on board the
Planet Express Ship. Throughout the series, she has an on-again, off-again relationship with
Philip J. Fry, the central character in the series. The character, voiced by
Katey Sagal, is named after the
Turangalîla-Symphonie by
Olivier Messiaen. She is one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display
competence and the ability to command, and routinely saves the rest of the cast from disaster, but suffers extreme
self-doubt because she has only one eye and grew up as a bullied
orphan. She first believes herself an
alien but later is revealed to be the least-mutated
sewer mutant in the history of 31st-century Earth. Her family (particularly her parents'
accent and "cast-off" status) parodies aspects of
pollution and undesirability associated with industrial
New Jersey when compared with
New York City.