"But to tell you the whole story, I have to take you back 5 minutes."
6:00 to 6:05Airdates: January 22, 2015 note , March 23, 2015 note , May 17, 2015 note
When dinosaurs break out of the Dinosaur Room in headquarters, Olive and Otto must travel back in time to save the day in only five minutes, using a gadget Oscar created.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: This episode introduces Orchid's love for dinosaurs. Michela Luci, Orchid's actress, also plays the titular character in Dino Dana, Dana Jain — a girl who loves dinosaurs and sets out to conduct "dino experiments" that involve various species of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.
- Ad-Break Double-Take: This is a zig-zagged trope — most networks/stations play a Training Video instead of having a commercial break (although Discovery Kids in Latin America has commercial breaks in its airings of the show). Nonetheless, Olive repeats "we failed" before Part 1 of the episode ends and right after Part 2 begins. It also counts as Mood Dissonance, as before the break she speaks in a serious tone, while after the break has her take on more of a despaired tone.
- Answer Cut: A strange variant occurs when Otto asks how long a minute is before he and Olive make their way to the Dinosaur Room. There's no cut, but rather, a 60-second timer appears onscreen and begins counting down.
- Apologizes a Lot: Zig-zagged; Olive isn't overtly apologetic, but she apologizes to Ms. O for failing the mission, only to have Ms. O tell her that she's sorry Odd Squad is going to get destroyed. It's justified due to the fact that Olive has immense loyalty to Ms. O and her primary goal is to take over the Director position someday in place of her.
- Arc Words: Olive is repeatedly asked by Octavia if she's seen her partner Oz, only for her to respond that she hasn't, and that it's not lunchtime, it's dinnertime — followed by Octavia calling her a "kidder".
- Big "NO!": Olive and Otto both give one when Orchid is about to let the "dinosaurs" out. It comes to a slow halt when they see she meant her toy dinosaurs.
- Call-Back: Olive is once again a narrator for a story, and just like in that episode, her narration is sparse.
- The Dinosaur Room is also seen again after debuting in "Hold the Door".
- This isn't the first time that Olive has driven a vehicle of some sort.
- Character Narrator: Olive serves as one for part of the story, Breaking the Fourth Wall and all.
- Chekhov's Gun: Oscar's Jetpack-inator, which he is attempting to make hover throughout all of the timelines, with Olive correcting him on what button to press to make it do so. She and Otto end up using the jetpack to race to the Dinosaur Room in a minute.
- Chekhov's Time Travel: Somewhat enforced by Tim McKeon, Odd Squad's co-creator, who likes the concept of time-travel and has mentioned on Twitter that he brought up so many time-travel episode ideas in the writers' room that he was banned from writing any more
. Odd Squad: World Turned Odd would be his final time-travel-related contribution to the show, though not his final contribution altogether. - Continuity Cavalcade: Olive's narration primarily consists of odd problems that the precinct has faced in past episodes such as "My Better Half", "The Odd Antidote", and "The Briefcase", among others.
- Continuity Nod: Another code is introduced for the precinct, following Code Ruby.
- Double Meaning: When Oscar is asked about the whereabouts of Orchid, he explains that she left to let the dinosaurs out. Olive and Otto construe this to mean that she lets the dinosaurs in the Dinosaur Room out, but they soon find out Oscar was referring to Orchid's toy dinosaurs, who were taken off of her desk and placed in a special quiet room for them to relax.
- Drives Like Crazy: Surprisingly averted; Olive is a decent driver and doesn't manage to crash the cart at all.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Olive and Otto are put through hell and back racing against the clock in order to save their beloved workplace and their co-workers, and after three time-traveling tries, they manage to save it in the nick of time. The episode ends with them taking a very well-deserved vacation in Orchid's peaceful dinosaur room while sharing a plate of cookies.
- Faint in Shock: Octavia faints when she realizes that she forgot to feed the dinosaurs... four-and-a-half hours too late. Luckily, Otto manages to catch her before she can get a concussion as well from hitting the hard floor.
