Too bad the English version screwed that episode up. There were inside jokes (like the Autobots making fun of Grand Convoy when he DEMANDS to be called Wing Convoy after merging with Wing Saber), which totally got ruined when the show was translated. So glad I still have the Japanese version on my computer.

But yeah, the toys are ok, in my opinion. But often times a show influences which figures I get, so I don't own many from this line. The show woulda been great had it stopped after about 17 episodes. Honestly, even though I taped every episode, I doubt I'll EVER go back and re-watch that series. TERRIBLE!!!

 

No worries. I'm doing it for you. Buuuuut... just in case anyone's curious, the titles to the episodes in this thread all link to the corresponding episodes on Youtube. Two more!

Eps 5 and 6!

Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Little something I noticed right at the start of both these eps- I like the music they have for the quiet moments. In ep 5 it really fit the tranquil snow field and in ep 6 it had a more bluesy feel to it. Techno blues? I don't know, but I liked it.

I liked how Prime told Jetfire to can it when he was casting suspicion on Demolishor. Same with Hotshot telling Ironhide to apologize to the treaded one when he went off on his big tyraid about how you can't trust Decepticons. Finally! Not all the Autobots are ****s to the Decepticons!
Their mistrust is justified, but it's nice to see that at least some of them are making the effort to bury the hatchet.

Cyclonus still proves to be one of the more rational Decepticons (you'd never guess it for all his mad cackling). But you'll notice he's the one asking questions like if it's even possible to bring Megatron back to life. And he's the one reminding Tidal Wave what a jerk Megatron was- he seems almost on the verge of striking out on his own and leaving the Terrorcons when Megatron is heard from beyond the grave!

The beat-down between Megatron and Scorponok remains awesome to this day. Even after surrendering Megatron keeps pounding him into the ground. Nice and brutal.

Alpha Q gets away, severing Unicron's head from the body and warping off into space somewhere. He leaves a nice foreboding warning for Megs though and you just know he'll be back.

I know most of what I'm talking about here all happened in episode 6. What about episode 5?!!?! Well... it was snowy and scenic and nice. Um... Kicker's a weird little guy. Five episodes in and his hatred of the Autobots seems to have disappeared. It must be because he sees them actually defending Earth instead of mooching off all the energon there. He even sounds disappointed that Strongarm wants to go back to base to get the others instead of hang out with him. Awww.
His shakey relationship with his dad gets a little back-story and we see why they're not on the best of terms.

Dr. Jones- "Look Kicker, you're a divining rod for energon. And I'm going to use you like the tool you are!!"

Kicker- "But daaaaaaaaaaad!!!"

Seems a little unbelievable that Kicker has forgiven his dad for basically ruining his childhood. I think in some later eps they're still not quite speaking, so even if Kicker did have this big revelation it just doesn't work out when in the actual presence of his weirdo dad.

Signal Flare took a scan of Megatron's sword during a battle, so there's the set-up for that. Do we think we'll have mass-produced M-swords for the Autobots!? Yes we do!

Anything else? Hotshot lost his arm! HA! That's about it, I guess. Episode 6 is Energon at its best so far. Definitely a highlight of the show. Nice how they cel animated Megatron's face right when he was reborn instead of using the unexpressive cgi model. Blah. You'd think after seeing how awesome having the cel faces is, they would've stuck with it. Oh well.

 

I actually liked Energon, and the rest of the Unicron trilogy in general. I dunno why everyone's twirling crap towards it, I actually liked it the first time around. Honestly at first I thought it would suck.... but then I had a second thought. The toys seemed better than the toys we got from Armada. We finally got Constructicons again! And big ol' Fattmis wasen't a bad toy either, except for the mouth error. And for repaints, the Energon Unicron toy was an enormous leap from Armada Unicron which was just pure orange. The E Unicron toy was just pure AWESOMENESS.

For the show, it was pretty decent. I'd have to admit that some of the 3D models actually looked sorta funny, but the anime quality was 10 times better than Armada's animations. Energon probably isn't the best Transformers series, but it definately beats Beast Machines and RID in my opinion. Cybertron only ranks a bit higher in my opinion due to the awesome toyline, and more realistic 3D. But I still do like the highly-military-fied formation of the Autobots in Energon. I've got a chance to view the Japanese version "Superlink" and found that to be better. I laughed when I saw Bulkhead "Sprung" tap that Autobot nurse's ass which got cut out of the dub.

