Lab Rats had a stunning finale to s2, it was funny but more importantly it turned the tables. Now Davenport and the Lab Rats have their backs to the wall, can they fight against the insurmountable odds? Anyone else thinking of Joker War right now? Series 3 and 4 have more plot-necessary episodes than their predecessors, so this might be a longer review than the first. I’m going to skip over the Lab Rats vs Mighty Med Episode and talk about the full 2-parter in my Mighty Med Retrospective in a couple of months.
We open with the 2-parter sink or swim and despite this
in-canon taking place immediately after the s2 finale, you can tell that wasn’t
the case in filming. Tyrel Jackson Williams has grown again and his voice has
dropped. And in what I think might be considered a weird character shift,
Donald has gotten the over the loss of ‘millions of dollars of equipment.’ He
broke into tears to the idea of being broke in the last episode. He’ll be back
to his normal self soon enough but it’s a good moment to showcase he does care
for Adam, Bree and Chase… A point which, like so many things I will have to savagely
come back to.
Where are the bionic trio? They’re on a cargo ship, with no
idea of their destination. Bree can run really fast, why are they hiding on a
ship? Perry returns and wanting to speed along the process of Davenport getting
his money back, offers to shelter Leo, Tasha and Donald at the school. Thanks to Adam being…
well, Adam, the trio are eventually caught by the ship's captain.
A new dilemma presents itself, there’s a submarine speeding
to the ocean floor, and if crashes the entire crew will be killed. Adam, Bree
and Chase might be able to do something, but that means enabling their GPS and
alerting, well they think the FBI but more likely Douglas to their location.
Thanks to Davenport’s genius and Leo’s pep talk, they’ve discovered that the
bionic siblings are on one of 3 freighters, and Donald has a secret helicopter
stashed away to go get them.
Of course the siblings choose to rescue the submarine and by
siblings I mean Adam because he reveals here he can breathe underwater. How
fortunate… At this point Donald arrives to save them in his helicopter but you
notice that something’s amiss since you can’t see Leo aboard. It’s Douglas
using the disguise chip introduced some way back.
So, they’re captured, knocked out by our mysterious masked
figure. We find out that our figure is named Victor Krane, and he’s the
billionaire funding Douglas’ work, in exchanged he’s being augmented with
bionics. The FBI managed to prove, rather quickly that Donald was hacked, and
although all of his money was stolen, it’s enough to keep creditors away from
the house, so they can move back in.
Douglas’ latest prison cell looks a lot cooler than the
plastic tubes from the last time. Donald updates Chase’s chip with a message to
tell them it’s safe. But there’s still the matter of actually escaping. Up
until this point, using 2 bionic abilities at once was considered too dangerous
but Chase uses his magnetism, combined with his telekinesis to set them free.
Krane is a little annoyed but Douglas used the time whilst they were unconscious
to reinstall his Triton app, allowing him to take control of them.
Chase has Leo pinned but the Triton app only controls
bionics and Leo manages to turn him by appealing to his human side. The robot
throw-down ends up being kinda important, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately,
Douglas sets Bree and Chase on them and it’s a really weak fight with Bree just
kinda standing there whilst Adam does all the work. Chases eventually uses his
override app to shut them down. Krane has a vested interest in the Triton app
so is a bit disappointed in these results, and orders Douglas to destroy the
bionic siblings, effectively taking control of the entire operation, much to
Douglas’ horror.
The consequences aren’t over yet however, as Donald now
needs money to rebuild the lab, and time is of the essence since without their
bionic capsules, their bionics will glitch frequently. Leo comes up with the
idea to do a dangerous stunt and hilarity ensues. They get enough to rebuild
the lab and basically the status quo is reset at this point. Donald gets his
fortune back thanks to a government contract… OK, if his business is still
around making money, how was Donald even broke? Anyway, we get a look at the
new lab and it’s a fantastic looking redesign, I’m impressed. They’ve added
storage by compartmentalising the floor and Eddie’s back, yay…
In Zip It Bree and Chase get a job at a local tech store,
this lasts all of 3 episodes. In Not So Smart Phone, Trent is almost made Principal… I want to throw up.
Let’s move on a few episodes to Taken… Douglas sends a
warning to the lab that Krane has lost it, when that doesn’t work he confronts
Leo at school, convincing him that Krane is no joke. Unfortunately, before Leo
can do anything about it, he and Tasha are captured. Donald fences off the
bionic siblings and plans to use his very particular set of skills to perform a
rescue. The rescue quickly goes awry as Krane, who has gone from the strong
silent type to someone who just won’t shut up, drains the energy from his
weapon.
He holds Tasha and Leo in a death trap to force Donald to
deactivate the fence, but Chase beats him to the punch. Krane has a geo-leaping
capability, teleport to anyone who doesn’t speak pretentious rubbish.
He wipes the floor with Adam, Bree and Chase and they’re
only saved with Douglas’ intervention. Before the job can be finished, however,
Donald arrives and Krane teleports away. Douglas leaves at gunpoint. In Three
Minus Bree, Bree expresses interest in a study abroad programme the school
runs. Seems intricate for Perry but whatever, of course Donald shuts her down. Frustrated
that being bionic has robbed her of opportunities she removes and destroys her
chip, and she’s perfectly fine.