- For Want Of A Nail: Octavia's forgetfulness in feeding the dinosaurs, as well as her brushing off Olive's remarks of it being dinnertime and not lunchtime, manages to cost Ms. O a headquarters as well as her life. Luckily, Olive and Otto stop her just in time and correct her right before they leave to stop the dinosaurs from breaking out.
- Funny Background Event: When Olive bumps into Octavia's wagon while on her way to the Cookie Room, Otto is shown giving a smirk and a celebratory fist-bump as he walks away.
- Otto also gives Olive a nonverbal What the Hell, Hero? reaction when she bumps into Octavia's wagon for a second time.
- Glad You Thought of It: Otto and Oscar have this exchange while Olive is setting up the Before-Now Machine.Oscar: [groans] There's gotta be a gadget that can fix this!Olive: The Before-Now Machine!Oscar: Of course! And then you guys can go back in time and stop all this from happening! Why didn't I think of that?Otto: You did.Oscar: Well, congrats to me! [pats himself on the back]
- Heroic Sacrifice: Instead of evacuating like most other agents, Ms. O stays behind at headquarters and tries to beat back the dinosaurs as best she can.
- Idea Ding: One is heard when Octavia explains to Olive that the lunch she's mentioning is for the dinosaurs, not for her and Oz. This leads Olive to connect the dots as to who let the dinosaurs out.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Otto explaining to Olive how to resolve the issue of them botching up their mission in the first timeline.Otto: Olive, we didn't fail. I mean, we did fail, but we can un-fail by going back in time!
- I Resemble That Remark!: Olive remarks how Oren and Olaf may be crazy, but they aren't that crazy. Cue Olaf giving an excited "whee!" as he and Oren make their way down a hallway.Olive: Okay, even I stopped believing myself halfway through that.
- Jet Pack: Oscar is testing out a Jetpack-inator throughout the episode, which Otto employs as a sort of engine for his and Olive's makeshift cart.
- Like a Duck Takes to Water: While Olive has no issue adjusting to each of the timelines right off the bat, Otto takes a bit more time to get used to the timelines and how everything plays out (mostly) the same way.
- Loophole Abuse: Otto decides to skip to the Cookie Room as a way to beat Olive to it, explaining that Ms. O may have said no running or fast-walking, but there's no rule against skipping.
- Mistaken for Thief: Oren and Olaf are initially suspected by Otto and Olive to be breaking into the Dinosaur Room with a bag of tools. However, it turns out that what they were transporting in the bag were ribbons, which they were using to practice for the Odd Squad Talent Show.
- More Hypnotizable Than He Thinks: Subverted. Despite Oren and Olaf just showing off by twirling their ribbons around, Otto is unable to look away and stares at them wide-eyed. Olive, on the other hand, nearly becomes dizzy by following the ribbons' movement (with her eyes darting to and fro), but manages to pull her entranced partner away.
- Multi-Part Episode: The third one after "Reindeer Games" and "Crime at Shapely Manor".
- My God, You Are Serious!: When Octavia is confronted by Olive and Otto about misunderstanding the time of day, she scoffs and calls Olive a "kidder"...before Olive remarks that she's being dead serious, causing Octavia's face to fall.
- Mysterious Stranger: Olive tells Otto to "look for anyone suspicious" just before they spot a shifty-looking agent wearing a hat and a trenchcoat, who has a suitcase with a red question mark on it. Olive then rephrases her statement by adding, "...but not too suspicious".
- Never Say "Die": When asked if Ms. O will evacuate headquarters, she remarks that "the captain goes down with the ship!"
- Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: A subversion — Oren says this to Otto and Olive when they confront him and Olaf in the hallways, only for Otto to find out that they aren't carrying robbery tools like he thought, but ribbons.
- Our Time Machine Is Different: Oscar has a "Before-Now Machine" which enables someone to go back in time...but only for 5 minutes (any further than that and he'd need three bags of plutonium and surprisingly a lot of bananas). To use it, Olive and Otto grip a sphere attached to the end of the gadget while Oscar pushes a button to activate it.
- Our Time Travel Is Different: Of the "videocassette time travel" variety, as time is shown moving backwards as though someone were rewinding a VCR tape, with bubbles showing up repeating random bits of spoken dialogue.