The "final battle" of Energon, unlike Armada and Cybertron... wasen't so good in Energon. Armada's final battle even till' this day, beats Energon, and the '07 movie final battle.

 

Here's my personal opinion of Energon.

Toys? Okay. Comic? Never read it, but I will in the future (if there's a comic shop in my area  ). TV Show? CRAP.

 

What!? Oh man, what idiot decided to cut that out? *sigh* Oh well. Still it's too bad. That would've been funny, especially since I know that nurse scolded him afterwards. In the dub it was just for being weird and creeping out the other patients. I can only imagine what she said in the japanese version after getting slapped on the ass. Right then, two more eps!


Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Riding off the momentum of episode 6 we get right into the mix of things. And we get our first exceptional moment of stupidity. Prime orders a retreat since Megatron's forces outnumber their own and they need to get Hotshot to a hospital. Tactically wise, but anti-climatic from a story-telling perspective. Ironhide asks if they're really going to let Megatron take all their energon and Prime says "NO! I'll fight him myself!"
Well great. So instead of taking on Megs and his team with a handful of Autobots, he's now going to stack up against them all on his own. It only takes one Autobot to get Hotshot to safety, leaving him with a few leftover.
So it's Prime vs. Everyone!!! Megatron offers them the option of retreating, but he expects them to surrender without a fight the next time. WHAT!? Megs has been waiting for this reunion for years and lets it deflate right before him!? Prime takes him up on his offer, which... he.... a second ago uh.... wasn't he going to fight everyone to keep them from getting their energon? Whatever. The Autobots all retreat and (off-screen) the Decepticons get a huge stash of energon without much interference.

I get the gist of what they were going for, but that scene was WEE-TAW-DEAD!!!

So the first five minutes were a complete waste of time, but the rest of the episode was pretty good. Starscream's ghost is put into action by Alpha Q and we get to see him beat the tar out of Prime. Always good for a laugh. Then the big battle starts and we get a showdown between Megs and Prime that's really worthwhile. Lots of great action and animation during this battle.
But perhaps above that even is the first meeting between a ressurected Megatron and Demolishor. I always loved this scene. Demolishor, torn between his old loyalties and his new friends (sorta' friends), restrains Ironhide from attacking Megatron. But he does it because he knows Ironhide would get himself killed. Seeing this, Megatron then orders Demolishor to destroy the door he's been guarding all these years for the Autobots INSTEAD of killing Ironhide. What a great moment of insight on Megs' part to realize Demolishor was not yet ready for a serious confrontation against his Autobot roomies.
It was shortly after this episode that I bought the Megatron toy, because I was convinced this guy was the real deal- brains and brawn! (more on that when I get to the later episodes).
When Demolishor hesitates to destroy the door, Megatron commands him to destroy him instead. Megatron bluntly tells Demolishor that if he's not with him, he's with the Autobots and therefore- he is now his enemy. Of course, Demolishor can't bring himself to destroy Megatron and instead destroys the door. Nice! We have another Decepticon back on the side of evil!

Oh, one last thing before moving on to episode 8- I HATE the battle music. As much as I like the music for the quiet moments, I hate the battle music even more. Next ep!


Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Starscream the spooky ooky! The ghost of Starscream is wandering around Ocean City looking to kill Optimus Prime. That's scary. I think there was a movie made about that called "The Grudge" or something. Anyway, interesting little bit- Ironhide gets a brush with the ghost and says, "Quit playing around, Demolishor." Cute. Dubbing error? Maybe. Or maybe it was force of habit- a slip of the tongue and no one was there to correct him on it. He didn't realize his error either, so I'm going to pretend it was a slip of the tongue. More fun that way.
Kicker's ESP comes in handy for this episode. He can sense that Starscream is still lurking around and even pinpoints the spectre a couple times. The ghost takes a couple hits and runs away but not too far. Then we get some Autobot shenanigans as they try to keep watch over Prime without him knowing it. Couple funny bits, but nothing gut bustingly uproarious.
Prime calls out Starscream, hoping the ghosty is within earshot and sure enough- BLAM! You're dead! Well, not quite. They scamper around for a bit shooting at each other and then Prime activates the space bridge and runs off to the moon. All by himself.
What is with this guy and never calling for back-up? I get the whole "It's me he's after. Must not endanger anyone else," routine, but c'mon! He's not surrounded by kindegarteners! These are trained fighers!

