ReBoot (TV Series) System Crash (1998) User Reviews

"Groovy!" It's User panic in the rapidly disappearing streets of Mainframe!!!

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 9/10 · 9 August 2016]

This episode is full of explosive calamity and impending doom from the start, with the very foundations of Mainframe coming apart at the seems. I love the thrilling opening scenes, there's several great pop culture icons that appear, with most of them being rather brutally crushed by falling debris in a sequence that's grim and sad, yet kind of humorous at the same time! We get a group of binomes designed like the rock band Kiss, another that have the appearance of the scouts from the anime Sailor Moon, with Sailor Moon herself getting flattened, the X-Files parody binomes Fax Modem and Data Nully show up and Modem takes a bit too long in making a decision and gets blown away, plus there's a hilariously scary nod to Indiana Jones that's unmistakable. It's a terrific start to the episode and even though it's very hectic and violent with many innocent binomes meeting their dooms left and right, I still find this one a lot more fun and lighter in tone than a lot of the ones leading up to it, which I think is partly because the threat of Megabyte has been (mostly)banished from the picture. And then things go from bad to crazy when the instability of the collapsing system causes the release of undeleted game data in the form of old villainous game users who emerge out of tears all over the crumbling city and immediately go on the attack! I loved seeing those old foes again, to name a few there is the evil clown from "Identity Crissis Part 2", the carrot knights from "Wizards, Warriors, and a Word from our Sponsor", the user enemy ship from the very first ever game seen in the series, and it's also great to see Matrix shoot the devil in the face that once robbed him of his eye and condemned him to years of survival in the games as a child. And it's a hilarious sight gag to see Ray Tracer, who returned in the last episode, beating up an evil Santa Claus! While Ray and Mouse take to their boards to rescue what citizens they can, Hexadecimal shows that she retains her wicked side as she gets her revenge on the virals Herr Doktor and the bunny-foot hunchbacked viral binomes who fitted her with Megabyte's tortuous shock collar by turning them into gruesome little biscuits! Bob devises a hazardous way to make what remains of the Principal Office into a temporary sanctuary by shutting down power to the other sectors, and to do so he has to enter the dangerous environment of the core of the supercomputer, where he encounters holographic representations of Megabyte left behind by the real deal that are programmed to react and speak to Bob as the real virus would. They taunt Bob and try to mess with his head as he goes about his task, and while it's not really Megabyte it was still cool to have some kind of scene between the old enemies again. Afterwards Bob is very weakened and Dot, who had been growing increasingly concerned, finally feels comfortable enough to kiss the sprite that she truly loves, but the tender moment is interrupted by the loony raccoon user who intercepts and steals the kiss! Bob's plan works, but the system is still fast heading to destruction... This is a great episode, I find it lighter and more fun in some ways, but it's still dark as the series approaches what is probably it's greatest crescendo of all...and it's a quite an amazing one!