Sonic Boom, Episode 2.46: Lair on Lockdown

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.46: Lair on Lockdown

Original Air Date: October 7th, 2017

Having been produced in 2016, when the term "lockdown" had slightly different connotations than it does post-COVID, "Lair on Lockdown" begins with Team Sonic rushing into Eggman's base, incensed at his latest scheme: A ticketing website full of bogus processing fees. (Another reference that has changed somewhat more recently.) During the following fight, Eggman's control panel is pierced with some shrapnel. This activates lockdown protocol, the characters sorted into different rooms that are then sealed shut. Now, these very different personalities have to work together if they hope to escape... Which is slightly more urgent, since there's a pile of toxic waste in the basement about to explode too. 

"Lair on Lockdown" is "Sonic Boom's" take on a well-trotted piece of television lore. That would be the "bottle episode." This is an episode of a series in which a limited number of characters are trapped in a single location for most of the runtime. It is designed to be an episode that can be produced quickly and cheaply, usually to make up for another episode going over-budget or other gaps in funds. Wikipedia tells me the term was coined by "The Outer Limits" creator Leslie Stevens, because the format could be pulled from a bottle like a genie. I always assumed the name referred to the single location being like trapping the cast in a bottle. (Which, funnily enough, is a good description of an episode of "Outer Limits" rival, "The Twilight Zone.") While less despised than that other cash-saving measure common on TV – the clip show – the bottle episode has become an easily recognized trope. Due to this, many examples of this type of story put a deliberately meta riff on the idea. Such as "Community's" hilarious evisceration or one-season wonder "That's My Bush!," which is where I first heard the term explicitly identified. The idea is less common in animation – seeing as how cartoons don't have sets – but it makes sense for a CGI series like "Boom," as a bottle episode would mean few new designs or elements to render. 

Bottle episodes have been criticized for being hacky and cheap but, at the same time, the premise has also become something of a fan favorite. Shows like "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or "Friends" have often been praised for their bottle episodes. The set-up allows the writers to narrow their focus, sometimes resulting in a smaller scale drama that can give the actors a chance to shine or dig deeper into the personalities of the characters. The specific perimeters of "Lair on Lockdown" has another benefit of the bottle episode in mind: Throwing together two characters that otherwise don't interact much. Here, we have Sonic and Cubot paired up in the control room, Tails and Amy in the basement, Knuckles and Eggman in a storage area, and Sticks and Orbot shoved into a lobby with a visible A/C vent. Constraining these duos in a tight location sharply contrasts their attributes and forces them to put aside their differences and work together to escape. 

As self-aware as "Sonic Boom" is, you'd expect the show to acknowledge the bottle episode idea and subvert it accordingly. Surprisingly, "Lair on Lockdown" is a relatively straight execution of the concept. It's not a bad one either. Of the various combos, Sticks and Orbot are by far the funniest. Sticks' paranoid nature has her distrustful of all robots so forcing her to work with Orbot – a prissy droid especially focused on helping others – makes for a lot of sharp comedy. A sequence where Sticks reacts to every suggestion Orbot has with enraged accusations made me chuckle healthily. Teaming up Eggman, rather conceited about his own intelligence, and Knuckles, the show's resident lunkhead, has its benefits as well. Eggman continuously mispronouncing Knuckles' name is a running gag that gets an especially good workout here. Eggman's melancholy side also bounces nicely off Knuckles' constant state of blissful ignorance. 

Some of the other pairings aren't quite as well realized. Sonic getting stuck with Cubot leads to some good gags, based on the robot's tendency to misunderstand simple ideas and Sonic's difficulty navigating Eggman's control panel. However, these two have the most plot heavy segment of the episode, meaning there aren't as many opportunities for them to banter together. Tails and Amy break the pattern of one of our heroes getting stuck with one of their adversaries. These two are already friends, so there's less tension in locking them into a room together. (I guess the basic math of the two teams made a pairing like that inevitable.) That's probably why those two are the duo that discover the barrels of toxic waste, which will explode if they aren't kept constantly cool. That's a problem when Sticks shuts off the A/C so her and Orbot can John McClane around in the ventilation shafts. 

As contrived as that particular plot point is, I rather like it. Bottle episodes usually play off two people locked in a location overnight or something similar. Time is the primary factor keeping them stuck here. I expected "Lair on Lockdown" to do something similar, since it's noted early on that the quarantine period ends after 48 hours. Introducing the idea of the nuclear waste about to burst adds a twist, making the need to escape far more urgent. If this show wasn't a comedy, that ideally would've been played for suspense. Instead, any sense of tension is undermined by the jokes. The best joke of which is Tails and Amy attempting to keep the barrels of Mootonium cool manually. However, since "Lair on Lockdown" basically fuses four separate "bottles" together, creating a plot that links all these isolated duos is a smart solution. The segregated pairings have to communicate through Morse code to help each other out, providing a dramatic throughline across the four different rooms. 