Besides, it doesn't stop the other Autobots from following him to the moon anyway. Prime fights Starscream some more, Megatron and co. show up and knock Prime down pretty hard. Before Megs can get an introduction out of Starscream, the spooky one disappears. OH, SNAP!!! Starscream just stole Megatron's thunder!!! Okay, whatever.
Um.... then Prime gets some juice from an Omnicon, gets up and for some unknown reason the spark crystal in his chest generates Hotshot's gun. What? No, really- WTF was that about? It's never explained, so whatever. Just roll with it, I guess. "Hotshots" gun plows a path through Megatron's guts and the bad guys retreat. WHAT?! Now that can't be Hotshot's gun, because if it were- that guy wouldn't have had to spend a whole episode in a regeneration tank. Blah.
The episode wraps up really quick and uh... yeah, guess that's all.

Other stuff:
We did get a nice moment between Tidal Wave and Scorponok. That was groovy. Nice to see the big guy get a moment where he's not getting played for the fool.
Inferno gives us a little more exposition about energon and how it can be applied to stuff.
Jetfire tells us a bit about the Omnicons, which seems like something that should've been explained before episode 7. Who exactly is exploiting and harrassing the Omnicons?

Overall- some good stuff in these 2 eps, but they didn't exactly succeed in building off the momentum from episode 6.

 

The Energon toys are some of my favorite TFs of all time. I liked the show very much, even if most of the episodes set in space and dealing with re-activated Uncron were almost all identical to each other, but the comic was a big letdown for me. It started out so good, and I think folks are just giving it praise because Furman wrote it and the cartoon was a dub, so that automatically equals "BAD" in this, the day-and-age of uploads fansubbed anime episodes, but after a few issues the art was your usual DREAMWAVE puffy trash and I couldn't find any joy in reading it.

 

Hellz yeah! Hurray for plot development in Animated, but I think the main reason I dropped Energon tv show was due to the prolonging of the series and how they neglected a lot of things introduced in Armada. But also how they kinda didn't bring in the "hyper mode" usage for the Decepticons as much. Also the dub seemed worse than Cybertron's, but I did stick to Galaxy Force for the most part.

 

I always felt the cartoon was alright, not good but not totally horrible, at least until the halfway mark. You could quite happily ignore the rest of the series after that, and it would almost fit into Cybertron, except that half the cast fell into the void and are back on Cybertron at the start of Cybertron.

Toys were fun though. Comic - much ado about nothing, the story did not really get going before cancellation and seemed to drag on too many points.

 

I didn't watch Energon, but I remember fondly Superlink. I agree, that the show went so-so after the 30th ep, but I still enjoyed. I also wished the comic was finished, but I guess that's a long shot.

 

energon is what got me to see the light of subtitles. I watched the first 30 or so, and was having a bit of trouble following what was going on. I had heard how superlink made more sense, but resisted it just because I didn't want to go through the trouble of reading the subtitles. but man, once I got started, it was just so much better. I really didn't like the a/e/c voice actors besides prime and megs. ended up watching galaxy force without ever seeing a single episode of cybertron.

as far as the toys go, the decepticons threw down the hammer with this one. love 'em all. I think they went overboard with the homages though in the autobots, and of course I was suckered into buying all of those that I probably wouldn't have given a second thought, i.e. downshift, roadblock, inferno. but we did get a nifty omega supreme out of the whole deal.

 

I also like the Energon theme a bit, the beat is pretty damn catchy.

My most favorite Autobot in this series is definately Ironhide. He's funny, ambitious, and just purely awesome. I liked it when he said "I'm the greatest!" What a character he was.

Prime in this series, unlike G1 was a HIGHLY ambitious commander. Probably the most determined version, despite his lack of physial strength. His supermode was a definate throw to a Megazord, but the toy was alot more fun than Armada Prime. Face this fact, the most ambitious versions of Prime were in A/E/C. Especially Energon and Cybertrom Prime, and C Prime actually killing Galvatron for the first time with a big ass sword. If every version of Prime was to fight eachother, it would probably be one of the later versions who would win. (Hey you know, that ain't a bad idea for a new thread name).

Most favorite Decepticon? Hmm... I always liked Demolisher and Cyclonus, good alt modes, good robot modes, excellent and funny personalities. Snowcat however didn't work... the yodeling didn't work either. Demolisher's new form wasen't half as good as Demolisher's tank alt mode. But then again, both are still way cooler then Ransack and Crumplezone, series-wise. Man I missed those two, Cybertron would have been better if I heard Demolisher's hystericy, and Cyclonus's crazy ass laugh.

