This episode starts at Megabyte's fortress Silicon Tor, and we see Megabyte has a giant device shaped like a magnet. This device then extrudes out of the lair before shooting a beam into the sky. This starts to create a giant whirlpool. This is the first time we see that Megabyte has a pet null named Nibbles. Megabyte monologues to Nibbles about how this is his path to the super computer. Bob interrupts, and is then chased by the viral binomes as Bob goes towards the magnet. Megabyte isn’t worried as Bob will be erased if he gets within ten bits of the magnet.
After Bob disposes of his goons by taking their zip boards, Megabyte presses a button on his throne, and his legs appear out of a trap door in the floor. Bob uses Glitch to cut the wiring on the device, causing the beam to stop and the device to collapse. We see Megabyte attach his legs to his torso, and he starts scaling the wall. Bob uses Glitch to collect the small magnet powering the device and places it within a metal casing. Megabyte leaps at him only for Bob to dodge. As Bob flies away, we cut Megabyte clinging to side of the tor.
We then cut to Dot's Diner. Enzo pounces Bob as soon as he enters, excitedly telling him about how he heard about Bob's latest adventure. Dot orders him a drink, and we then see said drink speeding out of the diner as Dot refers to her diner as serving the 'fastest food in Mainframe'. Bob puts the magnet on table which panics the patrons, but they relax once they realise its shielded. Dot suggests to Bob that he should take it to Old Man Pearson's data dump. We won't see this in this episode, but Old Man Pearson will be making an appearance in a few episodes time. Bob lets Enzo have a go of Glitch. It starts of innocently enough with Enzo turning Glitch into a hammer and a flashlight, but things start to get out of hand when Enzo turns it into a jackhammer. Bob orders Glitch to stop, but the casing holding the magnet drops onto the floor, causing it to open. The magnet is released, and latches onto Dot. Bob uses Glitch to reclaim the magnet, but she collapses. Enzo blames himself, but Bob reassures him before panicking himself, asking if anyone knows how to reverse a magnetic erasure. Cecil tells him Phong would know, and Bob rushes off.
Of course, in order for Phong to help Bob, Bob needs to play Pong with him. Bob reminds Phong that Dot needs help now and not later. After Bob wins, it is revealed that there's a binome inside the Pong Puck. Phong tells Bob that he needs to get her something called 'slow food' that will return her to normal. Back at the Diner, Bob tells Dot and Enzo he needs to go to Al's Wait and Eat on Level 31 in order to acquire the slow food. Dot insists that he shouldn't go as it’d be too dangerous, but she can barely finish a sentence in her current state. Enzo asks to come with Bob, but Bob says him and Dot are counting on him at the Diner.
This is where we first see Al's, and this is where we see a few Sprites in the Diner. These sprites appear in the background of a few episodes, but aren't named in the show outside of the 1995 trading cards. We also meet Al and Al's Waiter. Al's Waiter. Al's Waiter speaks in an incredibly low voice, and Al is never seen, and can only be heard saying 'WHAT?!'. Bob speaks to the waiter, who tells Bob to take a number. Bob's number is 4096, but the waiter says that he’s now serving number 3.
At the Tor, we see Megabyte talking to Hack and Slash. He tasks them with retrieving the magnet from Bob. Back at Al's, we see an anthropomorphic Number 7 who has the same tongue as a Xenomorph from the Alien franchise (complete with an egg on the able in front of him). The punchline to this joke is that everyone's afraid of 7 'because 7 ate 9'. While this gag isn't particularly funny itself, the fact that there's an Alien reference in a children's show makes it worth it.
This episode's game is a Sword and Sorcery game. Bob ReBoots into a knight in golden armour, but then gets knocked over by the user, who is taking the form of a knight in silver armour. We hear the voice of a damsel in a tower calling for help. Bob believes this to be Dot, and then takes a dragon from a nearby barn. The User tries to jump on Bob's dragon only to be pushed off. The User falls off onto a a dragon of his own and begins giving chase. Bob finds out that Al's waiter is controlling his dragon, with Al controlling the fire breathing. After a brief chase, this sequence ends with Bob and the User jousting on dragons. Bob wins, knocking the user off. He asks Al's Waiter to keep the user busy while he rescues the damsel. Bob uses the command 'Glitch - BSNP' to teleport through the stain glass window of the castle. There's a reason why the command given here is 'BSNP', and this paragraph will be explaining that. BSNP stands for 'Broadcast Standards and Practices', which was the name of ABC's program censors.
