That's clearly animation error. It's an AKOM episode after all. It's probably supposed to be Kup or something.

 

With legs like those? I doubt it.  

 

I never noticed until now that I'm reading Scoff's recap (not even in my own rewatch last night) that Blaster summoned Eject to help track down Daniel, but then when we get to the portal chamber and suddenly it's Rewind that's out. Which makes sense since Rewind is the historian and Eject is... whatever he is. He never gets to speak during the series as far as I can remember. TFWiki says he's a wannabe sportscaster. So I guess that makes sense. Otherwise his explanation of the portal room would've been a rambling Vin Scully impression.

 

Madman's Paradise (V)

Spoiler: Madman's Paradise: "Thief Warrior Gladiator King"

The old Man tells Daniel that the cave where the Golden One is imprisoned is just ahead and Daniel asks how long he's been there.


Old man: “Ages beyond counting since the day of the great betrayal:”


Daniel: “Uh, are you sure he’s, uh… alive?”


The old man says yes but that he is very weak. He says this while picking weeds off the rock, for some reason.


Old Man: “Help us, Golden One. Help us to free you.”


The wind sends Daniel’s something flying. I’m not familiar enough with tuxedos to say what it is but off it goes towards the castle.


A castle that is very much still under siege.


But getting unexpected reinforcement.


Ramhorn smashes his way through the enemies, announcing their arrival to a delighted Grimlock.


Grimlock: “Autobooots!”


Grimlock: “Finally, me Grimlock get some real help.”


Rewind and Eject take care of the aerial bombardiers by shooting the vats they’re carrying.


Ultra Magnus goes for the more extreme road to take care of the sorcerers.


They try to pull some magic shenanigans to defend themselves.


But I’m pretty sure they’re all dead.

Seriously.


Steeljaw is sniffing around the sight of the prison break when Daniel’s collar whazzit lands near Carley. She picks it up and immediately identifies it as belonging to Daniel. Don't ask me how.


Steeljaw makes a bunch of noises that gets Ramhorn's attention and off the three go.


Back at the castle, the enemy forces are fleeing with the Red Wizard laughing maniacally as he rains down fire upon them.

Back at the cave, Daniel is trying to move the rock.


You'll be startled to know, I'm sure, that he's not making much progress.

Daniel, you got winded walking here. What makes you think you do anything to that boulder? The old man's got a better shot at moving that than you.


Daniel: “I told you we should have found Grimlock. He’d move this stone in a second.”

He was never actually shown saying that but honestly, it probably would have been the best plan and would have saved a lot of innocent lives.


Because seriously, those people are dead.


Fortunately for the magical rebellion, Steeljaw comes running along so those people won’t have died in vain.

Still gonna be a real awkward trying to explain to their families how they died. Well, less how they died and more who killed them.


Daniel’s understandably happy to see Steeljaw and hugs him. This is adorable, I admit.


Carley: “What about me? Don’t I get a hug?”

They run to each other but oddly enough, don’t actually hug.


Okay.


Carley: “I was so worried. This is such a strange place. Well, everything is fine now. You’re safe, Grimlock is safe, the Autobots drove off the attackers.”

Oh yeah, about that, Carley.


Daniel: “Oh no. The Red Wizard’s the enemy. The Autobots are fighting on the wrong side.”


Old man: “Now all may be lost.”

(Okay, I’m getting real tired of calling him ‘Old man’ so his name’s just Henry now)


Old Man Henry: “If only we could move the stone.”


Ramhorn is on it.

After a bit of wind-up, he charges right through the thing.


Yes, through it.

(I don't know what else I was expecting)

It sends debris flying everywhere.


Sorry about that.


Out stumbles the Golden One, looking remarkable pristine all things considering.

(Yeah, I'm not referring to him as the Golden One now that he's getting dialogue. I have to tag that and I've already reserved copy and paste for Mara-Al-Utha so the Golden One shall henceforth be tagged as Lenny or Leonard if you're feeling formal. I'm not)


Lenny: “You have done well, pupil.”


Henry: “Not well enough, master. Mara-Al-Utha still holds the castle.”

(By the way, thank you, wikipedia, for letting me know how to spell that but most importantly, for giving me the ability to copy and paste it)


Lenny declares that he will do as he can and leaps into the air, transforming into a golden one.

He flies towards the castle where the Red Wizard - Mara-Al-Utha – is commanding the others to give chase and destroy them all.


Red Wizard: “Give chase! Destroy the enemy! Destroy them alll!”


Yeah, they’re not exactly in a hurry.