Ironhide, Demolisher, and Cyclonus FTW!

 

Energon had the potential to be a dark TF series, perhaps to the extent BM was. If they had focused more on Megatrons insanity and given him a few decent troops they could've made a really decent show, also could've given Scorp and Alpha Q some decent characterisation and have them as a third faction to fight against.

On the whole, in retrospect, the Unicron trilogy blew chunks. I have no desire to see any of it again, besides the SUPERLINK 500th episode special, or the the episode of Cybertron where Starscream took out all the Autobots.

 

Megatron's already plenty insane. Maybe not at this point in the show but I just got done writing my review for the final episode and ..... yeah. He's plenty insane.

Eps 9 and 10!

Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Well it seems Megatron is having a bad day again. No Autobots around? Take it out on Demolishor!!! Yeah, I'm sure he loves getting picked up by the head and thrown around. Betcha' he's wondering why he ever left the Autobots at this point. In the space of two episodes Megatron went from being an inspiring Decepticon leader that knew how to motivate his troops without beating them down to the typical "AH OWNZ YOO!!!" tyrant we see all too often. Bummer.
This brings up something I've often thought about too- in G1 Megatron was about the same size as the rest of his troops. And sure, he laid down the law quite often, but there was always a good reason. He didn't start wailing on his troops just because they were having a slow time of digging up energon.
In pretty much every other TF show Megatron is always a lot bigger than his troops. And more often than not, he uses his size to look down upon his troops both physically and metaphorically. There's a serious lack of respect and it adds up. Just look at the Cybertron toon where everyone eventually turned on him. Moving on!
Starscream secretly meets with Scorponok. Nothing much comes of it just yet, but I like how Scorpy is still working Alpha Q's schemes right under Megatron's nose.
Good bit of sparring between Scorpy and Jetfire. Some nice moves. Starscreams' effectiveness seems to have been reduced to nothing though. Considering that he can make himself intangible (ghostly!) and solid at will and I have to wonder why he wants a complete body. He's not exactly suffering in this ghost form.
The scene where Hotshot spots one of Unicron's mobile bases was funny. Everyone started shooting at it and I couldn't help but be reminded of that scene in Predator when Mac sees "those eyes" and goes crazy with the gattling gun. Everyone runs up and without even knowing what they're shooting at, proceed to mow down the whole jungle! Ahh, good times.
Unicron's mobile base thingy was handled HORRIBLY!! We see it all by itself in a couple establishing shots. Then, when the Autobots are shooting at it, their shots appear to be aimed at some asteroid clusters with no sight of the base. I think the big fight took place on the base itself, but it was never made clear. It looked like it could've been rocky or a weird patchwork of metal. The ground was pretty flat... but there was an energon deposit discovered right on it. So... I don't know. Terrible. *yells at writers* It's all about transitions!! TRANSITIONS!!!
Right near the end of the episode we see that despite having his super warm fuzzies moment in that snowy episode (The New Cybertron City, I think), Kicker indeed still has a grudge against his dad. Yay! And perhaps the most disturbing scene is Dr. Jones meeting with Alexis. Her surprised, "Oh!", his big giant hug, and his maniacal laughter and the way Alexis shields herself after escaping his grasp all point to........ creepiness.
Oh yeah, Mika is officially Misha now. Stupid translators! Even if you realized your mistake, she's been Mika for the last 8 episodes! Why change it now? Does it make any sense? If someone can figure out a good (in show) explanation, I'd like to hear it.
Oh yeah, and I guess Kicker had some traumatic experience drifting through space as a kid.
One thing that gets me- the episode took place in an asteroid belt, was called "Battle of the Asteroid Belt" but at the end I think it was Jetfire or Hotshot that said, "Too bad we couldn't save Lunar city." Dude! You were nowhere near the moon!

Ugh! NEXT! (actually this ep wasn't too bad, but still)



