ReBoot: The Guardian Code

ReBoot: The Guardian Code
Genre	Science fiction Action-adventure Comedy-drama
Created by	Michael Hefferon
Based on	ReBoot by Gavin Blair Ian Pearson Phil Mitchell John Grace
Developed by	Sean Jara
Directed by	Pat Williams Michael Dowding
Starring	Ty Wood Sydney Scotia Ajay Parikh-Friese Gabriel Darku
Composer	Rich Walters
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
No. of episodes	20 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Michael Hefferon Larry Raskin Kim Dent Wilder Pat Williams
Cinematography	Vincent De Paula
Editors	Simon Davidson Colin Adams
Production companies	Mainframe Studios Reboot Productions Wow Unlimited Media Inc.
Original release
Network	YTV (CAN) Netflix (International)
Release	March 30, 2018 – present

ReBoot: The Guardian Code is a Canadian live-action/CGI-animated television series, produced by Mainframe Studios. It is a re-imagined series loosely inspired by the original computer-animated TV series ReBoot. Originally announced in 2013, the first ten episodes debuted on Netflix worldwide (excluding Canada) on March 30, 2018. YTV began airing the series starting on June 4, 2018. By July 5, 2018, YTV had aired all 20 produced episodes.

Plot

Four teen gamers who make up the highest-scoring team for the online game Cyber Guardian meet in person on their first day at Alan Turing High School. Their enrollment was arranged by Vera, a "virtual evolutionary recombinant avatar," who has recruited the team to physically enter cyberspace and protect it. They battle Sourcerer, a human hacker who keeps trying to destroy the world’s computer systems by introducing "Dark Code", or malicious software. At the end of their first mission, Vera is transferred into a human body when the team accidentally activates a bio-constructor in their secret base in the school’s basement. Vera enrolls as an exchange student. After his initial run-in with the Guardians, Sourcerer reactivates the computer virus named Megabyte to help him from inside cyberspace.

Cast

• Ty Wood as Austin Carter/Vector
• Sydney Scotia as Tamra/Enigma
• Ajay Parikh-Friese as Parker/Googz
• Gabriel Darku as Trey/D-Frag
• Hannah Vandenbygaart as Vera/Virtual Evolutionary Recombinant Avatar
• Bob Frazer as Adam Carter/The Sourcerer
• Timothy E. Brummund as MegaByte (voice)
• Alex Zahara as Alpha Sentinel (voice)
• Shirley Millner as Hexadecimal (voice)
• Octavian Kaul as Enzo (voice)
• Kathleen Barr as Dot (voice)
• Michael Benyaer as Bob (voice)
• Kirsten Robek as Judy Carter

Episodes

Season 1 (2018)

