Velocity on Cartoon Network Today, Rise of the Constructicons on YTV

I liked this one. First episode that really made me even kind of like Blitzwing. The chase scene with Bumblebee was very cool. He really can kick a lot of ass when Lugnut isn't holding him back. Still hate the multiple personalities, but he made a fine showing this time around.

I like the debut of Blurr. They set up a pretty cool little mystery with the character and it's nice to see that they're delaying it for awhile. I assume he's a member of the Elite Guard left behind to keep an eye on the Autobots, but I'm not sure as I've been avoiding the spoilers for later episodes.

Meh, the All-Spark shards/Sari's key-can-do-anything plot device is just way too weak and got way too holey this week with that remote. What I gathered from the episode is that the Autobots can build a bunch of remote controls, throw an All-Spark fragment into each of them, and march into battle and defeat Decepticons by controlling them no problem. Shoot, they can finally take control of the Dinobots as well. Also, how'd the race organizer come up with the remote to begin with, and why didn't he use it on Bumblebee?

My review (yeah, I'm not watching episodes on an itty bitty window on my comp, I can wait, thanks):

Negatives:
-Um... it wasn't as exciting as some other episodes? You KNOW Animated is getting darned good when this is one of the "negatives". Even the filler episodes are great, it's already improved a bit since Season 1. Alright, if this continues for a bit longer, Animated is officially tied with Beast Wars for my favorite TF series ever instead of being 2nd place. I wonder if Season 3 will make it surpass BW...
-Captain Fanzone's catch phrase is getting a tad old.
-I understand wanting to drag Blurr's intro out, but I don't know if I agree Blurr was the character to do it to. Since Moschita's voicing him, he's got to have at least a similar personality to G1 Blurr, and having such a wordy character not even talk was a bit of an odd choice.

Positives:
-Sari hasn't annoyed me since last Season. The writing for her character continues to improve, I actually don't mind her at all now.
-BLITZWING! I love how even though the Decepticons are showing up more often, they're still the major threats they were in the first season. In pretty much every prior TF series, the bridge collapsing on Blitzwing would have been the end of that. But nope, he just kept on comin'! Seriously, I HATED Blitzwing after the first episode, but ever since he re-appeared in the latter half of Season 1 he's shot up in my book. He's not my favorite character, but he's up there.
-The fight scene between Bumblebee and Blitzwing FTW.
-Great character interaction and dialog, as usual. Blitzwing in particular had some great one-liners-- "Oh, look! TWINS! HAHAHAHA!" "Never give up... never surrender.... NEVER MIND!" "I can't control myself... AS IF I EVER COULD!"
-Bulkhead getting cracked out of his ice shell and still acting like it was 10 minutes ago was hilarious.

Overall, I give it a borderline B+/A-. Honestly, the fact that it wasn't as "epic" as some other episodes is its only real downside IMO. Oh, and I also find it interesting that this episode aired for the first time the same weekend Speed Racer opened in theaters. Talk about lucky coincidence...

Blurr was one of my favorite G1 characters so I was really hyped for this episode. And he didn't even talk or transform. Hope he shows up soon.

Well it looks cool but I'll wait for it to show up on tv unless they want to show it to the rest of the world first.

I liked this episode ... I have not been reading any advance stuff on the episodes so was not aware that the mysterious car was Blurr ... until I came here. I liked that they are dragging out his intro and look forward to when we see him transform.

I like the episode, but without giving anything away, during the show I kept feeling it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for Animated Bumblebee to be evil. This character really needs to mature.

All in all the show was good. I was sad not see Blur transform

Another very solid episode! Some good characterization bits, funny lines (LOVED Blitzwing's Galaxy Quest tribute!), and a self-contained A-plot with subplots for later.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the negativity for not having Blurr speak or transform, but I applaud the writers for once again building suspense. ADD be damned.

Pretty sure the insult is "Buttinski". As in someone who butts in all the time.

And the writer's name is Budiansky.

He definitely will.

Oh, it is! Transtech Cheetor feet FTW!

SPOILER, I guess: he had the Elite Guard "wings" around his faction symbol in the pic shown at BotCon.