Blaster doesn’t like his sound at all and with the battle concluded, Ultra Magnus finally asks Grimlock who this Red Wizard is and where Daniel is. Grimlock says he doesn’t know; he was too busy fighting. Then a shadow falls over him that turns out to belong to the dragon.


I don’t even know what Ultra Magnus is going to write in his mission report but this may be the one time that Rodimus is gonna regret tossing the thing without reading it first.


Lenny fires beams of golden light from his eyes, which sounds cool but doesn’t actually do anything.


Pictured here: Nothing.


Oh wait, I guess it reverts Mara-Al-Utha back into his true form.

Okay, that's something.


Ultra Magnus: It’s the Quintesson! The exile!

How Ultra Magnus and the others can see it from where they're standing is anyone’s guess.


Their weapons are little match for Mara-Al-Utha’s magic which blows them off the barricades down onto the ground below.


Pictured here: people falling due to magical tentacles.


Mara-Al-Utha: “I have grown more powerful since last we met, ‘master’!”


Mara-Al-Utha: “Powerful enough to deprive you of the light that gives you strength!”


Mara-Al-Utha: “Powerful enough to destroy you aaaall!”

He really hits a high note on that last one.

Man, Lenny really wasn’t worth the walk to his cave, was he?

 

Madman's Paradise (VI)

Spoiler: Madman's Paradise: "Thief Warrior Gladiator King"

Daniel comes riding on Steeljaw and asks if there isn't any way to stop Mara-Al-Utha. Lenny says counter-spells but also that he is too weak to make them heard.


Yo.

Blaster transforms and Ultra Magnus hands a microphone to Lenny.


Ultra Magnus: “Just speak into that device, you’ll be heard.”

I like this creative use of Blaster. Props.


Oh, and for some reason, we get a shot of Mara-Al-Utha just patiently waiting to see what happens next.


Larry starts to say the counter-spell which causes golden lightning to strike from Blaster’s speakers. The first hit the castle walls but the second one hits its master


Mara-Al-Utha lets out a cry of pain and falls from his power, vanishing into nothing but smoke upon the castle grounds.


Blaster: “Wauw, is that a rap or will he be back?”


Larry: “If he dares to return, we shall be ready.”

I don’t know, man. He kinda beat you the first time. And the second time. Really, he’s had an unbroken winning streak against you until you got strangers to help turn the tide. On the other hand, he did need Grimlock’s help to repel the joint forces of good. I guess the lesson here is that teamwork makes the dream work no matter whose team or dream it is.


The dimensional portal appears above them, which is weird because the portal (or “dimensional disc”, as Ultra Magnus calls it) has appeared twice in the same place and only in that place, giving us no reason to believe that it’s not fixed to that specific location.


Anyway, Perceptor pokes his ‘scope through to ask if anyone needs help getting up there.


Larry: “Allow me.”


Wheee.


Back home they go.

Spike gets to be reunited with his dad whom I’m sure is relieved to see him well.

Spike: “Young man, I want to talk to you.”

Or not.


Daniel: “Dad, it was an accident, honest.”


Grimlock: “Daniel tell truth. He not mean to get all dirty.”




Grimlock: “What’s so funny?”

Beats me. I thought I got but I didn’t.

As a final note, I’d also like to point out that Daniel’s clothes went through everything in the episode and only got dirty and torn after they got home.

What happened on the walk back?

No, no, you don't need to show me. I'm good.

Conclusion

Spoiler: Madman's Paradise: Conclusion

Casual Viewing

Madman's Paradise is an odd episode to discuss I am unable to understand exactly what made me so uninterested in the story. It has a few good moments, though perhaps that judgement is made influenced by my love of Grimlock so bear that in mind. I was happy to see him get some action-y moments and to see his robot mode get some screen time so I might be biased.

Madman’s Paradise combines a mix of good, decent and wonky animation. The big battle scene is the most egregious case because the good animation yanks you into the action while the bad animation knocks you out of it and since the episode swings back and forth between the two, you are getting tossed back and forth as well which was very disruptive to my enjoyment, especially since I could see just how awesome it would have been had it been given the animation such a battle demanded.

Casual Rating: It’s there.

There are some good moments sprinkled throughout the episode, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel inclined to give this episode any other rating. I’m sad about that but when I was sitting towards the end of my casual viewing and trying to figure out what to rate it, I could think of nothing else but this rating so that is what the episode shall receive.

Critical Viewing

I'll be honest, I forgot to pay attention to things and in a better episode, that might be a sign of me getting pulled into the episode in the best way possible but that just isn't the case here.