Links Removed - 2005 Staff

"My fellow colleauges- I know that we must rely on my tool of a son to find energon deposits. And I realize that raw energon is a very rare mineral on Earth. So rare that an army of crazed robots are trying to tear up our planet to get at the few scraps we have. LET'S BUILD A GIANT ENERGON TOWER!!!! IT'LL RUN ON ENERGON AND CREATE A SHIELD MADE OF ENERGON AND WE'LL NEVER RUN OUT OF ENERGON TO KEEP THIS THING POWERED!!!!!"
Thus is the genius of Dr. Jones. The whole planet is doomed.
Okay, so we all know that the Energon Towers are going to work and the supply of energon on Earth never does run out. They've just made it out to seem that finding energon is a serious effort, so I would venture to guess that there's not too much of it around.
Dr. Jones is pathetic trying to mend some ties with Kicker. Pathetic in the sense that he's trying really hard, but his cookiness keeps shining through and Kicker is just being a dick anyway. Caught him at a bad time, I guess. Scenes like this make it all the more strange that Kicker was praising his dad mere episodes ago, but now it's all out the window. Maybe it's because Kicker had his horrible childhood flashbacks in the last episode and remembers exactly why he hates his dad so much. Must be. It's too weird. At least Miranda and Sally are there to cheer Jones up!
Alexis has to tolerate some more of Dr. Jones antics. When she finally leaves you can practically feel her giving off a mental sigh of relief. Poor girl. Good thing Mrs. Jones wasn't around to see all that.
Sooo, what else happens? Megatron gets a new sword. It's kind of interesting. Inside Unicron, he commands a bunch of cables to wrap around his sword. Then they bulge and distort into a bunch of faces before shattering apart and revealing a new sword. I'm just a bit curious as to who those faces were supposed to represent. Unicron? Don't know. They looked plenty monsterous though.
Big battle. Nothing really out of the ordinary. We get a good standoff between Demolishor and Ironhide. They hesitate to fight at first, but some prodding from Megs gets Demolishor into the thick of things.
The Omnicons bring down the antenna of the energon tower from a space bridge, connect it to the base and a wave of energon emits, destroying all Terrorcons and giving all the Decepticons a bad headache.
So what do we know?
Inferno is still boring. This and the last episode featured him a bit more prominently, but he never has anything to say other than stuff like, "Yes sir," or "Ready when you are."
In fact, most of the Autobots have been fairly boring for these last couple eps. Can you tell since these reviews are more about the humans and Decepticons? The next episode is "The Legend of Rodimus" and I know he's generally a jerk to Prime, so maybe the Autobots will start being interesting.

Oh one more thing- "Misha" tells Kicker he's more like Optimus Prime than he thinks. As a compliment. This is the same kid that told all the Autobots to go to hell and that humans could take care of themselves, etc. etc.? Assuming that he had a complete 180 about his feelings towards giant robots crowding up Earth, when was the last time Kicker talked with "Misha"? Does she know about his sudden change of heart? And considering that it's been a well known fact that Kicker has hated robots since he was a little kid, would she really be so quick to compare him to Optimus? Blah!

That's all for now. Next up! Eps 11 and 12!!!

 

Now THAT was cool. Nothing in Energon could touch that.

 

Eps 11 and 12!

Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Okay, I gotta' admit- I like this episode a bunch. I watched it two days ago and only just now got around to writing this review. Was there a battle between the Autobots and Decepticons in this one? Couldn't say. I forgot. I'm pretty sure there wasn't though. How could I forget something so fundamental?!
It's cuz we had some actual interesting stuff happening with the characters!! YES! Even more interesting than watching them dodge lasers on a constant basis! Bewildering, I know, but stay with me.

Basically Kicker still blames his dad for ruining his entire childhood by working him like a pack-mule.

"There's energon to be found, boy! Now git!"

So of course Ironhide comes up with some awesome advice. "Suck it up and be a man!" Wha?! Oh my god, Ironhide could be Dr. Phil if I didn't know better. Instead of blaming his dad, Ironhide says Kicker should look up to his dad, because Dr. Jones is so smart and designed this energon tower that will save the Earth...... while insuring that Kicker will be put to work finding energon for the rest of his life. Thanks, DAD!
Hotshot walks up to inject some empathy into the conversation on Kicker's behalf and goes on about how everyone needs someone to look up to.
Ironhide, being the rookie that he is, naturally assumes that it's Optimus that Hotshot looks up to. "Well yes, Ironhide, Optimus is great. But I was thinking about Rodimus." And thus we get the legend of Rodimus. I do love the bit where Ironhide recites Rodimus' big speech about how they need to just band together and ditch Cybertron. Funny business. Again, not gut busting, but it made me crack a bit of a smile.
And it turns out the real reason Optimus Prime rose in stature and rank was due in part to the void that Rodimus left when he took his men and left everyone else to fend for themselves. Why does Hotshot look up to this guy again? Oh well, I'm sure he has his reasons. There's something to be said for knowing when to leave, I guess.

