"Skip" is the forty-fifth episodenote of Lilo & Stitch: The Series. It first aired on February 11, 2005.
Lilo is tired of being a kid so she uses Experiment 089, whom she names Skip and who can skip ahead ten years to turn Lilo into a teenager and then an adult, but then she discovers the consequences of her and Stitch not being around.
Experiments who appeared or were mentioned in this episode:
- Clink (X-086): A green crab-like experiment who is designed to capture and capture enemies within himself, splitting into two and then putting his two halves together to encase his victims. Lilo, Stitch and Skip encounter him in the Bad Future, capturing the latter two and bringing them to Gantu.
- Skip (X-089): This episode's Monster of the Week; a purple hourglass-shaped experiment with green buttons on his head. He was designed to let someone skip time ten minutes into the future, but a design flaw ended up making this ten years.
- Shoe (X-113): Seen on a digital wanted poster in the Bad Future, having been caught by Hämsterviel during Lilo and Stitch's time skip.
- Finder (X-158): Seen on a digital wanted poster in the Bad Future, having been caught by Hämsterviel during Lilo and Stitch's time skip.
- Sparky (X-221): Seen on a digital wanted poster in the Bad Future, having been caught by Hämsterviel during Lilo and Stitch's time skip.
- Reuben (X-625): Mocks Gantu during his video call with Hämsterviel in the present (as usual) for not capturing enough experiments, complaining about how long it's taking to catch all the experiments. In the Bad Future, we see him as a holographic call operator for Gantu.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: A prison worker, like other people, accidentally calls Hamsterviel “Dr. Hamsterwheel”. His prison cell’s computer makes the same mistake, to Hamsterviel’s fury.
- An Aesop: Don't be in a hurry to grow up, appreciate being a kid while you can. Time is precious.
- The Ageless: After using Skip to skip forward ten years, and then twenty, Stitch and all the other experiments look exactly the same. Lilo figures that perhaps Stitch could look older if he grew a goatee.
- Anger Born of Worry: In a Call-Back to the first movie, Nani is understandably furious and chases a teenage Lilo to her room because she believed her younger sister was missing for 10 years. Nani later calms down and gives Lilo a sandwich much as she did with pizza originally.
- Arc Words: "Ten years" is mentioned quite a bit in the episode, especially before Lilo and Stitch use Skip.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: The only difference in the X-Buggy's appearance after the second time skip is that it just simply accumulated a lot more parking tickets that miraculously haven't blown off the dang thing yet. No rusting, no discoloration from being out in the sun for so long, no signs of water damage, and so on. That being said, Lilo and Stitch don't drive it again after the second skip.
- Artistic License – Law: Even then, the X-Buggy would have been booted and towed away within days after Lilo, Stitch, and Skip started the second time skip for the unpaid parking tickets, not left in the same spot on the side of a commercial street for another decade.
- Bad Future: By using Skip, Lilo and Stitch end up messing up the future in two ways. The first time they skip to the future, it allows Gantu and Hämsterviel to gather all the experiments needed for their dastardly scheme since Lilo and Stitch weren't there to find them first. The second time they skip to the future, it creates a world where Hämsterviel has taken over the Earth using the collectively captured experiments, Gantu is Hawaii's overlord, the reformed experiments were declared fugitives and captured, and Nani is Hämsterviel's secretary/glorified water bottle holder. On the bright side, Pleakley has become a studied and famous fashion designer.
- Big "WHAT?!": This is Hamsterviel’s response when the prison worker tells him that his parole has been denied, his sentence has been doubled, his TV time is being cut in half, and his free popcorn cart is being taken away.
- Butterfly of Doom: Using Skip's ability causes Lilo and Stitch to be removed from the timeline for ten years though Lilo ages. Without them around for ten years, Gantu was able to capture all the remaining experiments unopposed, allowing Hämsterviel to take power while Lilo and Stitch are gone for another ten years.
- Egopolis: In the Bad Future, Hamsterviel has changed Kakaua Town’s name to Hamstervielville.
- Mundane Utility: Believe it or not, this was Jumba's intent when he made Skip; he didn't want to wait for the microwave oven to reheat his leftovers and meant to program 089 to skip ten minutes, not years.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By using Skip to grow up quickly, Lilo creates a Bad Future where Hämsterviel rules the universe.
- Not What It Looks Like: Early in the episode, as Lilo and Stitch walk by the Kokaua Town Cinema and see the long queue line for the new Wasp Mummies film, Mrs. Edmonds—near the front of the line with her daughter Mertle as well as Elena, Teresa, and Yuki— notices them and tries to invite them to join her to watch the film (much to Mertle's chagrin). As Lilo tells Mrs. Edmonds that she can't because Nani forbade her from watching the film, the latter shows up in her jeep having decided to see if Lilo was there. She immediately jumps to the conclusion that Lilo deliberately disobeyed her, yelling at her for trying to see the film and taking her back home to ground her for it, without even letting Lilo try to explain herself that was not the case. (Oddly, despite seeing the commotion in front of her, Mrs. Edmonds does not bother to try to stand up for Lilo either.)
- Reset Button: A literal one as Skip has a feature to reverse his time jumps.
- "The Scream" Parody: Stitch reacts like this after he and Lilo skip time again and end up in the Bad Future. The scene fades to black for a commercial break immediately afterward.
- Take Over the World: Hämsterviel actually succeeds in this as during the first time skip, Gantu and 625 managed to capture all the experiments apart from Stitch and Skip unopposed. Since Hämsterviel was paroled during that time, he didn't need to break out of prison, and so he completed his scheme during the second time skip.
- Time Skip: Literally Skip's namesake function; notably, those who use his ability still age normally despite being removed from time during the decade they are absent.
- Trilogy Creep: Exaggerated; in the first act of the episode, Lilo and Stitch want to go watch Wasp Mummies III. Ten years in the future, the Kokaua Town Cinema (or Cinemas) is now showing the ninth Wasp Mummies film, Wasp Mummies IX: Return of Another Final Chapter – Part 2.Lilo: I guess we missed a few sequels.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Digital wanted posters on monitors in the Bad Future show that some experiments that Lilo caught as a child have since been captured by Hämsterviel (indicated by a red X over them). They show that Sparky, Finder, and Shoe have all been caught, while Skip and Stitch, who have just arrived, are still at large.