Donald Davenport is hilarious more often than not, he means
well but has a massive ego, kinda reminds me of Darkwing Duck if he had Scrooge
McDuck level money. However, his treatment of Adam, Bree and Chase isn’t far
off what Douglas wanted. He raised them in a lab for the express purpose of
being heroes, they never had a choice in the matter and this episode confirms
they can survive without a bionic chip.
They are child soldiers, essentially and sure, he eventually
acquiesced and gave them some semblance of a life, but again, they’re never
really free because he wants them to be heroes, that’s callous, cruel and
selfish, regardless of what the end result is.
Anyway, there’s a nice little B-plot involving Eddy taking
over Tasha’s body and trying to ruin her life, it’s funny but the attention is
on the A-plot. Bree eventually realises she still wants in on the heroism but
since Donald didn’t create the chip, he’s not sure he can duplicate it. Though
he does try but his design isn’t effective and Leo sees that the only way to fix it is
to bring Douglas into the fold.
Douglas and Donald, competitively working together, solves
the problem, with a few good ideas from Leo also. Adam and Chase are doing
stupid sh*t for most of the episode. Hey, smartest person on the planet, maybe
you could have been helpful here.
Anyway, despite that bonding moment, Donald isn’t ready to
forgive Douglas and I do understand his point of view. Douglas made multiple
attempts on his life and stole his fortune, which I presume he got back since
Douglas is poor now, but nothing’s ever mentioned of it. The fact that they’re
brothers makes this all the more personal. With some push from the others, he
does eventually offer a hand of forgiveness, it does help that Douglas is remorseful
to an extent.
After a reasonably entertaining shark episode, which means
it wipes the floor with most shark movies, we return to the plot with ‘You
Posted What?’ it’s another 2-parter and begins with a pretty big move. A
mysterious girl films the siblings completing a mission, and then posts it
online, they’ve been outed. But before they could put a spin on it, experts
have verified, not sure how you can do that but whatever, their secret’s out
and there’s no putting this genie back in the bottle.
Chase believes he scanned the mission site and didn’t see
anything, Donald’s satellites did which either means did Chase did a bad job or
one any one a hundred other explanations that are never considered until one
reveals itself. Chase checks his log and confirms he did scan the area and
didn’t see anything, even stranger the time code matches with Davenport’s
satellite scan, so whoever did it didn’t show up on thermals… So, number 32 on
the list of possible explanations.
The FBI storm the house with Douglas and Leo using the
compartmentalised floor to escape, somehow. I assume there’s a secret tunnel?
Anyway, they run to school and so begins the creepy as all hell one-sided
relationship between Perry and Douglas. She runs the photo of the girl who took
the footage through her student database but comes up empty. Leo thinks the
mission may well have been a set up and they go to check out the mission site…
It’s Krane, duh… It’s not like there’s a long list of villains in this show.
It’s not looking great; Donald is to be locked up and the
siblings separated and locked up. Krane shows up with a bionic teen he’s called
S1. Plus, the Triton app has been upgraded so Krane can control her with his
mind, among her many abilities is the ability to manipulate her body
temperature, hence why she didn’t show up in Chase’s thermal scan.
S1 crushes Leo’s arm with a support pillar, but somehow
misses the rest of him. And for some reason they leave them all alive despite
the entire point of them coming being to kill them. Sure, Perry tripped the
fire alarm, but it’s not like it would’ve taken long. Leo is brought to the
hospital but quickly snuck out by Douglas.
With the transport having arrived, the siblings say their
goodbyes. But Adam’s had enough and uses his blast wave ability to take them
all down, somehow not impacting Bree, Chase or Donald in the process. Leo wakes
up in Krane’s old facility, it was the only place Douglas knew that had the
necessary equipment, Leo’s arm was beyond repair, except for with bionic components.
Leo can now throw fireballs, and his arm has bionic strength as well.
Before they can leave, Krane shows up with S1. But conveniently Davenport arrives with Adam, Bree and Chase, don’t really know how they found them but whatever. A fight ensues and it makes better use of the cast than the one in the opening, Donald still does jack sh*t but we a good fight with S1 vs Bree and Adam and Chase actually try and attack together which is refreshing, even if they only win because Leo threw a fireball that missed S1 and hit Krane.
The FBI arrive and, with some convincing, arrest Krane and
S1. They eventually decide to instead make the team public figures, under the
leadership of the idiot from the FBI, I’ll give it one episode, tops. In the
teaser at the end, it’s revealed Krane has an entire army of bionic soldiers
which he then activates.
It’s gonna be a few episodes before that shows up, I would
complain but we’ve already had more story this season than any previous one so
I’ll take what I can get. Armed and Dangerous follows up on them being under
the employ of the FBI. Their guy, Graham, is more interested in PR than any
actual super-heroics and much as I hate admit it, it makes a deal of sense.
People may still be uneasy around bionic heroes, even in
employ of the government and it makes sense to put people at ease, especially
on the global board. The problem is the fame and attention comes at the expense
of missions, which I feel would’ve hit us harder if we ever saw them.
Meanwhile Leo is showing off to Janelle and starts a fire.
Meanwhile the President comes to a lab for a visit and hoping to show up
Graham, Adam, Bree and Chase well, show him up. I guess every mission they’ve
ever done is public knowledge now, wish it was to me. Adam shows off his
pressurised lung capacity, an ability he doesn’t actually have yet. Are the
episodes airing out of order again?
