After season 3 ended in January of 1998, Mainframe would put ReBoot on the shelf for a few years to work on other projects. The most memorable among them was the continuation of the Transformers Beast Wars series, while there were other projects that never quite reached the success that ReBoot or Beast Wars had. Remember War Planets (Or Shadow Raiders here in Canada)? How about Weird-Ohs? Yeah, I think I may be like one of three people to remember Weird-Ohs.
In 2001, three years after the ending of season 3, Mainframe would take ReBoot off the shelf and work on a fourth season. This season would once again work on the four episodes per arc format, but instead each of these arcs would be like their own movie. In Canada, that’s actually how each of these arcs were presented, as their own movies. It was planned as an epic trilogy. But things didn’t quite pan out so well for that.
The first four parter of the season was “Daemon Rising”, which was something a lot of fans were waiting for since the show had only mentioned Daemon in one episode, but it was apparent just how dangerous a virus she was considering how she had control of every guardian except for Matrix and Bob. Plus, the show had also hinted on other pieces of backstory that had never been focused upon. So, why not hit everything out of the park at once in one big epic? Instead of reviewing the entire film at once, I’ll be reviewing each episode with each review. So let’s look at part one of “Daemon Rising”, effectively titled “Daemon Rising”.
We open part one in a flashback, as we see not only Mainframe, but the twin city. We see a younger Dot, Enzo, and Frisket at Dot’s Diner which is currently being built. As they’re about to leave for the 2nd city to see their father’s experiment, a massive explosion is seen from the other city, destroying it. Dot wakes up from this nightmarish flashback, just as Bob arrives at the top of the principal office. He uses a tear from the top of the office and stabilizes it into a portal.
The portal is used to get Matrix and AndrAIa back from the edge of beyond. The duo are being chased by enemy ships that have their sights set on opening Mainframe back to the net. Despite being fired at, the ships aren’t fighting back. It’s revealed by AndrAIa that the ships are being piloted by guardians, still under the control of Daemon.
The guardians arrive to the ports in Kitts Sector, and delete everything in sight, managing to easily reopening the system to the net, as well as destroying the control tower to ensure there’s no way to close. With the system open, more guardian ships enter Mainframe. Despite their attacks, Bob is against the idea of deleting guardians. As we know well enough by now, Bob’s motto is to mend and defend, not to delete and defend.
Bob, as we’ve seen throughout the series is a very pacifist sprite. He’s never one to shoot first and ask questions later. It also explains why he’s never deleted Megabyte or Hexadecimal. It also explains why he would have rather sacrificed himself for nullification as a final means to destroy Lens the Codemaster. You can look at that as an admirable trait, or an act of foolishness from someone who is supposed to defend a system against the evil that puts it in danger.
So instead of battling with the fleet of guardians, Bob puts himself in front of them. He gets a message from a former guardian who tries to get him to surrender and to embrace “the word”, that word being Daemon. Matrix, however, decides that the better option would be to try and blow them all out of the sky with a massive amount of rockets stashed in his flying motorcycle, prompting a full on donnybrook between the Mainframe CPU’s and the guardians. This battle is interrupted by a falling game cube. Bob tells Matrix and AndrAIa to enter the game cube while he tries to defend things.
And we finally get our first glimpse of the virus known as Daemon, inside her lair in the supercomputer. Her assistant tells her that Bob has been found. She believes that he will be the ultimate tool for the entire net to hear the word. Bob however is busy trying to contain the ships, much to the dismay of Dot. To make matters worse for Dot, Enzo and Frisket ran off to enter the game. Inside the game, Matrix is pissed off about being treated like a kid by Bob. The energetic Enzo reboots, and becomes… Mini-me? Which of course means that Matrix turns into Dr. Evil. Yep, this whole game is an Austin Powers parody.
Bob’s energy begins to fade, which causes him to fall from the sky. However, he’s saved by Hexadecimal. But before the two can team up to defeat the guardians, a beam from the opening above Mainframe zaps Bob and teleports him out of the system. Hex however zaps him right back. She simply made an interesting trade, sending Mike the TV to Daemon’s lair instead. She easily corrupts Mike, as he is now ready to preach the word.
Back inside the game, AndrAIa and Matrix easily defeat the Austin Powers user. Hex tries to coax Bob into giving up the system, and to go with her. Bob however, is more focused on stopping Daemon. She easily fires back all of the ships to the net. Daemon learns of Hex aiding the system in defeating her guardians, and doesn’t seem too happy about it. We get some more odd love triangle stuff between Hex, Bob, and Dot, when suddenly Hex’s icon begins to go out of control. It begins to change her as the nulls cover her up.
Matrix chews out Bob for not only accepting the help of a virus, but also sending him into a game. In other words, the whiny jerk Matrix from the web arc is back in full force. Hack and Slash manage to find Megabyte’s pet null Nibbles, but it gets inside the null mound. The mound suddenly begins to speak, and asks for the help of his daughter. That’s right, Megabyte’s pet null Nibbles is Wellman Matrix, the father of Dot, Matrix and Enzo.
The first part of “Daemon Rising” starts the four parter off in a big way, with plenty of things going on at one time. From the guardian attack, this love angle with Bob, Dot, and Hexadecimal, the strange reaction from the icon on Hex, Mike being abducted by Daemon, and a lot of Matrix being mopey. It’s a lot to fit into a half hour, but it never feels like it takes too much away from the actual story, and keeps you interested in what Will happen next. And with the discovery of Wellman Matrix, things just continue to get more intriguing.
I like the way they designed Daemon. Instead of just making her some monster, she’s instead a beautiful woman instead. We also get to see some of her power and how easily she can infect others into believing the word. Once again giving us a different kind of virus in the series. Where Hex was about chaos, and Megabyte was about conquest, Daemon is instead like a cult leader forcing the entire world to give in to her word.
The first part of this saga starts things strong, and up next, things get more interesting, as we see a new look to Hexadecimal, and more of the events that set the destruction of the twin city in motion.