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	"Activation"	Pat Williams	Sean Jara, Mike Kiss and Larry Raskin	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 4 June 2018 (2018-06-04) (CAN)
Austin, Tamra, Parker, and Trey discover on the first day of school that they have been chosen to be the next generation of Guardians by a Virtual Evolutionary Recombinant Avatar/Vera. Following their first battle with the villainous hacker, the Sourceror, and his cyber locusts, an accident with Room Zero's bio-constructor materializes VERA as a teenage human girl, and she cannot return to cyberspace.
2	"Resurrection"	Pat Williams	Ann Austen	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 5 June 2018 (2018-06-05) (CAN)
While Vera adjusts to life as a teenager, the Sourcerer finds and reanimates a central antagonist from the original ReBoot series, the virus Megabyte. The Sourcerer abducts Megabyte from Mainframe and forces him into servitude, also giving him a newly upgraded body.
3	"Fortress Command"	Pat Williams	Mike Kiss and Ryan W. Smith	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 6 June 2018 (2018-06-06) (CAN)
Parker gives himself an unauthorized weapons upgrade and enters a mobile game to test it; Megabyte follows him and takes over the game, and starts building his Sentinel Army.
4	"Catastrophic"	Pat Williams	Rachel Langer and Shevon Singh	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 7 June 2018 (2018-06-07) (CAN)
Megabyte delivers a distraction in the form of a deceptively cute cat virus while the Sourcerer steals a high-powered computer.
5	"Discoveries"	Pat Williams	Ryan W. Smith	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 10 June 2018 (2018-06-10) (CAN)
A mysterious sphere found in cyberspace reveals that Austin's father, Adam, created the Guardian Code, sending Austin and Parker on a mission to look for more such spheres. While tracking one, they discover that Megabyte stole a software replicator to clone his army, but they lose the new sphere in his fortress.
6	"Emotional Rescue"	Pat Williams	Jeremy Smith and Matt Venables	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 11 June 2018 (2018-06-11) (CAN)
Vera installs a teenage emotion plug-in to better understand humans, but her mood swings could jeopardize a mission when the Guardians must face off with Megabyte. The government's Department of Internet Security (DIS) is introduced; they track the Sourcerer's activities and find traces of Megabyte and the Guardians.
7	"Game Day"	Pat Williams	Jeremy Smith and Matt Venables	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 12 June 2018 (2018-06-12) (CAN)
When the other Guardians discover Megabyte has begun replicating himself, Trey must choose between his basketball team and his friends while facing his father's scrutiny. The Sourcerer learns that the Guardians are human.
8	"Artificial Intelligence"	Pat Williams	Rachel Langer	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 13 June 2018 (2018-06-13) (CAN)
The Sourcerer hacks Alyx, a fictional virtual assistant, through a vulnerable backdoor and turns her into a big meanie. His goal: draw the Guardians in and learn how they are entering the net so he can do so himself.
9	"Datastorm"	Pat Williams	Sean Jara and Shevon Singh	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 18 June 2018 (2018-06-18) (CAN)
The Sourcerer hacks a weather modification satellite and uses it to create a Category 4 hurricane that could destroy the West Coast. Austin learns his mom is dating, but the distraction could jeopardize the mission when the Guardians head into space to try and regain control of the weather satellite.
10	"Mainframe Mayhem"	Pat Williams	Mark Leiren-Young	30 March 2018 (2018-03-30) 19 June 2018 (2018-06-19) (CAN)
Megabyte returns to the system of Mainframe, the setting of the original ReBoot series, to recruit his sister Hexadecimal; the Guardians follow him, and they meet Mainframe's Guardian, Bob, and his family. A user initiates a game, which the new Guardians help Bob win.
11	"Network Interference"	Pat Williams	Mark Leiren-Young	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 20 June 2018 (2018-06-20) (CAN)
When the Sourceror hacks into the Dyna-Cell network, Hexadecimal tags along and ends up jeopardizing Megabyte's mission. Meanwhile, Vera discovers the Sourceror is searching for the guardians on Earth, now that he knows they are human. The Guardians capture Hexadecimal and discover that the DIS is connected to Adam Carter's past, and that the spheres contain Adam's memories regarding the Guardian Code. Note: Michael Hefferon's son, also named Austin, makes a cameo appearance as a child mentioning a "Sorcerer".
12	"Zombie Army"	Pat Williams	Sam Ruano	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 21 June 2018 (2018-06-21) (CAN)
The Sourceror plans to create a botnet and launch a giant distributed denial-of-service attack. Meanwhile, Parker and Austin discover that Judy's boyfriend Rowan works for the Department of Internet Security and that DIS Agent Nance threatened Austin's dad one year ago. Following the Sourceror's defeat, Rowan hands over a flash drive with the surviving research from Adam's computer. After finding a surveillance device on it, the guardians decide not to trust anyone who works for the DIS.
13	"Bee-Ware"	Pat Williams	Jennica Harper	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 25 June 2018 (2018-06-25) (CAN)