Leo sorts out the issue and Janelle, once again, seems
all-too-forgiving of it, remember that for the next season. Douglas arrives and
decides he needs to actually train Leo to use the arm without well, glitching.
The president relinquishes control of Adam Bree and Chase back to Donald under
the condition that he’s kept briefed.
I think it’s obvious that Alien Gladiators takes place
before ‘You Posted What?’ Chase is dressing up as a half-robot half-human and
no-one bats an eye, the jokes write themselves people.
OK, I need to talk at length about Brother Battle because it
really highlights a problem I’ve only glanced over before. But to explain I
need to break it down a bit. We open with Adam, and I’m not even going to
sugar-coat it, bullying Chase. Douglas allows Chase to unlock a new ability to
better defend himself, but Donald shuts him down.
Chase eventually persuades Douglas to disobey him and grants
Chase a laser bow, which he uses to slam Adam into a wall, something I swear he
could’ve just as easily done with telekinesis but whatever, it looks cool.
Donald’s reaction is visceral
“You gave him a new ability and upset the whole balance of
power in the house”
Hal Sparks, you directed this episode, did you notice the
problem with this line? Did no-one notice the problem? You know, how they’ve
received random new abilities in the past and no-one’s batted an eye. More
importantly though THE BALANCE OF POWER WAS ADAM USING HIS SIZE AND STRENGTH TO
BULLY CHASE!
And it leads into a larger issue, this show is dreadful at
handling bullying. Whether it’s the creepy vibes given off by Trent, the
25-year-old high-school bully who rarely faces consequences or Adam time and
again crossing the line where it stops being roughhousing between brothers and
starts becoming bullying. This is not a healthy balance of power nor is it a
constructive one, but the show treats like he’s in the right here and Douglas
is the one in the wrong. It’s a bo-staff, it’s not like it’s a top tier ability
like, super-breath.
I’m not saying that Chase should never get hurt (physically
or psychologically) that’d be ridiculous for a comedy and Chase has a high
enough opinion of himself that it is funny to watch him taken down a peg or
two. And I’m not saying that it’s entirely one-sided either. Chase has insulted
his brother on multiple occasions, the problem here is that Adam is dense
enough that he’ll barely comprehend it whilst Chase isn’t.
And they both know that of the other. Sokka got the brunt of
humility in early episodes of Avatar, but most of it came about through
happenstance, not through Katara’s deliberate actions.
Speaking of super-breath though, Adam gets super-breath in
this episode, he used it 2 episodes ago but whatever. And Bree gets
invisibility because she deserves that for being in the truly dreadful subplot
of this episode. Did Techtown really need to come back?
But if you think after this whole throw-down, Adam’s done
being a jerk, think again, because the next thing he does is ruin Chase’s
chances with a girl by activating his commando app. Despite this episode
claiming to have resolved the issue, we never see that girl again so I’m going
to assume it didn’t work. Literally in the next episode he’s bemoaning no-one
wanting to date him so there’s that bit of supporting evidence.
Evidently, Owen is no longer in the picture for Bree, pity.
Next up is the Christmas special. Chase is annoyed their toys aren’t selling as
well as another toy… Seriously, this is the plot you wanted to go with? Bree
and Adam want the toys upgraded with real bionic abilities, Chase, the
‘smartest man on the planet’ doesn’t stop to consider that’s a really, really
reeeaaally bad idea, because it’s a really, really, reeeaally bad idea. They
eventually see sense and realise they’re too dangerous.
The scenes also seem to be out of order, since Tasha somehow
collects these upgraded toys for the toy drive, despite having already left
before they were upgraded.
You can tell when an episode may well be plot focused, as
it’s usually a 2-parter, as the next episodes, Rise of the Secret Soldiers
parts 1 and 2 confirm. With rumours and lies spreading about the siblings, and
Leo, they agree to be filmed over a weekend to put the record straight, against
Donald’s advice that it could feed into the frenzy.
Unfortunately, they overcompensate somewhat and end up
coming across as right tools and fighting each other instead of completing the
mission, on live television. Naturally this display of compete incompetence,
that actually had some pretty devastating impacts that happen off-screen, has
the world mistrusting them all the more. Even blaming them for this, okay they
didn’t cause the accident, that would’ve happened if they were there or not.
But whatever, now there’s an angry mob outside the house. I
would quote Hermione Granger here but f*ck JK Rowling. The President is willing
to stand by them and defend but needs them to not cause any more damage and
stay out of the spotlight until the press conference. The situation is further
complicated when Leo shoots a fireball above the angry mob.
The protestors decide it’s a great idea to attack the guy
who just shot a fireball out of his hand and begin to overwhelm him, Adam uses
his super-breath to push them off. In a court of law, self-defence could be
easily argued, but in the public eye, they just attacked the public. It leads
to a blowout between the siblings, that is only stopped because Donald
interjects.
But the 3 decide to dissolve the team, and report that to
the President. These protestors were breaking the law, they were on private property…
and they weren’t keeping 2m social distance… I think there may be some room to
defend them, Mr President.
In part 2, we cut to 3 weeks later, Donald gets a call from
the President saying a high security military installation was broken into and
he wants Adam, Bree and Chase on the mission, squabbles be-damned. Of course,
convincing them is tough, then we find out the Pentagon was also broken into.
They got some security footage, showing them a bionic teen was responsible and
was controlled by the Triton app.