Meanwhile, over at Unicron's diner the whole place is falling apart. Of course they need more energon (of course) so Scorponok goes off on his own to get some. He blows a hole through the wall and flies off towards Mars with some Terrorcons in stow. Awesome.
On his way out the spooky one, Starscream, passes him by and sneaks his way into Unicron. He finds Megatron's lair and attempts to assassinate him, but fails. Only then do we discover what crazy new powers Megatron has when he's linked up to the beast. He creates multiples of himself, and giant versions of his head or his hands. He finally captures Starscream and takes him on a crazy mental trip where he leaves the spooky one floating in a mental limbo of darkness. Awesome.
Then Megatron suddenly appears before Starscream and stabs him with his sword. We get what could possibly be the greatest bit of dialogue ever.
"If you want to live, say my name."
"Muh- Megatron."
"Say it again!"
"ME-GA-TRON!!"
Are you kidding me?! All this time and no one's taken it out of context yet?! That's priceless.

Soooooo..... over on Mars Scorponok is having a good day when Rodimus shows up and has him pinned in a cave- blasting away at him. Go Roddy! The episode ends here, but surely it will pick up right where it left off in the next episode.
Small point- Optimus isn't in this episode at all! Go figure! Or was he? I must've been half asleep when I watched this. I really can't remember there even being a fight between the bots or cons in this one. Guh!

Verdict- Awesome.

Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Aaaaaand.... hm. We're back on Earth. No Mars. No Scorponok or Roddy Roddy facing off. Oh well. They'll probably get back to that after the establishing scene. Surely!
What's good about this episode? Optimus Prime promises Misha that he'll do everything in his power to protect the Mayan pyramids when the Decepticons attack. It means a lot to her on a personal level and a historical level. And someone built Jungle City right next to it. Not good.
For the first time ever the Autobots really get their butts handed to them. It results in the Autobots retreating entirely and blowing the energon tower. When that sucker goes, so does Jungle City, the Mayan ruins and the entire mountain! All that destruction and the Decepticons all got away without a scratch. Now that sucks.

It's like when Rodimus Prime blew up planet Paradron in G1 and didn't even manage to take out any Decepticons with it.
Or when the Guardians blew up that stupid elf planet in Gobots and all the Renegades got away anyway. And with the loot in tow!

I have to say though, Alexis and Misha both seemed fairly accepting of the destruction of the ancient ruins after the fact. Isn't acceptance one of the last phases of grief? Where was the denial or bargaining stages?

Misha- "No. It can't all be gone, can it? There must be something left?"
Alexis- "Maybe there are some fragments of the ruins that can be salvaged from the explosion."

Something like that. Not- Misha- "This place meant a lot to me, but that's the way it goes!"

They score points for making it seem like a heavy loss though. The good guys sometimes lose even when they win. There was a good scene between Ironhide and Inferno with Inferno acting as the mentor, teaching Ironhide some combat techniques in the middle of an assault. Pretty good. Inferno's almost not boring!
And another scene where two Omnicons refuse to leave a cart of energon they mined and race to seal all the doors behind them on their way out. Except that the heavy load has cost them too much time and a Battle Ravage unit busts through a sealed door and almost certainly kills them both. Awesome. It was a nice bit of suspense and tension even if it was minor.

Perhaps my favorite scene is when Starscream awakens from last episode. Instead of having a few fragments of memory, he now has none whatsoever and is aware of this fact. He seems like such a charming fellow when he's a blank slate. Good scene. I like it, even though it pretty much marks the end of any characterization for the spooky one. *sigh*
Goodbye spooky ooky. Hello cardboard cutout.

And where the hell is Scorponok?! Do we even see Rodimus in this one? NO. Blah!

Two decent eps in a row. Not bad.

Eps 13 and 14 next!

 

Eps 13 and 14!

Links Removed - 2005 Staff

Imagine... it's a new day. *yawn yawn* Mmm, make me some eggs and toast. Freshly squeezed orange juice? Why, thank-you, Cyclonus. La dee da dee da. Life is good.
I'LL KILL YOU, DEMOLISHOR!!!!!
OH HELL!! WHAT HAVE I DONE NOW?!!?!?!
And such is the predicament Demolishor finds himself in at the start of this episode. Megatron is once again threatening to kill Demolishor unless he gives them information about Kicker. Not wanting to die, Demolishor gives in and betrays a personal friend. So the Decepticons have decided to capture Kicker because he's so good at finding energon. Not at all like the hundreds of thousands of Terrorcons they have which Kicker himself has used to find energon when he couldn't. Oh, silly Decepticons.
Oh yeah, and Scorponok is back from Mars. Absolutely no word on how his battle with Rodimus went down. Did I miss something? Alright, whatever. Moving on.