- Race Against the Clock: Aside from Olive and Otto having to solve the mystery of who let the dinosaurs out in 5 minutes, the climax of the episode has the partner pair racing to the dinosaur room in exactly a minute, complete with timer.
- Remembered Too Late: Octavia is reminded by Olive that she forgot to feed the dinosaurs four-and-a-half hours ago. When she checks her watch, it finally sinks in, and she Faints in Shock.
- Retroactive Precognition: Olive has a good memory of the past timelines, and characters like Octavia and Ms. O are confused by her jumping right to the chase.Octavia: Hey, how'd you know I was gonna say...that?
- Right on the Tick: The dinosaur breakout is at exactly 6:05 PM. With this knowledge, Olive and Otto must race to stop the breakout before the clock reaches that time.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Olive and Otto remember exactly what happened with the first timeline, and aside from going to the Cookie Room (as well as confronting Orchid, Oren, Olaf and Octavia) and Ms. O issuing Code Topaz (complete evacuation), everything plays out the same way. By the episode's end, the partner pair share cookies from the Cookie Room inside Orchid's own dinosaur room.
- Rules Lawyer: Ms. O is one in this episode, enforcing "no running" and "no walking fast" rules.
- Running Gag: Otto being hit by a flying goldfish (complete with haphazard warning beforehand) turns out to be one of these when Orchid does the same at the end of the episode, but with dropping a toy dinosaur on Otto's head.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Oscar, twice.
- Series Continuity Error: Otto is unaware that the precinct has a Dinosaur Room, despite having visited it a few episodes ago.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Olive and Otto must stop the dinosaur breakout that Octavia inadvertently caused.
- Shamu Fu: Otto gets repeatedly slapped in the face by a flying goldfish. The first time around, he actually enjoys it. The fourth time around, he defies it by catching the fish in his hand without even looking and tossing it.
- Shout-Out: Olive and Otto's makeshift cart, as well as the driving mechanism with Otto taking backseat, looks like something straight out of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
- One of the doors seen by the Cookie Room reads "221B", which is the address of Sherlock Holmes.
- The Snack Is More Interesting: Olive has to pull Otto by his wrist when the dinosaurs break out, as he laments not having a chance to go to the Cookie Room.
- Spinning Clock Hands: Occurs when Olive is explaining to the audience how Octavia forgot to feed the dinosaurs.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: This conversation between Olive and Otto, and Oren and Olaf.Olive: Stop right there!Oren: You think you can stop us? Nobody can stop us! This is happening!Olaf: [drops the bag he and Oren are carrying] Yay!Otto: No it's not, because we got your... [opens up the bag and takes out a pair of ribbons] Ribbons? You're gonna use ribbons to break out dinosaurs?
- This Is No Time for Knitting: Subverted when Otto attempts to explain to Ms. O in the first timeline how he and Olive are from the future. Olive tells him that they don't have time to argue, and tells Ms. O that everything's fine. After that, he doesn't try and convince Ms. O or anyone else of the fact.
- Time Travel Episode: The premise of this episode revolves around Olive and Otto stopping a dinosaur breakout from occurring in 5 minutes. They do this by repeatedly going back 5 minutes with the Before-Now Machine in order to find the culprit.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: This episode somewhat conflicts its time-travel rules with "Ms. O Uh-Oh", which firmly established that Never the Selves Shall Meet, lest there be a timetastrophe. However, while that episode merely had Ms. O be sent from the past to the future, this episode has it vice versa, only with Olive and Otto being sent to the past instead of Ms. O coming to the present from the future. Olive and Otto don't meet their alternate selves, either, nor are they concerned by the matter (Otto in particular expresses interest of seeing the day he was born). Similarly, there are now two time-travel machines in existence: the Day-inator (which lets you travel to a day in the past or future in the current year), and the Before-Now Machine (which lets you travel only 5 minutes into the past, with more time being available if the right ingredients are collected).
- Watch Out for That Tree!: Olive manages to back up into Octavia's wagon full of dinosaur food numerous times. She also manages to run right into Oren and Olaf's bag at one point...before backing up into Octavia's wagon. All in the span of a few seconds!
- White Void Room: Olive is in one when narrating.
