"The Racing's Time" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of the animated comedy television series Robloxians. The forty-seven episode in the series overall, the episode's plot revolves around Willis, who learns that a racing competition is taking place nearby once more with plans to start the race by the following week. He is thrilled to see it, but he declined to go since he didn't want to risk another accident that would put his closest buddy Alex in the hospital. His pals then taught him a lesson that he also learnt, and towards the conclusion of the episode, he is happy that he gave the racing another try. The episode was directed by Thomas Alexander, written by Frances Richardson and George Mendoza and is produced by Angus Kennedy. It first aired on the children's programming network Avast Television on May 2, 2016.
The episode was originally going to be a sequel to the previous one, and Angus Kennedy was going to be the director. However, once it was decided that the episode wouldn't be a sequel, the idea was dropped and was subsequently used for later episodes. The episode's screenplay was completed in just over a month, making it the third-fastest episode in the whole series. Production on the episode started in January 2016 and ended on April 25 of the same year, just days before it was shown. It is also the shortest episode in the season, being only 25 minutes long.
"The Racing's Time" had received mostly positive reviews from critics and audiences. The episode received a total Nielsen rating of 7.54.
Plot
One day, Willis is enjoying himself at home when the doorbell rings. He answers the door and greets the guy, thinking it's one of his pals dropping over for the day, only to discover that it was just a random dude. He said "hello" and inquired as to what he wanted to do with him, feeling both angry and little annoyed. The individual then handed Willis a piece of paper on which he inquired if he wanted to attend the event or not. Confounded, Willis declares that he will look at the information on the page first before making a decision. After nodding in agreement, the individual departs, promising to return in at least 30 minutes. Willis inspects the paper, anticipating it to be only plank-shaped or, at most, to have illegible text. He is surprised to discover, however, that the paper also contains information about a racing event that will take place in the next two weeks, and as a consequence, it has made a decision as to whether or not he should go. When Alex nearly lost his life in a pile-up at another racing event in the past, he opted to look back on the negative consequences he had to face before going outside to the individual and saying "yes." He then resisted, throw it away, and waited for them to return.
However, as 30 minutes transition into an hour, an hour into night, and finally into the evening, Willis realizes that the individual had just forgotten about him. He grabs the paper once again, frightened that Alex may suffer the same fate once more because it says on the paper that they can bring friends to participate in the race as well. Willis gets out of bed the next morning, grabs the piece of paper, and goes to the cafe where Douglas is having a drink. They then have a brief conversation before Willis hands him the paper. Douglas is excited about the racing event as well, but when Willis tells Douglas about the earlier-than-expected collision, Douglas becomes perplexed and asks him why he is afraid to race at an event. As he continues, Douglas, who had long since forgotten the incident, reconsiders it. When he finally understands that the same terrible incident cannot happen again, Willis is shocked to see Douglas sign the document and hand it to him before he explains that he is rushing late for work. Willis sat there bewildered yet incredibly persistent. Later, the same person who gave Willis the paper saw him and took it from his possession before leaving, denying Willis the opportunity to really talk to them about the article or the situation.
He was forced to attend the function with his buddies because of Douglas. He is really worried and tends to think negatively, believing that the crash will happen again and that everything would turn out to be a complete disaster. The next week, Willis and his buddies attend a racing event, where they are shocked to discover that it is really smaller and less significant than in the past. One of the event staff members claimed that a crash that happened the year before was the cause of the event's smaller size than in the past. Willis is aware of this, so his pals decided to give him a brief lesson on letting go of the past and focusing just on having fun. The race then started, and unlike the first race, there was no collision and the audience was far less. While driving around the course, Willis is having the time of his life. At the finish line, he is declared the winner. Willis is content now that he has forgotten the incident as the buddies and he travel home in the evening. Alex said that he was terrified as well, but that he needed to put the previous incidents that led to his hospitalization behind him and focus on the future. They return home on foot as the episode comes to a conclusion.
Production
"The Racing's Time" was directed by Thomas Alexander, written from a script by Frances Richardson and George Mendoza and produced by Angus Kennedy. It first aired on the children's programming network Avast Television on May 2, 2016. Early production on the episode started in early January 2016, and it took at least five months to produce. When Angus Kennedy offered the concept to the producers for a follow-up to the well-liked episode that "The Biggest Race of the Year" that aired on April 2, 2014, he did so during the late production on the second season in 2014. The producers, however, declined to start working on the episode right away and chose to concentrate on many other planned episodes for the third season as well as for seasons beyond the second. The concept was reconsidered, though, during the third season's late production, soon after the Christmas episode had been aired in the US in December 2015. At that time, Angus had the idea to create a brief sequel to the episode, and it was rumored that the producers had approved it quickly. The episode of "The Racing's Time" was initially going to be directed by Angus Kennedy alone, but he rejected and passed control to the other filmmakers, leading to Thomas Alexander's selection.
Contrary to the previous episodes in the series, "The Racing's Time"'s screenplay took just approximately a month to write, compared to the two months it took to write each episode's plot. According to reports, the fourth season's first episode aired on January 3, 2016, yet the screenplay didn't finish until February 1—nearly a month (a month if considered rewrites). Frances Richardson and George Mendoza looked back at the episode from the second season called "The Biggest Race of the Year" that had aired around this time almost two years prior while they were developing the program's narrative. The first draft had the plot to focused on Willis trying to race again after the crash that leave Alex in the hospital and would have been set in the timeline of the second season, having been removed Alex as the main four character of the show, up until the Christmas episode that aired later that same year. However, due to producers having a problem for unclosed reasons, the episode was rewritten completely and by March 2016, the final version was finsihed. Animation on the episode began by February 9, 2016, a week after the script had been finished. Because of the script had been finished and later on, needed some rewrites, some of the animation had to be deleted and redrawn again. "The Racing's Time" became the first episode in the series that only featured traditional animation. Animation on the episode ended days before the first broadcast was set for May 5, 2016.
See also
- Robloxians (season 4)
- "Introduction Again", the previous episode (received universal critical acclaim)