All of this makes "Lair on Lockdown" a fairly well-done example of a commonly utilized premise. My favorite aspect to emerge out of this one is another look at Eggman's various vulnerabilities. The storage room contains artifacts from past failures of his, such as a tin can robot from "Dr. Eggman's Tomato Sauce" or Swifty the Shrew's head from "Blue with Envy." (The rule of three dictates that there be a third object, which turns out to be a dinosaur egg, referencing an episode that doesn't actually exist. A good joke that is the closet this script comes to winking at the fourth wall.) Being surrounded by reminders of previous defeats puts Eggman into a funk. His mood shifts slightly when Knuckles uncovers Zippie, the very first robot Eggman built. The small, beeping, wheeled device shows a simple, child-like spirit. That reminds Eggman of why he started building machines in the first place, renewing his spirit a little bit. Zippie is also there to comfort him at the end, after his base gets blown up. Though that's not exactly an uncommon occurrence on this show, so I don't know why it gets Eggman so down. We also find out that the doctor's primary password is "chili dogs," pointing towards what Cubot refers to as Eggman seeking Sonic's approval. Once again, the image of Eggman as a neurotic, lonely kid desperate to be accepted and praised emerges. 

"Lair on Lockdown" goes to show that, no matter how often "Sonic Boom" would poke at its own status as a formulaic TV show, it could still put some of those formulas to good use. Françoise Gralewski's script probably could've been a little funnier or deeper. However, considering this show is always stuck in a bottle known as the eleven minute runtime, I think he did a good job. Now I want to know how this format would've gone with other "Sonic" shows. What would have happened if Sally and Snively got stuck in an elevator or a sinking submarine or something? What sexy shenanigans would result from Knuckles and Rouge being trapped in a cave-in together? Can Sonic and Metal Sonic put aside their differences and figure out to escape a locked PortaPotty? Oh no, I'm writing fanfiction again. Better wrap this review up before I'm tempted to sign up for an AO3 account... [7/10]

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.45: Three Minutes or Less

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.45: Three Minutes or Less

Original Air Date: September 30th, 2017

"Three Minutes or Less" begins with Sonic and his friends doing exactly what fans of this fast-paced, action franchise want to see: Sitting around and watching TV. After seeing an ad promising that Meh Burger now delivers, promising the meal free of charge if it takes longer than thirty minutes to arrive, the gang orders some food. Their soggy burgers show up three hours later. Incensed, Sonic complains to the local store, pointing out that he could deliver food in three minutes or less. Meh Burger Corporate takes him up on that bet and now Sonic is zooming around the island, delivering take-out with ease. When Eggman sees his rival having such success with a new venture, he makes it his new mission to ruin Sonic's perfect delivery record and get some free fast food. 

By the time "Three Minutes or Less" aired in September of 2017 – a week later than expected due to some production fuck-up – food delivery apps like GrubHub, UberEats, and Postmates were already commonplace. It would not shock me if the genesis of this episode was writer Freddie Gutierrez seeing the words "DoorDash," being reminded of Sonic's Spin Dash, and going from there. These services were only starting to become culturally ubiquitous in the late 2010s but they were already notorious for the mistreatment of their employees. Workers have been screwed out of tips, treated as "independent contractors," and basically punished anytime they didn't act like perfectly servile robots. It was evident extremely early on that turning random folks into freelance food delivery drivers, and allowing customers to give them crushing judgment via their phones, was going to end poorly for everyone except the Silicon Valley venture capitalists that own the billion dollar brand. Yes, the "gig economy" was recognized as such a ripoff for workers that, seven whole years ago, a children's cartoon was already making fun of them. 

It's entirely possible all of this was a coincidence. Food delivery apps are never referenced in "Three Minutes or Less." Meh Burger's delivery system seems to function like your typical pizza place or Chinese takeout restaurant. Everyone in Hedgehog Village had cellphones a few episodes ago in "Chain Letter" but nobody has them here. Sonic doesn't agree to be paid for his work, instead receiving chili dogs as compensation. If DoorDash and the like were the targets of this episode, one would expect a joke about Eggman trying to ruin the hedgehog's five star rating or whatever. I can't get the idea out of my head though, especially in light of several highly critical moments towards fast food culture. Dunking on McDonald's et al and the millionaires that run the company is common practice for this show. A line from Dave asking why Sonic would wear his uniform with pride or the depiction of the Meh Burger manager as extremely sketchy are deliberate jabs at this particular strain of capitalism. Maybe I'm overthinking it and the premise here is simply "What if Sonic was a delivery guy?" The cultural moments seem to line up though.

