Deferred contracts carry the market's view of price further out. They trade with less volume, wider spreads and more resting open-interest from hedgers who are not trying to catch this week's move.
Their prices are not independent: the whole strip is held together by cost-of-carry and arbitrage. A deferred month that drifts too far from the front invites a cash-and-carry-arbitrage that drags it back.
Example: on a day when front-month natural gas jumps 8% on a cold forecast, the contract two winters out may move 0.5%. Weather affects this month's storage, not the long-run cost of producing gas.
Related: front-month, forward-curve, cost-of-carry, contract-month