They agree to do one last mission, to take down Krane’s
bionic kids. By Douglas’ count through Triton app tracking software, there are
8 of them, hiding out in a junkyard. They head to investigate the count was a
bit off, as more of them begin teleporting in. They retreat to bring in the
cavalry and it’s revealed that Krane has not only escaped but is now in the
Whitehouse, holding the President hostage. Somehow, he’s further upgraded the
app so he can control anyone, even if they don’t have bionics, go figure how
that works.
His plan is to use the communications equipment they’ve
stolen to transmit the Triton app across the world, creating a world under
bionic rule. Why he felt the need to explain this to them is… So, it’s all
hands of deck, Leo finally gets a mission suit, and an upgrade so he can use
his hand to absorb and transfer energy from other sources, the others get maxed
out, hope Adam doesn’t break anything like the last time this happened. And
Donald and Douglas are coming too with some heavy weaponry.
The only soldier now to get any lines, he will get a name
just not yet, has a laser pitchfork, so Chase and he fight, whilst Leo gets to
deal with S1 again. Donald and Douglas make a line for the satellite but
unfortunately come face to face with Krane. Leo and Chase win their respective
fights but Donald isn’t so lucky, Krane blasting him away with near-lethal
force. With taking out Krane their best option to ending the threat, Douglas
reveals that through Chase’s override app, they can fuse their bionics and
fight as one, giving them a possible edge. The 3 make up as they begin to
approach Krane, who just let’s them fight.
Together they blast him far enough away that he won’t be
coming back… until next season. Victory comes at a price as Donald is in
surgery and we end with it still being touch and go whether he’ll survive.
And there’s a second loose end here, the other bionic kids
are still out there, and whilst they may not be evil, they’re still dangerous
and without any training to harness their skills. Still, finding them might be
easier done than said as Adam invited one of them in and 30 showed up. The guy
Chase fought is S3 and shows up with a friendlier demeanour, and no memory of
their exploits with Krane.
The President says he plans to lock them up, which makes
Bree somewhat uncomfortable given they’re effectively innocent. Leo sees Donald
in hospital and he’s about to flatline, Leo uses his energy transference to
transfer some of his energy into Donald, saving his life. But it comes at a
cost, as he begins rapidly aging.
Donald heads home to find his house filled with 40 maybe
more bionic kids. And then the FBI show up. The kids teleport out before the
FBI can arrest them. The President makes contact again, just as the kids
return, with s3 and several others saving Leo’s life by transferring their
energy to him, much less energy than Leo did so they’re not burning themselves
out in the process.
With that convincing, Donald decides that instead of having
these kids arrested by the government, they’ll instead create a new Bionic
Academy where they can be mentored and potentially go on multiple missions,
saving thousands of lives. Or you know, you could just remove their chips… but
sure, massively expensive school it is.
The Academy is located on a man-made island, and we get some
set blueprints that we’ll see in person later. The Island’s connected to the
mainland by a high-speed hydro-loop, essentially a train. But the bionic army
can teleport so…
And we see where a lot of money was spent, considering they
already did up the lab, constructing not just one but several new sets for the
bionic academy must’ve been a real drain on the budget, and all for just 3
episodes at the end. I guess they knew they had a season 4 coming. Anyway, Leo
is not happy to hear he’s going to be a student at the Academy.
We’re introduced a couple of mainstay students who weren’t
in the earlier fight. First is Spin, Leo’s competitive rival, and then there’s
Bob, Adam’s friend who’s going to crush on Bree, who really, really isn’t
interested. Both of whom, along with Leo are ranked yellow for beginners, S3
amongst a few of the stronger students are marked orange for Advanced
Donald begins giving them all new names, and I hope they
change them immediately because they’re all variations of Donald. S3 chooses
the name Sebastian. Being mentors is entirely new to Adam, Bree and Chase
and Chase in particular doesn’t take to it with any semblance of logic. That
schedule is so precise no-one would ever keep to it.
So, if they got 6 and a half minutes of general horseplay,
what are they doing for the rest of the hour? Chase and Sebastian form a
rivalry and I only bring this up because Sebastian’s gonna become important.
Maybe there were shortcuts in the design of the place as one punch from Leo and
it looks like the whole place is gonna sink. You have a dozen people with
super-strength here, and this happened in the training room, how could this not
have been anticipated?
With Chase and Sebastian both having groups with
telekinesis, they have to put aside their differences and work together to save
the island. The call a truce, for the time being. The Leo/Spin rivalry however
tragically continues into the next episode and I could not be less interested. The
fake injury routine? Seriously?
Season finale time and guess who shows up? Hi, Perry,
absence did not make the heart grow fonder, your story’s done, go away. No?
It’s not gonna work, what can I say about Principal Perry, she’s fine in small
doses but her story’s done, there’s no need for her in this setting. Sebastian
and Chase are tasked with working together to create new VR software for the
students and Spin goes on an unauthorised mission with Bob.
Adam being Adam destroys the tech and Sebastian promises to
help get it fixed and get revenge on Adam in the process. Whilst out on the
so-called ‘mission’, Bob gets himself stuck in quicksand, and his levitation
doesn’t help. Spin tries to help and gets himself stuck. Leo is called in to
make the save, which he does. The revenge is also somewhat successful, bonding
Chase and Sebastian, however Chase decides to tell him about Krane as well.