To prove his worth to the Sourceror when the hacker threatens to delete him (again), Megabyte infects the hive for the Wubbly-Bee toys' Wi-Fi programming, and causes them to malfunction, set themselves on fire, and scare kids around the world; In the B-Story, Parker suspects Trey and Vera are dating. The guardians later use Parker's virus extraction code to remove Megabyte's tampering, but the Sourceror quickly takes over the hive with dark code. Using their knowledge from an entomology unit in science class, Trey and Tamra destroy the Queen Bee so Parker can cure/crown a new one, enabling the hive with anti-malware protection and chasing Megabyte off. In the end, however, Parker's suspicion worsens when he sees Trey and Vera leaving to "study", which he thinks is a date, and Sourceror reveals the guardians' human identity to Megabyte, while now tasking him with capturing the guardians and getting them to surrender their technology to him.
14	"Share Scare"	Pat Williams	Amy Benham	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 26 June 2018 (2018-06-26) (CAN)
When Tamra accidentally uploads a video recording of VERA rapping about herself and the guardians in Room Zero to her Tamra Sez app, Shari quickly presses the share button on her phone without watching the video and some binomes take multiple copies of it to Social Media City in cyberspace to upload it to UpSweepz (parody of YouTube). Meanwhile, Megabyte and Alpha Sentinel attempt to capture the guardians with a new digital code snare, which works on Googz and D-Frag; in the B-story, Parker learns that VERA's "dates" with Trey were tutoring sessions for his coding and calculus classes, in order to keep Trey from being kicked off the basketball team. He also reminds Parker that VERA's different than other girls, and that she does like Parker. Meanwhile, at the DIS, Agent Nance tells her underling about the guardian code and its purpose, and believes that Adam's work did survive, claiming that he did in a fire one year ago. She soon becomes hellbent on finding the guardians and taking their tech by force like she says she should have done; in the end, Googz and D-Frag escape, the guardians prevent the video from being shared online, and Megabyte becomes intrigued when he learns Enigma's connection to the video. However, even after deleting their copies, the guardians deduce that one of Tamra's followers watched the video and shared it, but might have also downloaded it, which is confirmed with Shari walking down the halls at school, listening to Vera's rap lyrics (with her earbuds) getting hints about Vera's true robot identity and Room Zero's existence. Note: The main story of this episode was actually teased in a YTV music Video featuring the main five cast members on Ytv.com and YTV's official YouTube Channel on May 25th, prior to the show's premiere in Canada. Vera Raps Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_9DQqM_U64
15	"Nuclear Confusion"	Pat Williams	Jeremy Smith and Matt Venables	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 27 June 2018 (2018-06-27) (CAN)
Agent Rowan from the DIS approaches the guardians with his knowledge of their existence and asks for their help in stopping the Sourceror from launching a nuclear missile strike using DIS computers.
16	"Double Trouble"	Pat Williams	Larry Raskin and Todd Ireland	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 28 June 2018 (2018-06-28) (CAN)
The guardians are in trouble when Tamra's sidekick Shari (since the events of episode 14) discovers Room Zero's existence when she follows an oblivious Parker when he goes to retrieve his laptop, and thinking that Room Zero is a secret virtual reality game club, emerges into cyberspace as Tamra's Guardian avatar Enigma, without knowing the truth of the dangers in cyberspace. She soon attracts Megabyte's attention, who has one last chance to capture the guardians before the Sourcerer carries out his promise to delete him for failure. With Tamra stuck at the Vlog Video Awards to host an episode of her show, the others try to rescue Shari without revealing too much about their secret. Unfortunately, they get captured and speak to the Sourceror for the first time, before Megabyte tricks him into removing the delete command function from his upgraded from. Using a code extractor on Shari, Sourceror obtains data that he analyzes later. Fortunately, Vera beams Tamra in as a backup of Enigma and all five guardians escape, while Megabyte literally cuts off his connection from the Sourceror upon being freed. In the end, Vera uses her bio-construct pod to transfer Shari's memories of the episode's events and backs them up into storage, keeping their secret safe; analyzing the code taken from Shari, Sourceror discovers a hidden logo matching the one for Alan Turing High, and deduces that that's where he'll find the Guardians and their tech. Note: Michael Hefferon, the creator of this series, makes a cameo appearance as a crew-member of the Vlog Video Awards.
17	"Mega-Viral"	Pat Williams	Ann Austen	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 2 July 2018 (2018-07-02) (CAN)
Now free from the Sourceror's threat on his life, Megabyte attempts to hijack all the world's Social Media, frightening the users when he starts talking to them. Luckily, Trey figures out a plan to stop him and trap him, learning a valuable lesson from the virus' attempts at claiming power by force, with help from the other guardians, before Agent Nance sicks the DIS drones on them and captures Megabyte. Meanwhile, the Sourceror, angered by Megabyte's betrayal and stunned by his discovery in episode 16, begins his two-day trek to Quantum Heights, home of Alan Turing High to begin his hunt for the guardians' true teenage forms. However, while in the Virusylum, Megabyte is visited by his sister, and fellow inmate, Hexadecimal, who offers him a chance at revenge based on knowledge she's obtained since episode 11, as long as they are equal partners for real this time. Megabyte reluctantly accepts, and the episode ends with Hexadecimal being taken back to her cell with her pet virus cat, laughing evilly towards the fourth wall in this episode.