In my summary of 'The Tearing', I mentioned that there were a couple of reasons that the show's creators has a couple of restrictions in place preventing them from telling the types of stories they wanted to tell. One of those reasons was BSNP's restrictions on the show. ReBoot Co-Creator Gavin Blair has previously said that BSNP aren't in place to 'protect the kids' as they say they do, but are instead in place to prevent the network from getting sued in case children imitate questionable behaviour. Some of the restrictions in place include not having violence, not allowing characters to be in peril prior to cutting to commercial breaks, banning guns or sharp weaponry such as swords, and Bob not being allowed to jump through windows in case children copied him. Some of the more ridiculous complaints BSNP had includes not allowing Dot to have two breasts (hence why she has the infamous 'monobreast' she sports during these first two seasons) and not allowing the use of the phrase 'hockey puck' since it's apparently slang for 'a mixture of faeces and semen' (there is a shot out there of Bob playing hockey which was created as a birthday card for Mainframe's star Hockey Player which was later released as a wall paper). The show never shied away from making digs at BSNP within the show, and we'll get into a few of these gags when we get to certain episodes in the first couple of seasons. The 'BSNP' command used by Glitch to move Bob through the stain glass window is one such instance of this, but another one that can't be seen in the show is that one of the texture maps used for some of the buildings has 'Fuck You Broadcast Standards' written in binary hidden somewhere in there.
As Bob enters the castle, he's in a room with an impaled skeleton on a stone table. He takes the sword out of the skeleton, and proceeds to the door. This causes the skeleton to awaken and the door to the next room to close. Bob and the skeleton have a sword fight. The skeleton clutches his sword and this causes part of the floor to retract, revealing a pit of spikes. Bob's sword gets knocked out of his hand and he gets knocked down the pit, clinging onto the edge. He uses Glitch to generate a large vid window, the sound of which shatters the skeleton. Bob grabs the skeleton's sword after climbing up, and the runs up tower to find the damsel is....
Enzo, who has a microphone which turns his voice into Dots when he speaks into it. He was calling for help as he's embarrassed about being the damsel, saying he wanted to ReBoot into a knight like Bob. It also turns out that in his current state, Enzo can't move as his feet don't even reach the floor. Dot and The User jump through the window in the middle of a battle. After The User break's Bob's sword, he realises that The User's icon is his weak point. After Dot takes on The User before getting tired, Enzo delivers finishing blow by throwing his microphone, knocking The User out the window and ending the game.
After the game leaves, Bob asks Dot how she managed to return to normal. It turns out that Dot and Al are business partners and she vid windowed for a delivery of slow food. After Bob offers her the slow food he got for her, Enzo is grabbed by Megabyte. He tells Bob he'd like the magnet back, so Bob throws it at him and it lands on his forehead. He falls off the building and Hack and Slash follow suit. Bob remarks that they aren’t even close to Al's before asking Dot I’d there’s anything in Mainframe she doesn’t own as we pan up to a wide shot of Mainframe to end the episode.
This episode further establishes the formula of the show that we've seen in the first two episodes (I.e. a problem needs resolving, then there’s a Game Cube, then the problem is resolved). We get some fun action sequences, namely the opening sequence at Megabyte's lair and the sword and sorcery adventures within the game. We get to see more of Dot being able to handle things herself and not needing to rely on Bob to get her out of trouble, further establishing her as a strong female character. The show's charm also shines through in this episode, and some of the gags we get land pretty well. Much like the previous two episodes,the story is a little weak, but this one is a little more so in comparison. Bob's quest in this episode is essentially pointless since Dot was able to cure herself without his help, plus it was pretty careless of him to allow a child to have control of this incredibly powerful tool. Megabyte ends up with the magnet at the end of the episode, but we don't know what happens in the aftermath of this because the next episode has nothing to do with this. However, this episode has it's moments, and they outweigh the slightly mediocre story.
Next week: A true demonstration of Hexadecimal's power in 'Medusa Bug'.
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