It's the burnt out husk of Lunar City! Kicker dragged all the Autobots up to the moon because he sensed there was some life still left here. And what do you know- they find Demolishor! He tries to play the old trick like he's abandoning the Decepticons for good this time, but no one's buying it. Except Kicker. So Kicker goes off with Demolishor and a horde of Terrorcons. Ironhide even figures out the plan that Demolishor's not defecting, he's trying to abduct Kicker. Wow, way to go Ironhide. That's... pretty smart for you.

Back on Earth Sally, Misha and Mrs. Jones are all worried about Kicker when they hear about Demolishor being there. Dr. Jones says, "He'll be fine. Optimus is there."
Later when they see a video image of Kicker surrounded by Terrorcons Dr. Jones says, "I told you, there's nothing to worry about. He's fine!" So in addition to ruining Kicker's childhood and being way too kooky and touchy-feely, Dr. Jones is now unconcerned with the safety of his only son who most likely will be eaten before the day is out. This is the guy Ironhide thought Kicker should look up to a few eps ago. Oh, if only Ironhide knew.

Anyway, Megatron and his crew show up and they're fighting Prime and the others. Nothing new there.
"I'll get you, Prime!"
"I'll save the universe, Megatron!"
Moving on.

Demolishor is leading Kicker towards their mobile command base, which looks like a giant tear-drop made of Unicron. Just then Scorponok, who's at the controls of the tear-drop, raises the ship into the air, blowing Demolishor down. Scorponok starts attacking everyone on the battlefield! Megatron yells at Scorpy to watch his aim and then takes a hit square in the chest!
No, seriously, he was aiming for Autobots! I believe you, Scorponok!

Right about this time a giant building emerges from beneath the ground and we learn that the Omnicons that were thought to have been destroyed way back are still alive and have the base of an energon tower built and ready. They do? Hm. Okay.
Anyway, Dr. Jones sends another antenna through a space bridge portal and, with much groaning and grunting, a team of Signal Flare Omnicons brings the antenna into place. It emits some crazy energon waves and the Decepticons retreat.
However, a lone Terrorcon stays behind to transmit the voice of Alpha Q to Kicker. He tells Kicker, "I want to rule the universe," and such. Well, that's a surefire way to break the ice.
At the last second Cyclonus and Demolishor make one last attempt to capture Kicker, but someone fires a shot and they're forced to retreat. Who fired the shot!? Where'd it come from!? Could it be...... Roddy!

Aboard the mecha tear-drop Scorponok is happy to have ditched Megatron. Oops! He's right behind you!

Back on Earth Kicker and Misha are having a tender moment and she closes the episode saying something along the lines of, "I think one day we'll know everything there is to know about the universe. Don't you, Kicker?"
"Mm, yeah."

Not a bad episode. Not really remarkable, but not horrible either. NEXT!


Links Removed - 2005 Staff

So Megatron is on his "throne". And he's grunting and growling, clenching his fists, gnashing his teeth (and being voiced by Richard Newman for this ep instead of David Kaye). And he poops out three giant Uni-comets from Unicron! It's so bad! But then the Decepticons get behind the "comets" and start pushing them towards Earth in an attempt to destroy the entire planet. Finally! Someone's thinking big! So now the Decepticons have basically been reduced to dung beetles, pushing these mounds of uni-poop through space aaaaaaaaaaand.... Carlos detects them on his radar or whatever!

