Sonic Boom, Episode 2.11: The Evil Dr. Orbot

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.11: The Evil Dr. Orbot

Original Air Date: January 21st, 2017 

“The Evil Dr. Orbot” begins with an endemic of supervillainy tearing through the village, that climaxes with Eggman's failed attempt to destroy the Fuzzy Puppy figurines warehouse. (As part of a scheme to increase the value in his own collection.) Following this incident, Mayor Fink insists all evildoers in the area must pass an evil competency test, pay a fee, and fill out a permit to perform any more super-crime. Eggman is dismayed to see that he's failed the test and that he can't retake it for another three months... Until he realizes he can make Orbot take the test in his place. In preparation for the exam, Orbot downloads a text book on evil, inadvertently turning him into a far greater threat than Eggman ever was. Now Eggman has to make sure his henchman doesn't eclipse him in nastiness. 

In the past, I've noted how my favorite episodes of “Sonic Boom” tend to be the ones that contrast typical action/adventure/superhero cartoon shenanigans with utterly mundane difficulties. “The Evil Dr. Orbot,” or at least its first half, falls squarely into that category. Evildoers being forced to take an exam and sign some paperwork before they can reek havoc is exactly the kind of absurdity that tickles my funny bone. Eggman having to deal with the strife of standardized testing and pressure to perform well on an exam makes him more relatable. It's also just a good, solid gag, forcing extraordinary and exaggerated characters like this into the most mundane form of bureaucracy.  This is probably the closest we'll get to an episode about Eggman stuck in line at the DMV, but it's even funnier because it represents the local government applying law and order to the inherently lawless actions of cartoon bad guys. 

The villain's incompetent lackey, usually through some sort of contrived plot device, temporarily becoming a bigger threat than the fiend he works for is also a stock cartoon plot line. Just within the “Sonic” franchise, “Adventures of” and “SatAM” did similar storylines. “Boom,” being the flippant, short program it is, finds a simpler, funnier way to get to this scenario. No wacky contrivance is necessary. Orbot just downloads a book on being a supervillain and immediately becomes more competent than Eggman. That goes to show how incompetent Eggman really is, that Orbot taking the super-fast equivalent of a night school course in wickedness immediately makes him a more pressing threat than his creator. Orbot's simple schemes, like distracting Tails with a diversion before rushing in to his lab to steal his new invention, is already shown as being a level above Eggman's typical schemes. 

This amusing idea reaches its apex when Orbot returns to the Fuzzy Puppy figurine scheme from the episode's first scene. Behind Eggman's back, the robot enacted a complicated financial scheme to artificially inflate the value of the toys and trick the public into selling them back to him for a profit. This represents Orbot becoming something much more insidious than a cartoon supervillain: Now he's a capitalist. This is another example of the playful way “Boom” mixes up comic book tropes and unremarkable reality. What Orbot does here probably isn't a crime. And if it is, all he'd have to do is jump through some more legal loopholes to make it okay. That's what real business types do all the time. Yet it's somehow more devious than Eggman's usual chaos and destruction. 

The fact that “Boom” Eggman, from any sort of real world perspective, actually sort of sucks at being a villain reflects on his character in some interesting way. The episode ends with the rotund doctor stumbling into a victory of sorts through sheer chance. It's been hinted at many times, and even outright stated, that “Boom” Eggman really isn't that bad of a guy. He desires power and respect , not so much because he has a sociopathic desire to enforce his rule over the entire world. It's more-so to validate a massive ego that is clearly compensating for a serious inferiority complex. He feels like he's the worst so he always acts like he's the best. And he wants the rest of the world to acknowledge that, through force if necessary. That Orbot exceeds his boss' effectiveness so quickly is just another sign that Eggman really isn't cut out for the world-conqueror role. I'm probably, definitely reading too much into it but I like to think that episodes like this subtly build-up the cast member's character development more. 

I'm talking a lot about Eggman in this review and there's good reason for that: He's the star of this episode, alongside his spherical henchman. Sonic and Team Boom have very little to do here. There's minor action scenes at the beginning, including one set inexplicably to a sound-alike of “Battles Without Honor and Humanity.” I think Knuckles and Tails have one line of dialogue each. Sticks isn't in the episode at all. Sonic and Amy get a handful of moments, including a scene where they are on a romantic picnic together that.  Once again, I can't help but marvel at how much more I enjoy “Sonic” content when Sonic himself has a small role. 

All my pointless rambling and meandering digressions aside, this is a pretty funny episode! There's a lot of sharp dialogue, where Sonic criticizes Eggman's ethics, Orbot and Cubot argue about rhetorical questions, and the exact amount of days in three months are considered. There's a reoccurring physical gag about Eggman getting struck by lightning, which is easily the limpest joke in the entire episode. And since this is an especially meta program, it even incorporates the sitcom reset into the script. In order for the story to return to the exact same status quo at the start of the next episode, Orbot literally gets rebooted. Funny joke, you guys!

I'm pretty deep into this “Sonic Boom” retrospective now and, honestly, I never expected to like this show as much as I do by this point. Here's an episode about a fairly minor supporting character and, honestly, I liked it a lot! If you had told me a few years back that I'd happily watch an eleven minute episode devoted to Orbot and enjoy it a lot, I'd probably believe you but I would definitely pause for a minute and glare at you skeptically for several minutes. [7/10]