After multiple security breaches by Perry, Donald decides,
because he really has no choice, to make her head of security. When Donald
tests the VR software, the console explodes and sends him flying across the
room. Unbeknownst to Chase, Sebastian sabotaged the device and plans to wreak
revenge on Donald for Adam, Bree and Chase killing Krane.
Whilst season 2, despite some pretty heavy revelations, only
made minor adjustments to the status quo, season 3 used it’s narrative to
completely turn it on its head and set out a new direction for season 4. In my
honest opinion, season 3 should’ve ended with Rise of the Secret Soldiers or
House party, the rest of the season fits more with season 4 anyway. Adam and
Perry both have funny moments but have become fundamental problems with the
show. Physical abuse can be funny, but it’s generally not as funny if the person on
the receiving end doesn’t deserve it. And enjoying inflicting pain on others is
not a trait I want to associate with a hero, being stupid is not a defence.
Season 4 opens with the 2-parter Bionic Rebellion. We see
the new living quarters set they probably couldn’t afford to build without the
s4 budget. Anyway, Sebastian begins his plan, stealing a set of keys and later
some explosives, Perry is onto him but it’s Perry and no-one takes her
seriously. Something they will really come to regret as Sebastian uses said explosives
to blow up the hydro-loop tunnel whilst Donald and Perry were in it, trapped
from both ends their oxygen is running low and their phone has been cut.
Making matters worse, Sebastian has persuaded Chase to give
him a new ability, and has recruited a couple of other high-ranking members to
his cause. Speaking of rank, Leo was supposed to be bumped up after the last
episode but is still wearing yellow, and Spin is back in yellow, despite being
bumped up twice during his first episode.
Sebastian twists the knife further having Donald admit that
Krane was destroyed to all the other students. Yeah, this action scene is
pretty poor, far too much standing around and talking. Both sides have openings
to act in a time-sensitive situation, since you know, Donald is drowning. Leo
eventually talks Spin around to his side and with his help he manages to turn
the tables in the fight. Donald and Perry only manage to escape because the
hydro-loop had an escape pod, not great heroism I must say.
Whilst the rebellion leaders are unconscious, they do the
most sensible thing I’ve ever seen them do, remove their bionic chips. Next
episode is Left Behind where all believers in God disappear leaving the rest of
the world with chaos, it’s terrible and has Nicholas Cage in it... or Kirk Cameron,
oops sorry, wrong Left Behind. Spin and Bob apprehend some robbers after they
were ‘Left Behind’ on a field trip. Glad we settled that one.
Kerry returns in the next episode, mind if I skip over her,
she’s not particularly interesting. Turns out all the trouble was Leo’s bionics
glitching as he doesn’t have a capsule causing him to sleepwalk. Douglas gives
his arm a capsule. This review is getting long at this point so I’m going to
skip a bunch, bla bla Chase is a terrible mentor, bla bla bla Caitlin’s back,
kill me now, bla bla bla. Cue Jeff Goldblum speech, bla bla bla, Spike is in an
episode, bla bla bla
I’m gonna skip over Lab Rats vs Mighty Med because Mighty
Med is heavily involved, and that’s better saved for that coming retrospective.
Space Elevator reminds me that Chase, the guy who’s apparently genetically
engineered to be the smartest person on the planet rarely if ever lives up to
that bar. Also, Leo gets his leg crushed by an elevator and gets a new bionic
leg, does that mean he needs a capsule for his leg too? Also, it appears Hal
Sparks directing one episode in s3 wasn’t a one-off, he directs several in s4,
just not big story ones. Also, everyone moves up a colour level so I guess the
guys who were orange graduate?
The ‘story’ resumes with Bionic Action Hero. And immediate
continuity error, as Leo’s back to wearing yellow as opposed to Orange. Douglas
has been on the phone with an old friend/flame and filmmaker Giselle Vicars,
who’s making a film called Bionic Action Hero, title drop, based on the
adventures of Adam, Bree and Chase.
To simplify matters, Adam Bree and Chase have been condensed
into a single entity, played by one Troy Williams and they’re coming to do
research on portraying them properly. In conversation, Douglas up Marcus to
Giselle, calling him his greatest creation and mentioning exactly where his
parts are. Whilst Adam and Bree’s abilities are fairly easy to fake on a movie
budget, Chase’s require a bit more input from the actor, and Chase isn’t really
as forthcoming as the others. Bree, feeling an attraction to him, provides him
with some of Donald’s files on Chase to help.
Unfortunately, Troy hands those files straight to Giselle
and she openly states her plan is to destroy all bionic humans.
“The walls look fake, the floor looks fake, nothing here
looks like the real academy”
Hahaha, it’s funny because they’re using the exact same set.
They were invited on the day and Giselle tells them they can be in the scene as
the villains… yeah, that’s not fishy at all. Bree is more concerned that Troy,
despite having initially shown interest has brushed her off and is now ignoring
her, she overhears a conversation with Gieselle and checks out his laptop.
She manages to save the others just in time. Giselle was
creating an android army but got upstaged when Adam, Bree and Chase were forced
into the limelight, now she wants revenge. Yeah, she’s really that petty. She
planned to upgrade her android with Chase’s intelligence but Chase and Douglas
manage to fry her network, destroying the intel from Donald’s files. But Chase
is quickly captured and the whole place is rigged with explosives, with an
conveniently long countdown so he can escape.
