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[SKYWARPED_128]

I've only the vaguest memory of watching this show when it was aired in the 90's. It wasn't particularly interesting, and I stopped watching after the first few episodes. I might give this new show a chance, though.

The new shot is sort of a "many years later" sequel to the first instead of a straight up ReBoot reboot, so it might be worth watching some of the original show as well. Luckily it's all on DVD currently.

BTW, Season 3 of the old show is AWESOME!

Well, for a show that I'm not exactly crazy about, I'll probably see if I can stream it online first.

I might go straight for season 3, if there isn't anything important going on in the previous seasons. Or should I watch everything chronologically? If memory serves, the show was kind of episodic--but then, it's been such a long time that I barely even remember what the characters looked like.

Season 1 and most of season 2 were both episodic. But the last five episodes of season 2 are very important and the point when the show starts getting "better than good". The season 2 finale leads directly into season 3 with an epic cliffhanger.

But as for all the stuff that comes before the final five season 2 episodes, it's probably better to take those in smaller doses since marathoning them might make you feel bored pretty quickly. However, I would not recommend skipping them since season 3 did a lot of throwbacks to those episodes that retroactively made them relevant to the third season's plot.

It's kinda like how the second and third seasons of both Beast Wars and TF: Prime were way more plot-driven and focused than the much more episodic first seasons of both of those shows, but if you skip the first season of either show, you kinda feel really lost going directly into season 2 of either show.

So, yeah, I'd say check out the show from start to finish, but go into the first two seasons with low expectations, while keeping in mind that the stuff from the first two seasons will become relevant later on and that things will get so much better when that later point finally comes.

Thanks, I'll do that. Kind of looking forward to the new show and see what it has to offer. I suspect I'll grow to like the old show a lot more as I watch the new one alongside it.

[Sabrblade]

Thanks, I'll do that. Kind of looking forward to the new show and see what it has to offer. I suspect I'll grow to like the old show a lot more as I watch the new one alongside it.

As it turns out, I just discovered that this user has every episode on on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/danielgfm

[SKYWARPED_128]

Thanks, I'll do that. Kind of looking forward to the new show and see what it has to offer. I suspect I'll grow to like the old show a lot more as I watch the new one alongside it.

As it turns out, I just discovered that this user has every episode on on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/danielgfm

You're a godsend, Sabr!

[Shadowman]

The info I read on the new series is about four kids who get zapped into the internet to fight a human villain teaming up with Megabyte who uses viruses to attack the real world.

So it's Tron, Digimon 02, and Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad all rolled into one and I become less excited by the moment...

[Sabrblade]

Okay, so the long-awaited sequel the ReBoot, titled ReBoot: The Guardian Code, finally came out on Netflix yesterday with its first ten episodes.

Here's the official trailer:



As you can tell from the trailer, the premise for this show is very different from what the original show was, being more akin to such shows as Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, Code Lyoko, Tron: Uprising, and the like, with four high school teenagers (live action ones, no less) entering Cyberspace to fight off viruses and other dangers that threaten the safety and security of the Net. They are Users who become "Next Generation Guardians", along with an A.I. girl who takes on a physical human form to interact with the teens in the real world. The series main villain is a computer hacker/cyber-terrorist known as "the Sourcerer" (yes, spelled like that), who reactivates and recruits the villain of the original show, Megabyte, to serve as his underling, much to Megabyte's displeasure.

So far, Megabyte is the only returning character from the first show who is part of the main cast. There is a tribute episode set in Mainframe that brings back more past characters, but only as guest stars and just for that episode (again, so far).


I finished binge-watching all ten episodes last night and... it really feels like only a small step above the current Neo-Saban Era of Power Rangers, and way below 2015 Transformers: Robots in Disguise cartoon. This show is the very definition of "uncomfortably mediocre".

In all honesty, it feels like it's written for... I don't wanna say little kids, but more bluntly, for dumb kids. There are huge leaps in logic in this show, very little explanations for how and why certain things happen and happen the way they do, serious moments are presented more like pretension than genuine gravitas, and the puns... good gravy, the puns are just dire! Especially those that make fun of Megabyte's name. Yes, he was called things like "Megajerk" and "Megadork" in the old show, but that was done by Enzo, a little kid character. These are high school teenagers making these name-callings, and treating them as though they're sincerely meant to sound bruising (to Megabyte) or humorous (to themselves or to us viewers), when all these Megapuns are just Megapainful.

And the acting. Sweet mercy, the acting in this is just terrible, with Megabyte's voice actor being the sole exception since he's at least trying to maintain some degree of the dignity that Tony Jay originally lent to the role. But of all the human actors, the Sourcerer (good gravy, that name!) has to be the crown jewel of overacting in this show. Everything he says and does is cartoonish enough to make Yosemite Sam look subtle.

And worst of all about the Sourcerer (besides that name!), we know nothing about what he's trying to even do! He's some publicly-known big bad computer hacker spreading chaos with his cyber-terrorist attacks, but we never learn what his actual goal is in all of this. Sure, we'll probably find out when more episodes come out, but for these ten episodes, we're given little reason to even care about what he's trying to do. And he frequently falls in the narrative trap of having to say every one of his thoughts out loud to himself in order for the viewers at home to know what he's doing and thinking, rendering most of his dialogue as exposition directed at nobody else in the room.

The tribute episode is probably the best episode in this show so far, but that isn't saying much considering how... what's the word?... "clunky" it feels. The fanservice to the old show in that episode is pure junk food, but not a particularly tasty kind. More like candy that's gone slightly stale. The flavor's still kinda there, but it's lost a lot of what was good about it.

As mentioned, Megabyte is really the only honestly decent thing in this show, but just that: He's "decent". He's alright, but nowhere near as prestigious as he was in the old show, and admittedly a lot of that is owed to Tony Jay's natural class that he brought to the role. No one was ever going to match his original performance as he left mighty big shoes to fill. Timothy E. Brummond (who I'd never heard of before this show) does a passable job as Megabyte here, though the way the character is written now he is slightly less reserved than how he was in the first show, as he is now more likely to raise his voice more often. In the old show, Megabyte was frequently of sound calm-mindedness and only ever rarely raised his voice, and because it was so infrequent for him to do so, whenever he did, it meant he meant business. Here, he's a little looser in his moods, but does try to stay calm and collected most of the time, just not to the same extent as he did in the old show.

His new look is also okay, though I do question the decision to make his face look less expressive. In the old show, his eyes alone were full of so much character, but now in his new look, they're almost featureless. I'd much rather that they had at least left his face alone when he got upgraded to his new look, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.

Overall, this show is very much not the return-to-form that ReBoot fans had been hoping for for all these years. At its best (which is usually in regards to just Megabyte), it's serviceable. At its worst, it's painful to casual viewers and an appalling slap-to-the-face to longtime fans. I honestly don't know what the people behind this show were thinking about when making most of the decisions that went into making this show be the way that it is. It's just very disappointing that it's come to be such a far cry from the show that we all loved so much. I dunno, I don't want to think that if this fails then ReBoot's chances for a good revival are history. But if this is the best that these people can do, then in the immortal words of Bob, "This is bad. This is very bad."