18	"Great Escapes"	Pat Williams	Sam Ruano	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 3 July 2018 (2018-07-03) (CAN)
After arranging for their sentinels to break them out of Virusylum, Hexadecimal and Megabyte escape into the deep web of cyberspace to plan their next move. In an attempt to stop them from escaping, Vector and Enigma get captured by Agent Nance's DIS drones in order to scan them so as to see if the guardians are indeed human. With help from Agent Mark Rowan, Parker and VERA in our world, Trey allows himself to be captured but then all three prisoners escaped with only their partial code scanned. Even so, Nancy compares the results with the code Adam presented one year ago before his death. Meanwhile, after the guardians leave school, they bump into the Sourcerer but don't recognize his human form, as he waits for the teens to leave, unaware of their true identities, and proceeds to break into Alan Turing High after hours.
19	"Identity Theft"	Pat Williams	Todd Ireland	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 4 July 2018 (2018-07-04) (CAN)
While Agent Nance talks to Rowan about the analysis indicating Adam's guardian code being used, Rowan claims that Judy and Austin Carter know nothing, but Nance still arranges for the DIS to abduct Austin after school. Meanwhile, the team finds the Sourceror scanning the holographic wall outside of Room Zero, showing that he's found them. However, when trying to stop the Sourceror from escaping, Austin grabs him and gets a clear look at his face, recognizing him as his dad, the "late" Adam Carter, to which the Sourceror responds in a clearer voice and a confused set of normal eyes "Austin?" before getting agitated and escaping via his truck. Later, while Austin is held by the DIS until Rowan secretly frees him, the rest of the guardians deal with an ID theft gang of pirate binomes in cyberspace, with Judy being one of their thousands of victims. But while fighting on their barge, the guardians retrieve a third memory sphere made by Adam. With Rowan's help, Austin returns as Vector and helps the guardians destroy the ID theft binomes before they try retreating into the Deep Web- a part of cyberspace where few data pieces ever return from-. In the end, the team examines the memory and finds out, with VERA's analysis of the bio-constructor's log, that Adam had constructed a fake body to serve as his corpse to fake his death and keep Nance from hurting his family weeks before his disappearance, and that he materialized himself as a next-gen Guardian in cyberspace to investigate the dark code for the following year prior to the show's season 1. But the dark code attacked him, cracked his helmet and his last transmission got cut. Parker soon comes to the conclusion that Adam got infected with dark code, booting him back into the real world as the Sorceror, and that his recent encounter with Austin proves that he's trying to fight off its influence on him. So the Guardians' new mission becomes tracking down the Sourceror and curing him.
20	"Black Hole"	Pat Williams	Larry Raskin	28 September 2018 (2018-09-28) 5 July 2018 (2018-07-05) (CAN)
The season finale opens with Adam Carter, the Sourceror, in his van, creating a cyber black hole to destroy the internet, but Adam's personality fights to regain control of his body. Later, when Austin visits his father's grave at the cemetery, Adam approaches, seemingly having regained control of his mind temporarily, and urges Austin to take him to Room Zero. He believes that a trip to cyberspace could be the start of curing him. But when they get to Room Zero, the Sourceror reveals his deception and knocks out Austin with a taser. Emerging as a corrupted purple next-gen Guardian mixed between Vector, VERA and Googz's designs, the Sourceror infects the Codec with dark code and uses its energy beam to strengthen the black hole, successfully killing the virtual assistant Alyx in the process. After discovering that Adam set up an old teleporter for the Guardians to use one at a time before his evil persona took control again, Austin leads the charge as they fly off to the Codec. While D-Frag, Googz and Enigma almost get sucked into the black hole, Adam's personality regains control long enough to free access to the ship, and save them. Vector hops aboard and fights the corrupted purple Guardian until he urges his dad to take back control. After regaining his composure, Adam unites with the other guardians and shrinks the black hole, but has to sacrifice himself and the Codec to permanently seal it off. He also says if the others don't leave, then the dark code in the Codec will corrupt them, too. His last words to VERA are to watch over the Guardians, and his last word to the team is the Guardian's catchphrase from the original ReBoot series "Mend and Defend." Before saying goodbye, Adam tells Austin he's proud of what he has become, and drives the Codec straight into the black hole, sealing it forever. Meanwhile, while the Guardians mourn and reflect, VERA now being known as Austin's sister, Austin believes Adam could still be alive. Meanwhile, Megabyte and Hexadecimal, having returned from their trip to the Deep Web with a bigger army of sentinels, take shelter at Megabyte's fortress, planning their upcoming invasion of both Mainframe, Cyberspace, and eventually the "Users'" world. And in the final scene, DIS agents Nance and Rowan inspect the Sourceror's truck, only to find that someone else has taken the Nova XJ3 prototype, hinting at a potential new antagonist.