Quick question, how come Spike never shows up in a situation
where he might be useful? Chase is tied up and forced to watch as his family
are counting down the seconds to their demise, might maybe be enough to
activate his Commando app. The androids teleport out just before the explosion
and Leo has the idea to grab one and teleport out with them. And yes, they use
the term geo-leap, another example of them making up a term when one already
exists.
Chase uses his telekinesis to escape, an ability Giselle
didn’t know he had despite briefly having access to his files. Chase and Troy
fight, Chase never using his staff, but instead using magnetism. Giselle then reveals
that Troy is too old and unreliable a model to receive the intelligence upgrade
she plans, instead she’s giving it to a newer model, one of whom knocks out
Chase.
Douglas still has Giselle’s phone number and with a quick call they manage to deduce their location. But she’s sent one of her androids to
the Academy to slow them down. Douglas and Leo try and protect the students and
fend them off, whilst Adam and Bree head to her secret lab. The latest model
begins to work on Chase as Troy and Giselle face against Adam and Bree. Adam
and Bree win their respective battles but are seemingly too late to save Chase.
Turns out it was a ploy, as Chase had placed an android duplicate in his place, presumably the screams were fake too, then. Douglas and Leo, having deactivated the android at the Academy arrive to back them up, taking down the advanced androids. But Troy has recovered quickly and holds a gun towards Giselle, not liking the idea of being destroyed and plotting to take over the operation himself, making the war against all humans, not just Bionic ones. And no-one does anything whilst he explains this, Bree was 2 inches from him.
Instead he knocks out Giselle, not killing her for some
reason and takes Bree hostage, she tries to get Adam to use his blast-wave and take
them both out but Adam can’t bring himself to do it. But at the last second,
Bree discovers Troy’s aversion to water and uses it against him, shorting him
out. But it’s not all over as in the struggle against Troy, Giselle managed to
escape. And as the episode concludes we see her digging Marcus out of the
rubble of Douglas’ old house.
One of Us reintroduces S1, the one that exposed them and
crushed Leo’s arm, although she has no memory of this. But her arrival comes
with bad tidings as it’s discovered the Triton app has been infected with a
virus by Krane and now they all have 10 hours to live. Of course, they survive
and S1 and Leo agree to start afresh.
OK, skimming again, blablabla, Perryland might be the
dumbest plotline this show has ever done, it’s a man-made island ffs, blabla
much as I found Eddy funny, I haven’t missed him and, in this episode he’s a
physical menace as well. Also, f*ck Adam, poor choice of words, Adam is
loathsome and so is Perry, and Eddy. Bla bla Halloween special.
The next episode of importance is the two-parter On the
Edge, but unlike the previous two-parters serves more as a climax to Leo’s character
development as opposed to a major fight with a villain. Donald tells Adam Bree
and Chase that they’re going to be honoured by the President for completing
their 1000th mission. We’ve seen like 5 of them, and apparently 1000
is only since they went public. Apparently, Leo’s only done 31.5 missions, not
sure what counts as half a mission but whatever.
Leo and S1, who now goes by Taylor, have been working
together and have discovered that by combining their abilities they can create
an EMP. Chase is concerned about what this power could do and warns Leo not to
use it again, so of course Leo’s going to use it again. Leo, feeling like he’s
being constantly talked down to by Adam, Bree and Chase, decides to start a new
team with Taylor and… some guy named Logan, they get Donald’s permission
because he’s more obsessed with trying to find a way to keep Douglas from
breaking into and/or destroying his limo. It’s a prototype model to be
presented to the President, keeping people out and being indestructible is the
entire point.
So Leo and Taylor do their thing again but this time Leo’s
determination to prove himself results in them holding onto the EMP for longer
and it backfires badly. Taylor is thrust down and she’s barely breathing. Donald
gets in the best Doctors and whilst Leo feels terrible, he’s still holding onto
his resentment of the others and pushes himself further into training, until he
hears that Taylor has been rendered permanently blind.
Blaming himself for everything, Leo decides to quit and leaves
the island.
“Part of being a leader is making mistakes, you learn from
them and move on”
It’s the move on bit I take issue with here, not just move on, get better. Leo, in spite of a lot of mishaps in his
journey has always been confident in himself, this shakeup was definitely
needed, and linking it to all the jokes at his expense over the years is not a
bad move. And don’t think this all comes at the expense of Taylor, but we’ll
get to that as we look through part 2. 2 weeks have passed and Leo’s thus-far
sticking to his guns about hanging up the life of a bionic hero.
Taylor is out of the hospital and is wearing a special visor
created by Douglas that improves her special awareness, so whilst she can’t
see, she can avoid obstacles. She doesn’t blame Leo at all for this, which I
find interesting.
It’s award ceremony day and the Davenports, sans Leo are in
the self-driving Limo en-route to the ceremony, however as cross the Hurst
Memorial Bridge the suspension cables begin to snap and the bridge begins to
collapse. The limo is left precariously on the edge (ha) and making matters
worse it goes into full lockdown so they can’t get out.
Word of the bridge incident gets to the Academy and
surprisingly it’s Logan that’s taking charge, with a lot of help from Taylor.
The rest all head out to begin rescuing everyone trapped on the bridge as
Taylor calls Leo. Leo immediately jumps to action hearing that his family is in
danger and encourages Taylor to come along.
