Netflix Retrospective - ReBoot: The Guardian Code Season 1 Episodes 1-3

Today, I’m breaking all the rules because we’re looking at ReBoot: The Guardian Code

ReBoot was a series that ran from 1994-2001, it was… primitive, it was early days for CGI and this was on a television budget so it doesn’t look very good by modern standards. None the less, running for 4 seasons is commendable.

And, what are the odds, ReBoot, got a reboot, but whilst the original was about coding in video games, this one would expand on that and make it about the internet. And also include Live Action segments in the vein of Power Rangers. What could possibly go wrong?

Activation

We open with a guy waking up in an abandoned warehouse. This is the sourcerer, and yes, that’s how they spell it. Can’t even spell the word sorcerer (note: this was true when I first watched it, and has since been corrected, enjoy a season's worth of jokes about it) we’re off to a great start here. This villain has a particular quirk. He talks to himself, like all the f*cking time, giving us exposition about his plans. Could imply he’s coo-coo crazy-pants or just be a lazy way of explaining his intentions to the audience.

We see flashes of our protagonists as he gives off is generic exposition. Everyone’s vulnerable because of the internet and he’s going to exploit that. Next we’re introduced to Austin Carter, he’s snowboarding on his bed, you know, as you do… He has a mouse who he talks to. We cut to SELFIE…

We cut to a girl named Tamra, yes, I could argue that’s a real name but I suspect it’s just lazy spelling again. She’s actually vlogging about her first day at a new school, you know, as you do… Also, lest we forget, this school is ‘tech progressive’ which must mean it has a budget of more than shoestrings. Next up we have basket-baller Trey Davies, showing off that tech progressive gym that has… scoreboards next to each basketball hoop. Wow...

Finally, we meet Parker, he’s playing a mobile game called Cyber Guardians and has a high score, I think. Squeeing fangirl approaches Tamra and SELFIE!

  

Austin and Parker meet up and whilst Parker is nerding out, you know because he’s the NERD, Austin is nervous because his father taught at this school, and with that comes expectations. Meanwhile, back with the Sourpuss, he’s busy creating a cyberspace rift or something. We cut to the mainframe of the UK Electrical Power Grid Hub, you know, that place, the place definitely exists and isn't entirely made up, the rift opens, and begins unleashing ‘cyber locusts’ that begin eradicating its defences. His locusts are what’s known as ‘Dark Code’ because virus or malware just aren’t hip enough terms for this show.

A digital thing detects the dark code and decides to activate the ReBoot programme, bringing the ‘next generation guardians’ in. Austin and Parker both get texts saying their home room has been changed to ‘room 0’ also, they’re not in school uniform, and guessing they’re not in college, that’s generally mandatory. (I assumed they were in the UK because why else would the Sorcerer be targeting a power grid, although later episodes contradict this so WHAT PLACE IS THIS?)

They make it to the basement, where they meet up with Trey and Tamra who have received the same message. They can’t find the room, and the location on the map is just a solid wall. Austin soon finds he can walk through it, roll credits. All 3 seconds of them. The others follow through the wall into a boiler room with flashy screens.

It soon transpires that they’re all part of the same team in the cyber guardian game. Austin is Vector, Parker is Googz, Trey is D-Frag and Tamra is Enigma. Parker touches a thing and a 30 minute timer begins. Their avatars appear above some sort of gateway, they step onto some conveniently lit up pads and are teleported into the CGI-verse.

They are approached by the hologram lady from before. Her name is name is Aya, I mean Aya, I mean Aya, I mean Vera. They’re taken to a ship called the Codec and begin flying toward the power plant mainframe. The Sourpuss monologues to himself for no reason whatsoever. He plans to bring everyone to the Dark Ages because… He presses a button and lights go out everywhere.

Cue ad break logo that isn’t necessary on NETFLIX, could’ve cut that out, is all I’m saying. The sourpuss congratulates himself, and naturally it’s entirely monotone, just like the rest of his performance. The Guardians arrive and are tasked with destroying the locusts. Austin makes a lucky guess that calling out their toy accessories, I mean weapons, makes them appear in their hands.

Turns out the video game was their phase one training and I swear if I see another story where playing games or sports turns out to be training for a f*cking war I’m going to throw Orson Scott Card through a window, or maybe just his book, don’t think I’ll ever meet him. Vera explains this but her voice acting is just weird. It’s not so much monotone as it seems to change inflection with every other word.

