Operation Cover-Up

Operation Cover-Up is the first proper episode of The Show, picking up from the ending of Deprivation Of The Sonic And You, and is the beginning of Series 1. It was uploaded to Mad Matter on Sunday, the 25th of July 2021 (GMT). It begins the trend of alternating between large review episodes and shorter, story-based episodes.

It features the first canonical appearance of Matt in the proceedings, with a doppelgänger having replaced him in the pilot. He and Reggie are warped into The Beta Realm and tasked to begin "the work" that Him Upstairs sets for them for do: i.e. review media so Him Upstairs can perfect his copy of reality and airbrush out any "bad apples".

History
The basic premise of The Show was planned as far back as 2018 with the creation of The McGuinness Experiment. The idea was to make a simple ARG-type concept which blurred the line between reality and fiction - most of the content on TME was planned in advanced in order to sell this idea. It was decided during 2020 that the time was right to transition from one to the other, and so TME was closed without warning in early 2021 prematurely to ensure that questions would be asked as to why it ended when it did, as this would then play into the storyline of The Show.

The idea of beginning the series with the Thomas video was a last-minute decision, as the idea was originally to have a large introductory act that would transition between TME and Mad Matter. Several versions of the script were written before the storyline was finalised. The opening eight minutes were removed from the video, six of which were uploaded separately as Deprivation Of The Sonic And You, as it was felt that this didn't fit the rest of the video in subject matter. The other two minutes were cut entirely as it clashed with the rest tonally and didn't make sense in context.

Writing
The video was written in two halves - one script contained all of the live-action scenes, and the other contained the review sections on their own, the latter proofread and subsequently edited by Saj-Man. Some lines were changed during recording for clarity reasons. This video is the only one which is still written in the Matt Reviews style, which was edited to suit The Show going ahead.

Continuity
Matt is warped into Beta first, with the large delay of Reggie's arrival being a result of his meeting with Him Upstairs in The Ether (YT: Deprivation Of The Sonic And You).

Cast

 * Matt McGuinness as Himself and Reggie
 * UltraSonicHero as Him Upstairs (this episode only)
 * Guykings as Dessie
 * Frazoid as Inspector McGee (cameo)