Phoning It In

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The Lost Bots do their best impressions of the Langoliers.
"Phoning It In"
Production company	Entertainment One
Airdate	March 25, 2022
Writer	Taneka Stotts
Directors	Paul O'Flanagan
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on Netflix

Debilitating addiction and interpersonal discord? There's an app for that.

Synopsis

Hey you! Yes, you! You wanna be famous?! Because the mall is looking to cast hip young trendsetters to appear in their video ads, probably because the average shopping mall has been in a tailspin since the mid-1990s. Mallgoers just have to submit their pics via the MallFace app, with the user who gets the most likes becoming their new star! And no one wants to be mall famous more than Dave, who immediately starts taking some...questionable but well-intentioned selfies. When the first batch of pics fails to get any likes, he decides to try adding some action poses to the mix instead. Not far away, Clogstopper has purposefully gotten himself stuck to a wall as part of his "hobby", and the Lost Bots are standing on a railing and attempting to pull him free. Dimlit attempts to warn them of Dave's photography nearby, but is interrupted as Clogstopper finally comes loose and all five topple off the railing, getting caught in several of Dave's snapshots on their way down. Thankfully, before he can look at his photos, Dave is interrupted by an important notification...his midnight snack alarm! As he wanders off, the Lost Bots begin to panic, knowing that they will never be forgiven by the others if their secret is exposed, with Burgertron even assuming they will be sacrificed to the waste incinerator "the fiery dumpster from which none return"! With no time to waste, the five rush to Dave's office.

As they watch Dave play with his food, they attempt to use Clogstopper to launch Kikmee onto Dave's desk and knock away his phone, but only succeed in bouncing her back at themselves. Fortunately, Bonz-Eye remembers that Dave's snack breaks are always followed by a nap break and simply retrieves the phone from his desk while he sleeps. Unfortunately, the phone is password-protected, so they carry it back with them to the Lost and Found. When they get back, Clogstopper's "hacking skills" unlock the phone with his first guess of...1111111. Once they're in, Burgertron quickly moves the offending photos to the trash. Before he can order the others to take it back, however, Dimlit finds a puzzle game app on the phone and becomes completely enamored, frantically matching cookies to make them disappear. Burgertron attempts to stop him, as they don't want Dave to start rampaging around the mall looking for his missing phone, but the poor flashlight is already too far gone. Kikmee similarly tries to drag him away from the screen, but he hooks her in with a sports game app, and Kikmee too becomes entranced as she begins to live out her gridiron fantasies in 8-bit. Eager to find something for himself, Clogstopper discovers the Mer-chants shopping app and begins swimming through a metaphorical ocean of great deals and low prices. Bonz-Eye attempts to assist Burgertron in taking the phone back, but discovers the Mindfulness mediation app and becomes lost in the alluring whale song of a calm mind.

Ooh you touch my tralala.

Burgertron chastises them all, reminding them that Dave is going to want the phone back so he can submit his pics to MallFace, but when he opens the app and actually sees Dave's pics, he realizes how terrible they all are and decides to do some...light touch-ups. One photo-editing montage later, Dave's pic has never looked better and Burgertron is consumed by the feeling of power and control the editing suite gives him. He decides that they could borrow the phone for a little longer...and they can hide it in his cubby-hole. This doesn't sit well with the other Lost Bots, who each believe it would be better off staying with them. As they grapple for the phone, their fantasies begin to overlap in a chaotic hodge-podge, consumed by sheer discord. Before they can argue further, the phone runs out of power and the five bots see their reflections in its screen, twisted by their own rage. Horrified at what they have become, Burgertron acknowledges their selfishness...but decides that it's clearly the phone's fault for corrupting them, something the others are quick to concur with.

The Lost Bots decide to hurl the phone into "the fiery dumpster from which none return" to purge the world of its evil...only for the phone to transform back into Ring-A-Ling at the last moment, much to everyone's shock. Terrified and infuriated, Ring-A-Ling chews them out for not realizing the truth, pointing out that she has done nothing but help them all night, including setting off Dave's alarm to distract him, unlocking herself, and faking her power loss so they would snap out of their obsession. Reminding them that they should be setting their own boundaries, Ring-A-Ling declares they are beyond help and returns to Dave's pocket, waking him from his nap. To his surprise, a notification informs him that his MallFace likes have risen significantly. Back in the Lost and Found, the Lost Bots feel guilty for letting themselves get so obsessed, acknowledging their fault in doing so...all except Burgertron, who has refused to learn anything and instead decided it's Dave's fault for owning the phone in the first place. As they transform back to their alternate modes before the mall opens, the last bot crosses the finish line as Clogstopper declares his suspicion that the phone was a bot the whole time. The next morning, Dave is attempting to film ads for the mall, but ends up constantly tripping over both his words and a nearby cable. As a microphone falls on him, the production crew calls "cut" and wonder to themselves how the man could have possibly gotten so many likes, noting he doesn't even resemble his photo...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

BotBots	Humans
Burgertron (2) Kikmee (3) Bonz-Eye (4) Dimlit (5) Clogstopper (6) Spud Muffin (7) Fomo (8) Ulf the Orange (9) Dinger (10) Ring-A-Ling (11)	Dave (1) Director (12) Crew member (13)

Quotes

"You're one pic away from being the best kind of famous: MALL FAMOUS!"
"Oh man, MALL FAMOUS?! It does not get better than that!"

—A very convincing MallFace video ad gets its hooks into Dave.

"All my best ideas are bad ideas!"

—Clogstopper in a nutshell.

"I believe his mantra is 'it's almost nap-o'clock somewhere.'"

—Bonz-Eye knows Dave all too well.

"But the cookies must find their twins! THEIR ONLY PURPOSE!" [laughs maniacally]

—Dimlit gets into the game.

"How can they afford to sell a used case of creamed corn that cheap?"

—Clogstopper has an eye for bargains.

"With every deep breath, focus your unending rage. [...] Only sweat the big things, and they are all big things."

—The Mindfulness app becomes slightly less calming.

"We have moral centers and solid attention spans! It's obviously the phone's fault!"

—Burgertron deflects harder than the Skyboom Shield.

Notes

Real-world references

• Dave acts out a tragic romance scene with his snacks that bears remarkable resemblance to the ending of Titanic.
• Dimlit's matching game is based on the countless matching puzzle games clogging up app stores everywhere, most prominently Candy Crush.
• Mer-chants is based on bargain-buy apps like Wish, which have a reputation for selling... questionable merchandise.
• Mindfulness is based on the Calm meditation app, which previously released the "History of the Transformers" sleep story.
• The Lost Bots attempting to throw the phone into the incinerator may be a reference to Frodo and Samwise attempting to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom in The Return of the King; Burgertron even refers to it as "my precious" at one point, a la Gollum.

Animation and technical errors

• In the French dub, after Burgertron presents Dave's edited photo, Bonz-Eye's line is missing despite her mouth visibly moving.
• The Descriptive Audio identifies the mascot of the Mer-chants app as a djinni instead of a merman.

Trivia

• This is actually the second Transformers episode to confront the dangers of phone addiction, the first being the Rescue Bots Academy episode "Screen Time".

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Le téléphone volé" ("The stolen telephone")

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Ligados no telefone" ("Addicted to the phone")

European Portuguese

• Title: "Obsessão telefónica" ("Phone obsession")

Arabic

• Title: "فتور الهمّة" ("apathy")