All the other civilians are evacuated as Leo arrives, the
housing unit for the computer is a small fin atop the limo, if they can disable
it, that can release the locks and allow Adam, Bree and Chase to escape. Their
only chance is their EMP but Leo is reluctant after the last time, Taylor gives
him a pep-talk and Logan directs its energy right to target. Leo stays behind
to help Chase get out, Adam and Bree having already escaped with Donald and
Douglas. Leo gets honoured by the President as well, and is promoted to Mentor
back at the academy. And at this point I’m starting to think Taylor might be
better for Leo than Janelle.
Next is Ultimate Tailgate Challenge… Yeah, I’m skipping this
one, only thing of note is that this is Tasha’s second appearance this season,
she’s been in 2 of 21 episodes. It’s also a Perry-centric episode which
generally does not bode well for it.
The last 5 episodes are all story-heavy, so I need to talk
about all of them. In And then there were Four reveals that Douglas created a
fourth bionic sibling, who he left with an adoptive family after going on the
run. That seems counter to his original goals but whatever, lots of lies get
aired out in this episode, including that Chase wasn’t invited to his own 16th
Birthday Party – Leo, this happened to you before, you should know better.
Anyway, Daniel gets his bionics activated and it turns out
he can replicate the power of any bionic person he touches, they’re swapped out
whenever he touches someone else. He and Douglas bond and no doubt we’ll be
seeing him again. Also, continuity error, Leo is wearing his red shirt again as
opposed to his mentor white uniform.
Next up is the 2-parter Space Colony. Davenport has
discovered a new planet in another galaxy he’s called Lithios, but in case
you’re thinking he would’ve named it after himself, he’s somehow built a colony
on said planet called Davenportia. 50 colonists were sent there a month ago to
test it out. And now the Davenport family, sans Douglas are going to visit.
He has a spaceship under the island because of course he
does with 1 high-velocity escape suit which of course will be used later. Adam is excited and acts, pretty much how he
normally does and Chase has had enough of his immaturity. Perry has snuck aboard
the colony because why the f*ck not. They discover an issue with one of the
main satellites and have lost communication with Earth. Adam, Bree and Chase
are sent up to investigate.
But it’s not plain sailing at the Colony as a hole somehow
is found in the dome, which will eventually suck out all the oxygen. Chase
scans the satellite, and finds that the signal was deactivated from the Colony,
there’s nothing wrong with the satellite. Unfortunately, an incident with gum
from earlier has resulted in Chase being unable to control the thrusters in his
suit, and they didn’t think a tether was a good idea for some reason. Neither
Bree nor Chase can fly the ship, but Perry has stowed away and because of
contrived reasons she can pilot it.
They find Chase on another planet but he’s kinda had it with
Adam’s immaturity. Either way they return to the Colony just as Leo and Donald
finish repairs but everyone else in the Colony, including Tasha are gone. It’s
revealed that the person responsible is Krane, now wearing a very Darth
Vader-ish helmet.
He has a friend named Doctor Gao who helped patch him up
after his trip into the atmosphere, and has come up with the means of injecting
bionics into people, he stowed aboard the colony using a cyber-cloak and plans
to use the colonists as his new bionic army, except for Perry who he outright
refuses to use. He infects Donald with the triton app, and stalks away but is
quickly found.
Leo destroys the canisters of the bionic injection and then
shoots a hole in the facility, causing it to collapse, giving them time to get
everyone out. Unfortunately, Gao sneaks aboard, infects Leo with the Triton app
and launches a doomsday missile at Earth that would wipe out the entire human
race. Gao is incapacitated thanks to a quick trick from Bree, but they’re soon
distracted as Krane launches his Darth Vader-like attack on their ship. Chase
manages to destroy his ship with a missile after the computer systems of the
ship go down.
But there’s still the matter of the missile and now it’s
Adam’s turn to save the day, getting into the suit and intercepting the
missile. His moment of growing up which they all know is temporary. Davenport
is left having lost a lot of money and probably even more once these lawsuits
start. It’s not Krane’s strongest showing but maybe that’s the point. Gao gets
the worst punishment of all though, quality time with Perry. *shudders*
Space Colony is easily the most ambitious story this show
has ever done, several new sets had to be built for it and the space scenes
included extensive CG work. They also green-screened a new planet just to push
the boat. This was probably the most expensive story they’ve ever produced,
though I’m no expert. I'm not saying it's brilliant but I respect its ambition
We conclude this retrospective with the 2-parter (yes,
there’s another one immediately after the last one) the Vanishing. Douglas and
Donald have developed an upgrade to their bionic infrastructure, that would
allow the students to become more powerful and have the skill to master it
instantly, essentially rendering the entire Academy obsolete.
Speaking of obsolete though, whilst the upgrade works for
the students, it isn’t compatible with Adam, Bree and Chase’s older bionic
chips. Daniel is brought back to the academy by a police officer after setting
things on fire. Douglas decides to enrol him in the Academy and sets Leo up to
mentor him. Now apparently Douglas can upgrade Daniel with the new app which
begs the question of why he can’t do it with Bree, seeing as her chip was
replaced long after Daniel was born.
Chase’s attempts to reconfigure the upgrade to work with their bionic infrastructure fail, much to his frustration and Bree notices that some
of her students have disappeared. Bob is also missing and so is Spin but he’s
been absent for most of the season. Leo gives Daniel the upgrade as students
from all around them keep teleporting away, including Daniel.