Development

On October 3, 2013, Rainmaker announced the development of a new ReBoot television series alongside the reintroduction of the Mainframe company brand for its small screen productions. Speaking to Canada.com later that month, Rainmaker's President and Chief Creative Officer Michael Hefferon stated the show wouldn't be the same as the "world of technology has changed drastically in the 20 years from when ReBoot first started" and cautioned that the original show's characters would likely be limited to cameo appearances. He then said the company planned to pitch the series in February, with the hope of getting YTV on board as the broadcast partner. Hefferon would later attempt to clarify his statements, saying that while the show would be primarily aimed at children, major characters from the original series would have more than just cameo appearances.

In November 2014, Rainmaker revealed the show would be called ReBoot: The Guardian Code. The following May, Deadline reported the series would be a live-action/CG-animated hybrid distributed by The Weinstein Company. On June 8, 2015, Corus Entertainment, owners of YTV, ordered a 26-episode first season, stating the series was created by Hefferon and confirming the details of the Deadline story. Shortly after, various characters from the original series, including Bob, Dot, Enzo and Megabyte, were confirmed to appear in the series, though focus had shifted to a group of four teenagers recruited into protecting cyberspace by the Guardian program V.E.R.A. The four teens were named as Austin, Parker, Grey and Tamra. A poster showcasing Austin in his guardian form was released. Commenting on the inclusion of live-action material in the series, Hefferon stated, "I talked with broadcasters around the world. The one [resounding] thing — and I hate to break it to the fans — was nobody wanted the reboot of what [the show originally] was. Nobody was willing to buy it." He later added that two thirds of an average episode would be animated content. At the time, the series was penned for a late 2016/early 2017 launch.

Production

Casting calls for the series went out in May 2016. They listed a shoot date between August and November of that year in Vancouver, with YTV attached as the broadcast partner and the episode count reduced to 20. Production was delayed with filming eventually taking place in British Columbia, Canada in February and March 2017.

Corus Entertainment officially announced that production was underway on March 28, 2017. The company confirmed the information revealed in the casting calls and shared that Larry Raskin would serve as showrunner and executive producer, Michael Hefferon as executive producer/producer, Matt Sheppo as the Production Executive for Corus, with co-executive producer Pat Williams acting as director and Michael Dowding attached as the supervising director of animation. The cast includes Ty Wood as Austin, Sydney Scotia as Tamra, Ajay Parikh-Friese as Parker, Gabriel Darku as Trey, and Hannah Vandenbygaart as V.E.R.A. Worldwide distribution, licensing, and merchandising rights had moved to Corus' Nelvana Enterprises with YTV set to debut the series in 2018. A mobile virtual reality experience and digital trading card game were confirmed to be in development. The first four production stills were released that day. Rainmaker's parent company Wow Unlimited Media reported that the first 8 episodes of the series had been delivered to broadcast partners in the third quarter of 2017, with the remaining 12 scheduled for the fourth quarter of that year.

ReBoot: The Guardian Code is rendered in 4K resolution using Unreal Engine 4, which Rainmaker claims marks the first time the software has been used for television, after modelling, rigging and animation was handled in Autodesk Maya. Hefferon stated that using Unreal gave them an advantage in speed: "Some of these shots could have taken three to 13 hours in a traditional pipeline, per frame. The game engine, because of the GPU vs CPU rendering, allows us to render frames in seconds, some in real time, and maybe there's a few shots that take minutes per frame." It also easily allowed the crew to resuse animation assets for the virtual reality tie-in.

Casting

Ty Wood, Sydney Scotia, Ajay Parikh-Friese and Gabriel Darku have been cast as group of teenagers who enter Mainframe to protect the virtual and real world from viruses such as Megabyte.

Three voice actors from the original series reprise their voice roles in this series; Michael Benyaer returns as Bob, Kathleen Barr as Dot and Shirley Millner as Hexadecimal. Timothy E. Brummund replaces Tony Jay as MegaByte due to the original actor's passing in 2006.

