The diabolical Hacker wreaks havoc when he steals the power pods of Poddleville, a cybercity filled with patterns. Jackie, Matt and Inez must use math and logic to crack the double pattern in the Podlock that unlocks the Poddles’ cyberpower vault before Hacker and his henchmen do!
Tropes in this episode:
- Clear My Name: The kids are accused for stealing the pods and have to clear their innocence.
- Deranged Animation: Everything in Poddleville exists on bizarre CGI planes of Alien Geometries, which Jackie Lampshades frequently. The episode's animation in general also qualifies; it employs their very rough and exaggerated style which stands in jarring contrast to the more clean and quasi-realistic look of the Nelvana-animated main show.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The episode is full of Deranged Animation and bizarre jazz music courtesy of Peter Lurye of The Magic School Bus fame (hence why the music here is similar to that series), Jackie narrates the story, neither Digit nor Dr. Marbles appear and the Grim Wreaker has a black front window, instead of an orange one.
- The For Real segment following the aired version does not feature either Bianca or Harry, with the presenter instead being an unnamed host portrayed by Are You Afraid of the Dark? actor Kareem Blackwell. In lieu of playing a character with a specific everyday problem as was customary for later segments, Kareem instead just gives the audience a straightforward documentary-style tour of the STOMP stage show in New York City.
- Medium Blending: The Establishing Shot of Poddleville in the aired version is rendered in 3D.
- Pilot: This episode was created as the original series pilot in 1999, evident from having different character designs and music from the rest of the series. The original version was found and released on the Internet Archive in 2021, and still has some differences from the version that aired as part of the series in 2002, including:
- The show's logo was different originally.
- In the original version of the episode, everyone had a different voice actor.
- Jackie serves as the narrator during the pilot, presenting the episode like it was a flashback. Additionally, two scenes at the beginning and end of the episode featuring her were removed, the opening one shows her about to make breakfast before being summoned to Cyberspace, and the closing one shows her resuming her breakfast and deciding she'd rather have cereal than eggs.
- Certain lines were redone, removed, or added between the original version and the aired version. Notably, the power pods are always referred to as "eggs" in the original, drawing a parallel to Jackie's Framing Device where she makes breakfast on Earth.
- The portal sequence was redone between the original and aired versions to have it look more like the one used in other episodes.
- Motherboard looked completely different in the original version, more like a sine wave with floating blue eyes. The aired version uses her final design.
- New scrolling sequences were added in the aired version, possibly to compensate for time lost when certain scenes were removed.
- Certain scenes were digitally redone in the aired version, hence the brighter animation in some scenes.
- An exchange between Hacker, Buzz and Delete aboard the Grim Wreaker, which includes a mention of Comparaville (a cybersite that is never seen nor mentioned in the final series), was scrapped in order for Buzz and Delete to already be in Poddleville at the beginning.
- A spotlight filter was also added to the Grim Wreaker scenes.
- The scene with the Mayor of Poddleville was also rewritten.
- Put on a Bus: This is the first (and so far only) episode where Digit doesn't appear at all due to the fact that he wasn't created when the pilot was in production. A line was added to the aired version to explain his absence.
- Shout-Out: Jackie remarks that Poddleville looks like "Jane Jetson meets Martha Stewart."
- Written-In Absence: Due to Digit being not created during the pilot's production, the aired version has Inez mentioning his absence.
