Sonic Underground, Episode 1.36: Sleepers

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.36: Sleepers

Original Air Date: October 18th, 1999

During the entire run of "Sonic Underground," Ben Hurst and Pat Allee were trying to spin gold out of hay. As far as I can tell, they only came close this one time... "Sleepers" begins with Sonic, Sonia, and Manic observing a raid on a Robotropolis factory when suddenly the other Freedom Fighters are captured. Back at the base, Sonic is informed by Cyrus that this is the latest examples of Freedom Fighters being captured and Roboticized. That's because Robotnik has a new weapon in his arsenal: Sleepers, stealthy missiles powered by a rare mineral that produce a knock-out gas. The triplets see the Sleepers in effect first hand, when Manic is almost captured. They realize the best way to end this threat is to take out Robotnik's supply mine. 

"Sleepers" is an episode of "Sonic Underground" that feels a lot more like an episode of "SatAM." It's focused on the Freedom Fighters being on a deadly mission. The threat of Roboticization is focused on more, for the terrifying existential danger it is. Robotnik is the primary villain of the episode, with Sleet and Dingo barely appearing. (Dingo doesn't even have any dialogue here.) Queen Alena doesn't appear and there's no tacked-on moral. The focus is on strong storytelling, on underdog heroes fighting a guerilla war against a tyrant. In fact, I'm not convinced that Hurst didn't dust off an unused SatAM script and simply replace those characters with "Underground" characters. It's easy to see Sally, Tails, and Rotor in Sonia, Manic, and Cyrus' roles here. Sleet acts largely as a Snively-style toadie throughout this episode, which is quite different from his usual characterization. This is not a complaint. I'd rather have warmed over "SatAM" than scenes of Dingo being turned into a hotdog stand or extended sequences of characters being covered in muck. 

In fact, "Sleepers" even manages to invest its story with a degree of emotion. Sonic watches as two of his comrades are captured... And it really pisses him off. He takes the fight directly to Robotnik, largely without telling Sonia and Manic. As he's dropped into a room full of Roboticized former colleagues, Sonic ruefully mentions all their names. This is personal for him. When Robotnik locks him in a cell with a highly accurate laser beam, for the first time in this entire series you feel why these two characters hate each other so much. Robotnik sees his conquest of the planet as nothing but a game. Meanwhile, Sonic is losing friends out there. Why didn't a scene like this happen at the beginning of the series?  

This is not the only emotion inside "Sleepers." When Sonic, Sonia, Manic, and Cyrus sneak into Robotnik's base to destroy the Sleepers... Cyrus is reunited with his dad. Remembering their medallions have the ability to temporarily undo the mind control effects of Roboticization, displayed all the way back in episode two, the triplets return Cyrus's dad to normal for a few minutes. He tells them about the mines and gives them the plot device they'll need to get closer. Father and son have a tearful reunion before they have to go again, his father well aware that the effects of the medallions are temporary. Yes, for this one episode "Underground" used some continuity to add emotional pathos to its story. Holy shit, what was stopping the show from doing this all the time? 

Continuing to shock and amaze, this episode also has some pretty decent action scenes. When Sonic rages into Robotropolis, Sonia and Manic aren't far behind. We are welcomed to some standard scenes of the good guys wrecking SWATBots.... Except they don't suck. A SWATBot deploys a secret laser at Sonic, catching him off-guard and displaying that these machines aren't always total jokes. There's a pretty decent chase scene involving Sonia on her bike and Manic on his hover board. They even do what I'm pretty sure is an intentional homage to the "Akira" bike slide scene. There's even some humor afterwards, where Sonic and Sonia whip some ass inside a transport ship off-screen. Shockingly, this isn't a totally shitty joke and the above-average quality of the proceeding action scene even makes the humor here well earned.

Okay, the animation still isn't great. The first scene has another moment of Sonia doing that weird spinning cyclone move of her's, which I still hate. And, naturally, there is a musical number. However, even that is pretty well integrated. The song simply acts as a soundtrack for the sequence of the triplets rounding up the remaining Sleepers and destroying them. This is actually a pretty smart way to keep the story moving while still indulging DiC's absurd insistence on including a song in every episode. The song is a forgettable, vaguely-rockabilly-sounding ditty called "Have It All Again." It's another generic anthem about how Freedom Fighters rule, Robotnik drools, and someday the war will just be a memory. It's lame but is still far preferable to some hokey nonsense about the episode's forced-in moral. 

The only complaint I have about "Sleepers" is that it doesn't really have time for a proper climax. The episode made room for Sonic being angry and Cyrus being sad about his dad, which means the story revolves itself largely off-screen. Sonic taunts Robotnik while Sonia and Manic destroy the mines as quickly as possible. All of this happens in the final two minutes of the episode. However, I think that was the right decision. Allowing some breathing room for the characters' feelings is way more important than giving us another explosion. Though if the episode was five minutes longer, that wouldn't have hurt it.

Yes, holy shit, I can't believe it. I just said I wished an episode of "Sonic Underground" was longer. I don't know how Ben and Pat did it but, after 35 episodes of some of the worst cartoon shit I've ever willingly exposed myself to do, they managed to create a genuinely, unironically good episode of this show. I don't know how but maybe DiC actually gave them an extra weekend to polish a script for once. (Or maybe Ben really did reuse an old "SatAM" script, which honestly would explain so much.) "Sleepers" proves that "Underground" wasn't unsalvageable. That these characters and this story could've produced a good cartoon show, if everyone involved was allowed to bring their A-game. Or at least allowed to ignore most of the stupid shit that typically characterizes this show. [7/10]