Yup. They hinted pretty strongly that Jetfire and Jetstorm will be combiners. The question buzzing around the audience was whether it would be in bot mode or vehicle mode (a la Darkwing and Dreadwind). I'm hoping for side-by-side bot mode combining, like the Brave "element" trucks.

At least he changed it up in... "Mission Accomplished", was it? "This is why I hate KIDS!"

anyone else see the speed demons as future Stunticons? that rig would be a sweet Motormaster

Okay here's my thoghts:

The illegal drivers look famiar. I'm pretty sure I've seen a 70's cartoon characher with that hair and nose. Not Speed Buggy, but perhaps another show? And the girl reminded me of Nightbird, I can't think of any other female cartoon charachter that she reminds me of. (Also hot EMT chick FTW)

Master Disaster's Voice bugs me. I know foreign accents are easy for voice actors to emulate, but I would have prefered someone to do an impersonation of Vin Diesel from Fast & Furious.

Bumble's transform scene when racing over the ice was just badass!

I think it's offical Fanzone needs a new car.

Fanzone knows short cuts,,, but I thought no one could out run a radio?

Would be cool if the "street racing" took place on streets and not sewer ditches, but I understand how that would be hard to animate anyway.

Hahah, just noticed one of the "street racers" is a Gremlin. Not exactly a fast car.

Still kinda want to see Bulkhead's "battle mask/helmet" assuming he has one. Might be cool if he has a helmet more in proportion to his underbite.

As a guy who actually DID race for a while, I fail to see the fun of "remote control" racing. I can't imagine driving a car from a stationary location and still have a good idea of where your approach angles and apexes lie. So MD's "remote" kinda ticks me off.

Also who would race with this guy if the races were fixed anyway?

The Boosters make Bumble Bee's robot mode look cooler. His car mode still looks like a cross between a Honda Civic, an Acura TSX and a Renault Clio.

Fanzone has a nav system in his car,,,, AND A MOTHER IN-LAW? Wow major revalation there! Fanzone's married (or was) but he hates kids.

That shot with Blitzving raining missiles down on Bumbles reminds me of that scene in the first episode of G1. When Bee and Wheeljack are running from the Terrajets.

Looks like Team Rocket is blasting off again!!!!

Blur kinda reminds me of the Wraith (for all you youngin's might want to check out this 80's popcorn cult clasic) I understand that Armada Blurr was more of a badass than G1 Blurr, maybe this new version will be some what of a cross between the two.

Yeah, I really liked that. Variations of it are okay, but I think now's about the point to drop the whole "This is why I hate machines" thing and just have machines continue to malfunction on him and have him groan/growl or something instead of just say the same thing he's been saying so many times now.

Oh, and I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet (and that I forgot to include it in my initial post), but my fav quote from this episode:

"Think you can track the source of that signal?"
"Of course! Piece of cake!"
"The... broadcast's coming from a... piece of cake?"

Actually she's referred to in an earlier episode (Total Meltdown I think), where Sumdac mentions an 'unfortunate incident with the captain's wife' while demonstrating the newest police robot...who also malfunctions.

--Moony

Hmmm, I wonder if it will be revealed what happend to her? If she was killed it might explain why "I hate machines!" But if you're slightly more rude,,, The "Spaceship Scene" in Heavy Metal comes to mind.

Okay this episode was somewhat good but also disappointing. I like Bumblebee episodes but I wish they would focus more on the other autobots. Bumblebee seems to get the most screen time. I liked Master Disaster, I thought he was a fun character. The idea of Bumblebee being in an underground drag race seems to fit him very well. Anytime Blitzwing shows up is a plus for me. Now for the bad. I was extremely disappointed with Blurr. He never once transformed or even talked! I was waiting the whole episode to here the return of John Moschitta Jr.'s return as the voice of Blurr and he was no where in site. I know that Blurr is coming back in future episodes but I still think they should have had him at least say something or if they couldn't get the actor for that episode then have him transform. Other than that this was a good episode. I still like the line where Master Disaster says something along the lines of "You want to race the blue racer, right?" and Bumblebee says "Slag yeah." I thought that was funny.