Anyway, long story short, this is real, and they can die. This show has a weird understanding of the internet. Googz works out something incredibly obvious, maybe it’s best to plug the rift. They do so, annoying the Sourpuss and of course Vector has a f*cking hoverboard. He uses it to somehow lure all the locusts to one place so D-Frag can super-stomp them. They have a very brief death fake-out with Vector and the sourpuss is… angry? I’m gonna go with angry

Mission complete, the hologram sends the 4 back to the real world. This feels like we’re at the end, but there’s still 5 minutes left of the episode. Austin suspects that should keep this quiet, and Tamra doesn’t think they’d be believed anyway. They depart for their respective classes as the countdown finishes and a hand touches the glass from the inside of a pod. Ad break

The power is back online in the UK and the Sourpuss is showing his anger by throwing sh*t, then he laughs. Austin is told to stand and it’s revealed that his father is believed dead. The teacher expects a lot and asks him what an algorithm is. His blank vacant expression is interrupted by the Vera now inhabiting a human body, but still no human inflections. She hacks herself onto the class list and… that’s the end of this episode.

This is fairly standard stuff for an opening. It introduces us to the characters, gives us some hints of their personal arcs, establishes the setting, a few of the world-building rules are established and the overarching conflict is there. The problems are about how the internet world is set up, and just general cliché and aggravating dialogue.

Rating 6/10

Resurrection

We open with the sourpuss accessing some green numbers in a mainframe database that just happens to be the code for megabyte, one of the old reboot villains and good grief does he look silly,

even after Sourpuss’ ‘upgrades.’

Apparently, going to school with a living computer who knows everything is exhausting… The things this show will teach me. The Guardians head to find Vera and find that she’s created a new outfit based on current fashion trends… it looks hideous. So, quick aside, why did Vera enrol herself in the school? She has a secret headquarters that’s well hidden enough that no-one’s found it. She clearly is not interested in the day to day goings on of High School, so… why bother?

And now she waffles on about why they were selected. I’m going to skip this because it’s terrible dialogue and I prefer that their actions speak for themselves. Also, activated earlier than anticipated? When did you anticipate activating them? It’s not like they stay at this school forever, or that moving them to a new home-room would be easy and not totally suspicious after their first day.

It’s not like the traits are beyond surface level anyway. But I guess I have to talk about Austin aka Vector and his complete reluctance to pursue a leadership role. He leaves, Parker tries to talk him back but he doesn’t really understand the core values of leadership. I’ll get back to this, maybe.

Back with the Sourpuss, he mumbles on about him not being done and has digitally enhanced Megabyte so he can now blast lightning. Roll credits. Megabyte is in the middle of a city, but is transported out by the sourpuss, who can now talk to Megabyte through the power of inter-dimensional Skype… THIS SHOW IS SO DUMB! The Sourpuss shows that he can delete Megabyte at any time thanks to some code he put in.

After more dumb and cliché dialogue, Austin returns home to his mother asking how his first day was. This is still the same day? You didn’t need to do that, it’s not like there’s any heavy arc connection or anything. There’s apparently an exchange student coming to stay with them. So, you remember the cyber patch they installed in the last episode? Well, Megabyte has been sent to remove it. Megabyte is an upgraded relic, you couldn’t have created some other minion. Of course not, then it wouldn’t betray you.

Vera notices and sends out an alert to the guardians which means Trey is missing practice, Tamra manages to brush off her stalker and Parker drops his phone in the lav.

...

Vera informs the 3 of them of the situation and despite some reservations from Parker regarding Austin’s absence, they head in. So, the 3 guardians enter and are quickly attacked by Megabyte. AD BREAK. Austin goes to is father’s grave and confesses all the stuff we’ve heard. He’s scared of losing anyone else, and that’s understandable to an extent. Written on the gravestone is “do what is right and you will do no wrong” I feel like that’s oversimplifying matters and taken to heart could go in catastrophic directions.

OK, as I’m bored as hell by the generic fight banter as Megabyte defeats the guardians and destroys the patch, unleashing the cyber-locusts. The Sourpuss wants to shut down electrical power for some reason. Austin arrives and gets an update from Vera. He has an idea to modify his weapon to be more effective but whilst that upgrade is happening, he won’t be able to use it. Austin enters to, would you guess, more generic fight banter.

Megabyte is told to stop the Guardians and uses his powers to make a cyber-locust grow somehow and… Austin decides to engage Megabyte on his flying surf-board, essentially stalling him whilst the upgrade uploads. He uses a time slow-down ability that he has now to buy the last few seconds, and his upgraded gun instantly seals the rift and destroys the locusts. That was too easy, after everything. Googz was cowering beneath his shield for most of the fight.

