Ass Pull: Due to the sudden uncancelling, despite a heartfelt goodbye and Heroic Sacrifice in the intended finale, Sam is suddenly okay, everyone's memories are erased, and the status quo is returned with no explanation.
Common Knowledge: It's widely believed that the show was cancelled due to low ratings. In reality the show was a pretty popular alternative to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and pulled in good ratings and toy sales numbers during its run. Its cancelling (both times it happened) was due to one simple reason: the show had exhausted its Japanese source for footage.
Complete Monster: Kilokhan is a rogue government A.I. seeking world domination. It's implied Kilokhan's first act upon becoming self-aware was to murder his creators. Teaming up with antisocial artist Malcolm Frink to create his monsters, Kilokhan would routinely demean, abuse, and insult the boy any chance he gets, even possessing his body while leaving his mind trapped in a Mega Virus Monster. Kilokhan would often raise Malcolm's already dangerous plans from petty to potentially cataclysmic, often without Malcolm's consent. Among his very very long list of crimes, Kilokhan would get countless innocent people unlawfully arrested; attempt to slowly kill Sam's class with unrelenting heat; desire to use Gramm to freeze the world's hearts and plunge it into a global war; brainwash Servo into his slave and force him to fight his friends; cut off the global food supply to starve humanity to death, Malcolm included; digitize people and trap them aware in floppy discs; trap Sam in total isolation within a camera and nearly drive him insane with the intent to do the same to the rest of humanity; and turn the entire town's water supply into hydrochloric acid. Among his absolute worst crimes is attempting to launch the world's nuclear arsenal and plunge the world into an apocalyptic nuclear war, an act that horrifies even Malcolm. Tricking Malcolm into powering him up to the point of no longer needing him, Kilokhan erases the minds of Sam's friends and promises a slow, painful death to him and the now-useless Malcolm. Mortally wounding Sam, Kilokhan intends to destroy humanity with his newfound power. Caring for none but himself, Kilokhan's ultimate goal is for himself to be all that remains on Earth.
Cult Classic: Out of all the various competitors that cropped up in the wake of Power Rangers, there's a good argument for SSSS being the most fondly-remembered. It was certainly one of the most successful in its own time, and only truly wrapped production because they ran out of Gridman material to adapt and ran into issues attempting to continue the show through other means.
One episode shows the personalities of the cast pulling a "180" — notably, Amp went from a "space cadet" to a cultivated, verbose genius. Flash forward a few decades: Amp's actor goes on to be an attorney in California.
As mentioned above, Malcolm could have been the new Servo if they had more footage to work with. Twenty years later in its Japanese counterpart'sboys invent great hero short, Takeshi does just that.
The "freak accident" that put Sam into Servo's body becomes funnier after watching SSSS.GRIDMAN, where "Servo" finds himself possessing Yuta's body in order to fight kaiju in real life.
One episode has Kilokhan suggesting to destroy “That one island off the coast of Africa that no one remembers the name of.” A decade later, a movie made sure that everyone would remember its name.
The main hero as a lead vocalist/guitarist, an athletic kid on the drums, a smart kid on the keyboard, and a comical character on the bass guitar... Is this supposed to be Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad or Dennis and Gnasher: Unleashed?
Moral Event Horizon: While Kilokhan was always nasty, the point where he crosses this is when he attempts to hijack the world's nukes and launch them, plunging the world into an apocalyptic nuclear war. Even Malcolm is horrified.
Episode 18: "Water You Doing?". Malcolm's dramatic reading of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" gets rejected from the school talent show for it being very disturbing. Rather than be a good sport about it, he decides to take his anger out on everyone by corrupting the city's water supply and turning all the water into hydrochloric acid, and it's even stated in-episode to be dangerous to people. If you read the Youtube comments, a lot of viewers expressed horror on how such a plot was shown on Saturday mornings and even compared Malcolm's actions to that of a terrorist. Mind you this episode aired four years before the Columbine shooting and six before the 9/11 attacks.
Kilokhan attempting to hack the world's nuclear arsenal and launch them, starting an apocalyptic nuclear war. Even Malcolm is completely horrified and is reduced to tears begging him to stop.
Kilokhan can be genuinely terrifying when he needs to be. When he gets a huge power up in the intended finale, he instantly goes full No-Nonsense Nemesis and makes it clear that he's going in for the kill now, and it is horrifying.
The premise of computer viruses and corrupted programs affecting the real world and a team of young kids controlling good programs to fix things is basically the exact same as Mega Man Battle Network.
Kids getting digitized into the computer to fight viruses one-on-one is also the main idea behind Code Lyoko.
You can't mention Reboot: The Guardian Code without mentioning MP4orce, which is about -wait for it- four teens getting recruited by a being from cyberspace to fight a villain that have escaped from the titular game into the real world and is being added by an antisocial who hates the protagonist characters. The show is also from the same people who worked on Reboot: The Guardian Code.
Replacement Scrappy: Lucky replaced Amp, to questionable success. Amp's unusual and borderline nonsequitor behavior was often used as a source of humor, inspiration or creative solutions to many of the show's plots, including the recurring gag of his catchphrase being different in each episode. Lucky meanwhile was a Surfer Dude and... that's basically it.
Anything that involves real-world computers is going to run right into this. Even though the computer is turned into a supercomputer by the Servo program, everything we see onscreen still looks pretty darn primitive when it isn't digital world battle footage.
In particular, the proliferation of Compaq-branded computing equipment dates the show. Compaq was a ubiquitous brand around the time the show aired, intentional brand insertion or not; by 2002, the company merged with Hewlett-Packard, and by 2013, the brand was completely gone in the United States. Younger viewers in The New Twenties might not even recognize it's meant to be a real-world brand.
Also, Sydney's outfits, especially her Blossom-style hats, are vintage-early 1990s and look positively quaint by today's standards. And the hairstyles looked outdated five years later; we were on the tail end of '80s Hair.
Malcolm is also this, especially well into the 21st century. Malcolm is very much a pre-Columbine nerd student malcontent; tromping around in black, being sharply antisocial, occasionally attempting to hurt people en masse (though school officials don't know about that last part, generally). In the 21st century, particularly The New '10s and beyond, it would feel virtually unthinkable that Malcolm's behavior wouldn't draw serious concern and, for him, unwanted attention from school officials and other government actors. "Water You Doing?" in particular would never air on kids-time-slot broadcast television in the 21st century. In the show's time, though, "brooding" nerds like Malcolm weren't really seen as a credible, potential threat (which the show plays on) and his treatment in the show is very much in line with how such kids were seen.
Unpopular Popular Character: Malcolm is a malcontent at school with seemingly Kilokhan as the only sapient creature to regularly share his company (and not even the virus really likes him) yet he's very popular with the audience. The show even starts shifting to give him more screentime towards the end, and (according to an interview with his actor) had there been a second season of Gridman to adapt he would have been the new Servo.
) had there been a second season of Gridman to adapt he would have been the new Servo.