Distribution

On February 21, 2018, Nelvana announced that the first 10 episodes of the series would debut on Netflix globally (excluding Canada) on March 30th, with its Canadian release set to debut on YTV in June. A trailer for the series and the virtual reality experience debuted later that day.

The entire series ran on YTV between June 4 and July 5, 2018. The remaining 10 episodes are expected to debut internationally on Netflix in the fall.

Other media

Following the debut of the show's first 10 episodes on Netflix, the official ReBoot: The Guardian Code YouTube channel uploaded a series of 10 1-minute virtual reality shorts. Similarly, YTV released a series of live-action shorts featuring the characters from the show alongside the Canadian broadcast. A number of these shorts are directly tied to events in the series.

A free-to-play mobile game, titled ReBoot: The Guardian Code - Code Hacker was released for iOS and Android devices on March 22, 2018. Developed by A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. digital, the game is a match-5 puzzle title that features Intrasonics' audio detection technology allowing users watching the YTV broadcast to unlock in-game cards. A web-browser version was also hosted on the official website for the series, as well as on YTV's site.

Reception

Pre-release

On February 21, 2018, an official trailer was released. Reception was overwhelmingly negative. Comments left on the YouTube trailer ranged from disbelief at the premise, noting the similarities to Code Lyoko, and the animation looking worse than the original series. A week later, the company began moderating the comments left on the trailer. Similar tactics were used on the official Facebook page for the series. By March 10, 2018, the trailer had reached 12,000 dislikes and 983 likes.

On February 25, 2018, the French website Codelyoko.fr, a fansite for the TV show Code Lyoko, published a negative review of the trailer. The review implied that ReBoot: The Guardian Code was plagiarizing Code Lyoko, as the trailer showed many similarities to Code Lyoko's premise and characters. Shamus Kelley for Den of Geek! also noticed the similarities, claiming that "ReBoot: The Guardian Code is going for the whole Code Lyoko thing" and added that "There isn't a single reference to the old series outside of the term Guardians. It feels more like a teen drama with elements from Code Lyoko and Super Human Samurai [Syber-Squad]." Another concurring opinion came from Digital Spy writer Jon Anderton, who claimed that the original show "took place inside a computer system and there was no schoolkid element, making The Guardian Code more similar to 2000's series Code Lyoko (or Tron, to use a more mainstream example)". Shortly after the trailer's release, Code Lyoko co-creator Thomas Romain responded to the official ReBoot: The Guardian Code Twitter account, stating, "Wow you really liked Code Lyoko, didn’t you?" The Guardian Code has also been seen as derivative of Zixx, an earlier CG/live-action TV show Rainmaker helped produce.

Release

Reviewing the first ten episodes of the series for Collider, Dave Trumbore had mixed feelings, giving the show a 2-star rating. While he praised the performance of Hannah Vandenbygaart, the character interactions and most of the visual aesthetic, he felt the show's animation was of poor quality for a 2018 series. He criticized the writing, acting, and camerawork, saying that it's "stuck in the mid-90s." His biggest issue was the show's pacing, commenting that the series took too long to introduce emotional moments and callbacks to the original show.

Emily Ashby awarded the show 3 stars in her review for Common Sense Media. She felt the show had a number of positive role models for kids and while the series wasn't educational in nature, its use of technology could spur interest in STEM fields.

Initially skeptical of the show's quality, Watchmojo.com's Mike Petel wrote a list of the show's top ten fails upon its Netflix debut. Among the many complaints, he felt the premise was unoriginal, claimed the animation was "inferior to its '90s predecessor, especially in [the original series'] later seasons", and viewed the characters as one-dimensional. He took the greatest offence to the tenth episode, which he felt was disrespectful to fans of the original series. Summing it up, he added the episode "will upset fans at best, and confuse new viewers at worst."

Shamus Kelley of Den of Geek! was especially critical of the tenth episode. Describing it as "one of the worst episodes of television" he's ever seen, he derided the decision to include a character mocking fans and felt the cameos from the original characters was superficial. Conversely, io9's Charles Pulliam-Moore found it to be the only episode of the first ten to be worth watching. Calling it "legitimately fantastic," he enjoyed the appearance of characters from the original series and said "you can get away with not watching the rest of the season, jumping to the finale, and actually having a good time."

External links

• Reboot: The Guardian Code at IMDb