Vector talks about what he’d do for his friends, something that would hold more weight if he hadn’t met 2 of them this morning in canon. Spoken like a true leader. NO! Showing up at the last minute with a dues ex-machina to solve the problem in seconds is not leadership. I feel like this arc needs more time to develop. Megabyte of course survived the thing and of course says ‘this is not over’ because we need to cover ever cliché in the book.

Austin returns home with Parker, with Parker somewhat weirdly in love with Vera and it turns out Vera is living with Austin now thanks to a ‘last-minute change.’ I feel like Vera saying she’d be comfortable in the bathroom should’ve raised some red flags with the mother. So a few more clichés finish us off.

This episode was… ugh

Rating 3/10

Fortress Command

We open with Parker examining the abilities of the various guardians, which they have recordings of now… forgot to establish that at any point. His point is that the others have offensive capabilities whilst Googz… doesn’t. Vera says there are no upgrades until they reach ‘the next proficiency level’ ok, and bear in mind this entire point is going to be undermined at the end anyway, this is f*cking bullsh*t.

In a game, it makes sense to reward progression with upgrades to make the game more interesting but they’re no longer playing a game, they’re protecting the safety of the internet or something. If Vera has the means to make that job easier, then she should do that, progression be damned!

Also, because we need a quirky subplot for the episode, Austin’s mom has called a family game night. I’ll take the one with crime syndicates and murder or the one with shrink rays… Vera is behaving obsessively with regards to it, so Austin begs for some support, but gets none. Parker’s excuse is one Austin should be able to see right through, given their prior friendship but no. Parker is hacking into Googz’s avatar and adding weapons to it.

He plans to test them on a game called Fortress command, a game filled with ‘harmless sentinels’ unfortunately megabyte, by unfortunate co-incidence, gets there first, and this game is gonna be pulled from the market fast, when they realise it’s being infected. He heads to the fortress and begins transforming the ‘harmless sentinels’ into his own army, roll credits.

Googz arrives but his weapon ends up draining a lot of his power, something Vera remarks upon during game night. She can’t communicate with him outside of the hub room, despite the fact her telling his power level must be some form of communication. The mother gets a text saying she’s needed in the hospital, and Game Night is abruptly cancelled.

Of course that was Vera’s doing so they can investigate what Googz is up to, and they show that his actions are having consequences in the real world. Something Ralph breaks the Internet does a lot better. Megabyte enters the fortress and begins corrupting It with his own code, including the sentinels.

Now there’s a thing called digital acid that megabyte throws a sentinel into… This is f*cking stupid! And then a staff comes out of the acid because… stupid stupid stupid. Austin and Vera enter and contact Googz, saying him going in without Vera’s authorisation violates ‘guardian rule #7’ wait, what? There were rules, what rules?

Power down to 10% thanks to that weapon, he prepares to retreat but he’s spotted by Megabyte and Megabyte sees his as a vulnerable target. He’s quickly captured as Austin goes in as Vector to help. The fortress now also has some defences that blocks Vector’s pursuit. Googz’s gun seems to have little effect and he’s thrown in the dungeon, with his communications cut off, he soon passes out.

So about the power level thing, it turns out that the suit will force the user into a coma to preserve power, and will delete itself if it runs out entirely, which will lead to the death of the person inside. Again, something I’d figure you’d mention early on to prevent this exact scenario. Also, this is a really stupid limitation from a practical standpoint, your suits are likely to kill you in the heat of battle.

Trey and Tamra arrive and are soon in the cyber-world, they find a vulnerable point underneath the base use it to sneak inside. D-Frag gets stuck and has to use loud means to get out, Enigma mocks him for this but what other choice did he have? They rescue Googz and use their own power to boost his, Googz alerts them of the trap and they soon walk right into it.

Naturally Megabyte uses this opportunity to start talking, allowing Googz to come up with a plan to help them escape. Megabyte grabs Googz by the gun but he instructs Vera to delete the upgrades, and that facilitates his escape. So, Vera gives him an upgrade anyway, he now has a deflector ring.

Feeling a bit guilty, he asks the others what he can do for them and naturally they take full advantage, calculus tutoring (I guess that beats doing his homework, but still), website upgrades + more in the future and of course, family game night. Megabyte monologues to himself as the episode ends.

This is a lesson of the day type story that’s very old hat in this day and age. There’s nothing really interesting going on in the human world yet and the same problems from the previous episodes remain here.

Rating 4.5/10