They blame a glitch in the new software but it’s worse than
that, it’s Giselle. She kidnapped them and has them all in a vault their blocks
their bionic chips. The Davenports get a message supposedly from Daniel, that
gives away their location, since the trio didn’t get the upgrade, Giselle
couldn’t hack into their chips.
‘Daniel’ leads them into trap and it’s revealed he’s
actually Marcus. I guess Giselle rebuilt him and that’s why he sounds older.
Marcus easily knocks out the bionic quadrat. They’re locked in the same cell as
the others, their bionic chips blocked. Daniel has been taken out. The cage
will emit a signal that will melt their bionic chips. Of course, Leo doesn’t
have a bionic chip so isn’t affected. Giselle has Marcus bring in Daniel so as
Douglas can watch him be killed. Of course, Daniel had contact with Marcus for
several seconds there, he should already have Marcus’ abilities but we’re gonna
ignore that blatant mistake that keeps on happening. Leo manages to bust the
others out. But Giselle intercepts them and it’s revealed their chips have
already been destroyed.
Her HQ looks like a combination of the Louvre and the Legion
of Doom HQ. Bob gets the other students out as Adam, Bree and Chase face off
against Giselle with her electric whip of doom. Donald finally catches onto the
whole bionic android power replication thing I’ve been harking on about and
Daniel uses this trick to rather easily dispatch Marcus. Well, that was
disappointing.
Giselle manages to cut herself into pieces with her own whip
of doom. Again, that was disappointing. To fix the original trio’s chips,
they’re heading back to the lab in Mission Creek. With some research from
Giselle’s lab not only can they restore their chips, but allow them to be
compatible with the upgrade. Speaking of which, why doesn’t Daniel need a pod,
was him setting things on fire actually his bionics glitching?
Tasha reveals that she’s pregnant. Perry gets her final
moment of annoying me as Leo has a bit of fun with Marcus’ parts. It begins to
reform but Douglas melts him down, ending Marcus for good.
With everyone now having the chip upgrade, there’s no need
for the Academy anymore, and Donald is splitting everyone into teams, and this
includes splitting up the family with 2 of them going to the academy and
overseeing the transition and 2 joining a new team. Leo and Adam volunteer to
stay. Chase and Bree will be joining us in a very special review later down the
pipeline.
In my opinion whilst s3 shook up the status quo, s4 was more
about personal growth, the team growing as mentors, as people and reaching the
peak of their bionics. The villains were far less involved in the overall story
than they were in s3. The adults were also around far less in this season, as
the main 4 were left to deal with situations on their own.
S4 is a strong way to end the series, but promises something
even greater down the line, unfortunately what came was Elite Force and Elite
Force is dreadful, but we’ll be talking about that at a later date.
Overall Lab Rats was a good show, it’s lead characters were
solid, if flawed individuals that saw some element of growth as the series went
on. Leo was the standout as the POV character and Tyrel Jackson Williams gave
us a solid performance, I’m glad he went on to be a lead character in
Brockmire.
I’m not keen on the character of Adam, I think I’ve been
pretty clear as to why but let me make it clear again, he’s a bully, he takes
joy in utilising his strength to make Chase miserable. These are not the
actions of a hero and there’s only so much I’m going to let ‘he’s too stupid to
understand’ slide. That being said his earnest stupidity can be hilarious. The
actor, Spencer Boldman went onto having a leading role in Cruise, a straight to
DVD movie with a 39% rotten tomatoes rating, yikes, he hasn’t had an acting gig
since.
With Chase, William Brendt uses his skill as a martial
artist to his advantage creating some decent looking action moments. His ego
was the main source of both conflict and comedy but in honest it feels less
like he’s “smartest man in the world” and more slightly smarter than average
for his age. I don’t think his intelligence was ever properly showcased in a positive
light. He doesn’t have much of a resume after Elite Force, but apparently has
kids, he’s still younger than me.
Bree was a fun addition, she equally sided with both Adam
and Chase during their tiffs. Kelli Bergland also provides some fun action
moments as she grew into the role. She seems to have had a lot of success off
the back of Lab Rats and Elite Force and good for her.
Donald Davenport. He’s a complete paradox, incredibly
self-centred, greedy and petty and yet cares about his family and affairs of
the world. He’s selfless yet he’s selfish, it’s quite the conundrum. The other
problem comes down to the fact that never gave anyone a choice in what they end
up being. This is even mocked in s4.
Douglas is hilarious and easily my favourite character of
the show, he was a hysterical, yet not incompetent villain, with the right
amount of menace to make him threatening in his own right but not so much that
his heel-turn comes out of no-where. Krane was more generically evil and got
worse the more dialogue he had, it’s kinda sad he played second-fiddle to a
scientist in his last episode. Giselle is just kinda there.
Many of the supporting characters are annoying but Perry
might just top that list. She’s much better in small doses or serving as a
minor antagonist, putting her in Bionic Island made little sense in that
regard. They tried to make her an antagonist for the Perryland episode, but
that was beyond stupid, even for this show.
The bigger issues for this show tend to be on the technical
side, a show like this needed a larger budget to fully commit to its premise but
had to make do with the limitations of limited sets and minor greenscreen bits.
It’s what makes the sheer ambition of Space Colony all the more impressive.
Still, it feels like the missions all happened of screen, something they even
joke about in one episode.
Still, everything about this show is better than the
train-wreck that comes after, oh we will get to you, but another time
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