They've only got 6 hours before the comets slam into Earth and wipe out all life, but no one seems particularly worried. Misha is excited to see the comets slam into the energon grid and get a good fireworks show out of it. Um... the grid is brand new and hasn't exactly been tested against such incredible force. You might not want to celebrate just yet.
But then disaster! The energon tower in Desert city isn't reaching full power! Now the Earth really is screwed! Ironhide, Jetfire and Kicker rush to Desert city to find out what the problem is!
Nice bit where Ironhide falls out of the portal in the sky and swims through the air to grab onto Jetfire's foot. A little ACME, a little Looney Toons, but it got a smile out of me. Okay! So Jetfire heads into space to meet Prime and the others and leaves Ironhide and Kicker to get to it.
They go inside the tower and somewhere along the way start talking about life and death- and why even bother fighting so hard since humans have such a short life span. What the? Demolishor and Megatron were talking about this too earlier- the human "spark" hehe, and Demolishor corrected Megs, telling him the human spark is fragile. We only get one chance at life, and OMG, WTF?!?!
Is Transformers attempting to get deep? I think they are! Kicker tells Ironhide the human spirit is like a torch that you want to see burn as brightly and as long as possible. OMG! Squeeeeeeel! They're trying to get deep, I can't believe it!
Wow!
Um... where was I? So it turns out there's a couple wounded Terrorcons of the Divebomb/ Blackout type in the tower syphoning off energon. Through them, Alpha Q overhears Kicker and Ironhide getting all deep and decides he wants to talk to them personally. He orders Blackout to hold his fire and let them approach, but the silly Terrorcons' instincts kick in and he shoots!
Yeah, that'll go over well. For some reason Kicker thinks it's best to treat these robo-birds like wild animals instead of enemy combatants. Hey, Kicker- you've never watched Animal Planet, have you? Alright then, go ahead and try to approach a wounded animal. Hehe. Dare you!

In space the Uni-turds have come into view and the Autobots start firing everything they've got at them! But it's not doing much good! OMG we're all gonna' frickin' die!!! Inferno yells out to Hotshot, "Hotshot- let's powerlink!" There you go people. That was Inferno's 5 seconds for this episode. What a boring, nothing loser.
Out of nowhere Roddy shows up and directs a whole fleet of Terrorcons to ram into the side of one of the comets! He jumps through the hole they made and sabotages the comet from the inside. The comet blows up!
What gets me is that the Autobots were far away from that particular comet. Really far. The Terrorcons attacking it looked like specs to them. And despite having not seen Roddy for millions and millions of years, the first thing Hotshot yells out is, "Is that Rodimus?!" I guess.... since Hotshot has a bit of hero worship going on, he might recognize Roddy after all this time. Might. If it were any other Autobot (except maybe Prime, because the two supposedly worked together), I'd call them on it. Okay and- 1 comet down, 2 to go!
I like Megatron's response to the comet being destroyed. He assumes it must've been the work of Alpha Q and orders his men to bring the other two in quickly. That's all. No mad barking or freaking out that one of his comets is gone. Wow, he sounds sane and in control for once. Good job, Megs! *clap clap*

Back in the Desert City tower Kicker feeds the two Blackout Terrorcons some energon. They regenerate their wounded bits and stop syphoning off of the tower. The energon grid is ready to go and the last two comets disintegrate upon slamming into it. Woo hoo!
The Decepticons retreat and Kicker, Misha and Ironhide get a great fireworks show.
It's not quite over yet though. Roddy's ship descends to the planet and picks up the two Terrorcons that Kicker had saved. Ironhide reveals that he placed a homing device on one of the Terrorcons, so now they'll know exactly where the ship is going. Hey, good going Ironhide! That's two really smart things in a row that you've done now! He's borderline smart! I can't believe it!

Back in Unicron's head Alpha Q seems to know Roddy personally and can't figure out how he was able to take control of an entire swarm of Terrorcons. Could this be the left over regiment that Scorponok took to Mars? You know, from that episode that ended on a fight between Scorpy and Roddy and never ever told us how it ended? That could make sense.

My one gripe for this ep is that the two Blackout Terrorcons that Kicker saved and were later recovered by Roddy could've been developed as characters. They already had a somewhat neat introduction and they're obviously on the side of the good-guys (even if Alpha Q can still see and hear everything through them). Special attention had already been given to them. Just a little bit more could've made them actual characters instead of random drones. Ah well.

Not bad. Pretty good stuff, this one.

Eps 15 and 16 next!

 

I'd recommend you watch Superlink instead of Energon, not because I'm a elitist that hates all dubs, but because Energon just so happens to be quite bad. And I don't mean voice work. I mean the translation and errors. Superlink will give you the original unaltered story without any errors. That way you can judge the show from a mere story stand point. Energon also cut out an episode that dealt with Scorponok I believe.

Also you won't have to deal with Ironhide's annoying VA, Matt Hill. Roadbuster is far less annoying.

 

Except that I've already finished this little project. I could just post up my little reviews for every single episode, but I didn't want to blow anyone away with a giant wall of text.
I know the episode about Scorponok that you're talking about. It's episode 33 and I was able to watch it on youtube since it never got aired over here. Pretty cool hearing the original voice actors.
And besides! I kinda' enjoyed pointing out all the errors and stuff that just doesn't make sense in the dub. It's fun!