An episode about Sonic grappling with the realities of the gig economy probably would've been quite funny. It's a classic "Boom" set-up, sticking our super-fast hero in a crushingly mundane job. The hedgehog does grapple with some of the common difficulties of such a job, such as picky customers, traffic hampering speedy delivery, and people generally being huge weirdos around delivery guys. Sonic realizing that this job isn't as easy as it seems would be a decent foundation for a script. "Three Minutes or Less" doesn't go in that direction. Instead, Sonic is extremely good at this job. He continuously upholds the promise of getting orders to people in fewer than three minutes. Customers are always satisfied and always give him fat tips. He also doesn't seem to mind being paid solely in chili-slathered meat tubes. Within the fantasy constraints of this series, in a community without an infrastructure for cars, I suppose it makes sense that Sonic would do very well in such a position. If only all of us lowly food delivery folks had superspeed!

Instead, the joke quickly changes gear from the absurdity of Sonic in such a commonplace position to Eggman going out of his way to ruin his enemy's reputation. This is another extrapolation of the series' other running joke, that Eggman is motivated by the pettiest of goals. He doesn't want to destroy the town or take over the world. He only wants to make Sonic break his promise, to defeat the hedgehog at something. This results in Eggman rallying his forces in evermore elaborate ways. He pesters Sonic to bring him more stuff, then lays out Badniks throughout the city, then starts capturing citizens, tries to overwhelm him with multiple orders, and finally surrounds his base with as many of his oversized sub-bosses as possible. The punchline is that Sonic bests each challenge, usually with ease, repeatedly defeating Eggman until his spirit is crushed. Because of cheeseburgers! It's a very absurd scenario that keeps getting weirder and sillier as it goes on. The early episodes of "Sonic X" played with this as well, the idea of Sonic as an ineffable straight man that blows through every thing Eggman throws at him. Placing such a set-up within the context of the villain trying to get free food is even funnier. (Though the scene where Sonic brutally murders the docile, peaceful Cowbot was unnecessary. Justice for Cowbot!) 

The result is a very funny installment. The gags are sturdy and come frequently, such as Sonic and Knuckles wrestling in different ways while they wait for their order. The structure of the episode boils down to placing Sonic in various weird set-ups, coming to people's door and having to grumble his way through different interactions. Some of these are easy to foresee, such as Old Monkey being a doddering elder primate or the Gogobas doing exactly what you expect the Gogobas to do. Other moments are more unexpected. Sonic brings an order to Eggman's bunker and Cubot, from the other side of the door, recreates Cheech and Chong's "Dave's not here, man" bit. Not a reference I expected from a children's cartoon in 2017! (And clearly one that went over the heads of the intended audience, as no notice is made of it on the Sonic Wiki trivia section.) 

By far the funniest sequence involves Sonic encountering Amy Rose at the horniest we've seen her. She orders a meal for two, inviting Sonic inside for "a break for work." She's laid out a nice tablecloth and candles. She answers the door, giggling and leaning against it in a submissive posture. She looks back with some real bedroom eyes after inviting him in. And she's really disappointed when the romantic gesture goes right over Sonic's head. Considering "Boom" Amy usually regards Sonic with annoyed tolerance, I simply did not expect her to so blatantly come on to him. Is this scene a spoof of the classic porn trope of the lonely housewife enticing the pizza boy into her cabana? That would be a shocking adults-only joke for this program to pull It wouldn't be the first time either. That would also explain why Sonic gets the hell out of there, not because he's clueless but because he's uncomfortable about what Amy clearly has planned. "Boom" has constantly gone back and forth over whether any romantic tension exists between these two. My theory is that they have a fuck-buddy situation on the downlow. This scene suggest that this is certainly what Amy seems to want, even if Sonic has no idea how to approach it. Is the hedgehog a virgin who is scared of the ladies? Does Amy have some sort of terrifyingly elaborate fetish that Sonic can't handle? What freaky shit goes down on this island when nobody is looking? 

But enough speculating about the sex lives of cartoon characters from a children's show. Ya know what else I've been noticing about "Sonic Boom" lately? They sure do make a lot of TV on this island. This episode includes three quick gags based around off-screen television programming. At the start, Sonic and friends are watching some "CSI" style forensic investigation show about marsupials. Later, Eggman prepares to view "Hedgehog Abbey." In-between is a quick news announcement that the Bike Chain Bandit is at large again. This comes on the heels of the last episode, that showed Vector the Crocodile being a widely recognized reality star and Justin Beaver getting a gig on a "American Idol/The Voice" competition show. I know a talk show host is a reoccurring character in this show, so TV shows within the TV show have always been a part of "Boom." There were jokes about reality programing all the way in season one. Yet it's a gag "Boom" has been leaning on a lot. It's sort of weird that such a tiny village on such a small island has a complex entertainment industry of its own. Do these programs broadcast to other corners of the "Boom" world? Or they produced only for the insular community we see on this show? Is Comedy Chimp a celebrity everywhere or only on South Sea Island? We'll never know and all we can do is horribly speculate about what the rest of this planet looks like. Anyway, this is a pretty funny episode. It takes a set-up and runs with it to unexpected places. [7/10]