Sonic Boom, Episode 1.23: Let’s Play Musical Friends

Sonic Boom, Episode 1.23: Let’s Play Musical Friends

Original Air Date: April 25th, 2015

Here we have another episode of “Sonic Boom” that focuses mostly on Cubot and Orbot. The two lackeys are dismayed to see that Eggman is spending all his time with a new online friend, who calls himself Nominatus and hides behind a demonic looking avatar. The robots get so upset that their creator is ignoring them, they go live with the Sonic Team for a while. After playing around with Tails’ computer, they discover that this new friend is actually plotting to take over Eggman’s base and robots. This evil scheme soon goes into action. While Sonic and Eggman make a truce to fight off the corrupted Badniks, Cubot and Orbot head into cyberspace to fight Nominatus. 

“Let’s Play Musical Friends” is an episode where a lot of things happen for vaguely defined reasons. Presumably Eggman and Nominatus met online, even though there’s never been a reference to the internet existing in this show’s universe before. Nominatus is a sentient computer virus that seeks to conquer meatspace and destroy all life forms, though we have to assume some of that information. Cubot and Orbot discover the virus' plan when they drop Tails' laptop and it randomly shows them images of this new threat taking over Eggman's base. The two robots confront the villain after downloading themselves into a video game and I'm not really sure how that works either. We just have to take a lot of the events that go down here at face value. 

I know Nominatus reappears in at least one more episode, so maybe his origins and motivations are expounded on some then. But "Let's Play Musical Friends" does feel messy. Was this another example of a story that needed more than eleven minutes to be told? Natalys Raut-Sieuzac is the credited writer but she's usually a director. (In fact, she directed every single episode of "Sonic Boom.") Perhaps she's better at the visual parts of assembling a narrative than the coherent storytelling parts. She's also French, so maybe some things were just lost in translation. Even that title is kind of weird. I guess it’s comparing Orbot and Cubot swapping friends to a game of musical chairs. Which is kind of an obtuse metaphor and doesn’t relate that much to the episode’s premise. Perhaps I'm just overthinking a comedy cartoon for children. I do that often. Yet this one definitely feels off.

Nevertheless, there is a clear moral here. It's one that has been stated many times before but that young kids, in our modern age, probably can't hear too many times: Be careful who you trust online. Eggman seems to have just met Nominatus and immediately begins to tell him everything. He trusts this stranger, who turns out to have ulterior motives, because they seem trusting. That's because this so-called new friend knows exactly what kind of person Eggman is. (Hopelessly naïve and vulnerable to flattery, like a child would be.) He knows how to manipulate him to get what he wants. Of course, Nominatus is a living computer virus, instead of some random creep. He wants to take over Eggman's technology and use it to subjugate the fleshy world, instead of just getting him to send nudes or credit card numbers. I know this is a comedy show and the metaphor falls apart if you think about it too hard. Yet it's difficult to imagine this wasn't somewhat on the show runners' mind here. 

Writers may be able to clearly illustrate the message of "use caution when talking to people online." Still, even after it's been a major part of our lives for two and a half decades, lots of creative folks continue to struggle with how to make the online world cinematic. Lots of stories still depict cyberspace as another realm that we can simply download our physical bodies onto. "The Matrix" did it, "Digimon" did it, and "Sonic Boom" was still doing it in 2015. A tactic I've been seeing all the time lately — with "Ms. Marvel" being the latest guilty party — is shows and movies putting text messages and chats up on-screen as big animations. "Boom" does this too, as Nominatus has emojis pop around his head. (Even though he is capable of just talking too.) 

The truth is, our internet lives exist parallel to our real world lives. It's not a physical space, no matter how much some might wish it to be. The internet exists to trade information, not sensation, and we still haven't found a way to touch people through a cellphone or computer screen. This makes the "cyberspace as physical place we physically explore" concept seem increasingly out-of-date, a throwback to a time when we all thought virtual reality was going to be cooler than it actually turned out to be. As for flashing text and emojis on-screen, that's just a desperate attempt to make the deeply uncinematic act of sending words and pictures back and forth seem cinematic. I wouldn't expect the creators of a silly blue hedgehog show to figure this out, when actual pop culture geniuses like the Wachowski sisters are still struggling with it. Yet it's strange to me that we all live online 24/7 now and we still haven't figure out better ways to depict these ideas on-screen. 

The best "Let's Play Musical Friends" can do is just make it like a video game. Cubot and Orbot are transported into a pixelated landscape, which reflects the look and layout of '90s platformer. When they encounter Nominatus, it definitely feels like they've reached a boss battle. Even the way Cubot and Orbot doing things in the online world has direct actions in the waking world feels video-game-y. This is reasonable, I suppose. "Sonic Boom" is based on a video game after all. Yet it all feels pretty out-of-date too, reflecting an antiquated image of gaming. You can also see this in the gags that follow during these scenes: There's a cutesy reference to classic "Sonic" games, which is fair enough. I'll even allow Cubot to joke about 16-bits. Yet the shout-outs to "Your princess is in another castle" and the Konami Code couldn't have been hoarier in 2015. (And those games weren't even on the Genesis!) I guess kids watching a "Sonic" cartoon are more likely to be interested in early nineties gaming than most but this still feels like jokes conceived by and pitched at people who haven't picked up a controller since 1992.

Yet all the bitching I've done here is really besides the point. We don't watch this cartoons for cutting edge commentary and depictions of our digital lives. This is "Sonic Boom," not "Serial Experiments Lain." We are here for shenanigans involving lovable, simply understood cast members. And, despite its many flaws, "Let's Plat Musical Friends" does pull that off. I’m really growing fond of Cubot and Orbot. They are such goofy losers. When Eggman rejects them in favor of a shinier, newer friend, they march off to Sonic and the gang, the only other people they know. They pathetically beg to be included in this group. Of course, the heroes don’t really want to interact with the socially awkward sidekicks of their enemy. The episode’s funniest moment has everyone ditching the bots, until Tails ends up stuck with them. No matter how much they talk about wanting to escape Eggman, Cubot and Orbot — like all of this show’s sitcom stock roles — can’t imagine a life for themselves outside of the parts they’ve been assigned. They obviously hope Tails will take over as their new master, that they can be lackeys to a different inventor. When he also ditches them, the robots retreat into childish bickering between themselves. 

And that’s what I’m really starting to like about this show. It’s not the action scenes — there’s more forgettable Badnik bashing here — or it’s mostly lackluster additions to the greater “Sonic” lore. (Nominatus is a generic baddy, seemingly pulled from the same uninspired aesthetic as the Deadly Six.) It’s how the show zooms in on the comic book cartoon rivalries between good guys and bad guys until they become indistinguishable from mundane human interactions. At the end of the episode, after Nominatus is defeated, Sonic and Eggman decide they are too tired to fight today. They make plans to fight next week. Because, once you get meta enough about it, enemies are just friends in reverse and we’re all living in our own personal sitcoms. 

Maybe that’s why I kind of found myself kind of liking this one, even though it’s a complete mess and only a handful of the jokes really work. I guess I’ve gotten attached to these versions of the characters, or at least the dysfunctional friendship Sonic and Eggman have. The episode barely makes any sense and mostly approaches its premise in cliched and worn-out ways. But I like spending time with these goofballs and seeing their weird relationships play out. [6/10]