Still, I will give some props to the story. I mention this in the review itself but there are times where the episode doesn't feel the need to state the obvious and trusts the viewer to get it on their own, which I always appreciate. Having the Red Wizard narrate lies while the flashbacks reveal the truth to the audience was also something I thought was a neat idea.

I think this may be an episode that falls short in its execution. I also think it is an episode that could have had a saving grace in its big battle scene if only the animation had been there but unfortunately, it just wasn't and that is sadly to the episode's detriment.

Story Rating: Weirdly unengaging.

Animation Rating: Wonky.

The thing about Grimlock

Spoiler: Madman's Paradise: Much Ado About Grimlock

I was thinking of putting this off until "Call of the Primitives" because that is, to my knowledge, the last episode to feature Grimlock and the other Dinobots in season three. On further consideration, however, I think this episode may be as good a time as any to bring this up because it contains many examples pertaining to the problem.

Said problem being Grimlock's characterization.

The thing about Grimlock in season one and two is that he is childish and not child-like. This is an important distinction to make because although the two terms may be easily confused and are often used in connection to each other, they mean different things. A person can be childish without being child-like and vice versa.

In spite of the jokes that I've made comparing the Dinobots to children, they are not children in body or in mind. They were made to be adults and they are adults, albeit of a different intellect.

Grimlock embodied a lot of childish traits, such as his short-sightedness, his arrogance, his rebellious attitude and the way that he was quick to anger. But he did not embody child-like traits. This puts him in contrast to his season three counterpart who does embody child-like qualities, such as his playfulness and general demeanor.

Two examples from Madman's Paradise includes the way he told Daniel that he wanted to play and how lost he sounded on the barricade as he called for the Red Wizard's help. The former is more about his tone and demeanor, which is indicative of a child's, rather than the fact that he wants to play. Season two Grimlock, along with the rest of the Dinobots, participated in at least one game of football with the Autobots so I can buy that he might find some fun in playing with Daniel. I also don't have a problem with how he enjoyed the trip down the slide.

When you watch season two back-to-back with season three, Grimlock comes across like a different character. Not necessarily an incarnation of the character that you might dislike but ultimately an incarnation of the character that doesn't feel like the version of Grimlock that he is suppose to be. The contrast is just too great.

Let's take a couple more examples from this episode.

Grimlock always bucked at helping the Autobots even when he was on his best behavior. In Atlantis, Rise, he has no problem working alongside them but he also has no problem snarking about them needing Dinobot help. He had a problem with authority that showed itself time and time again even after Optimus Prime had saved his life. Being a waiter is not only something Grimlock would have refused but in all honestly, the mere suggestion of it would probably have offended him. It would be putting him literally in a subservient role and there's no way Grimlock's ego would not have treated that as an insult.

Throughout the episode, there are times where Grimlock sounds nervous and almost timid and that doesn't fit Grimlock's brash, overconfident idiot character at all. When the Red Wizard is launching into his rather intense speech, Grimlock is taken back and then sounds almost timid. Had it not been for all the other examples, this could have been just him being taken back but because it's not an isolated incident, it's indicative his general demeanor.

Season one and two Grimlock would have been taken back by the Red Wizard's rant and then shouted angrily back at him "Me Grimlock just wanted to know!" because Grimlock responded with aggression when he felt he was getting pushed.

Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I actually do enjoy Grimlock's character in season three but that's when I can divorce it from the previous two seasons and treat it as its own thing because that's honestly what it feels like: its own thing. I don't think it was intended to different from the other seasons. I'm not sure it can be called a flanderization because it's drawing from traits that Grimlock either didn't have or which were overshadowed by his much more prominent traits.

There you are. That is the thing about Grimlock.

 

Man, it took to copy and paste that than I thought. I gotta keep that in mind next time so I can start doing it earlier.

 

Great review, @Scoff . I think the thing that gets me about Madman's paradise is, well first off it's another episode that could've/should've been a two-parter. The next thing is think about it. Grimlock and Daniel travel to an alternate reality where a Quintesson exile is using SPACE MAGIC! to rule a kingdom after deposing its previous ruler. That's a premise that should be filled with wonder and excitement and adventure. And Grimlock going full-on Conan the Barbarian and shit like that. But does it? Does it? I don't think it does.

 

Ok, so time to make it official for this week:


1) Nightmare Planet
2) Ghost in the Machine
3) Webworld
4) Carnage in C-Minor

Deadline for this week's episodes is, as normal, Sunday night at 11:59:59pm Pacific time. We're in the home stretch. After this set is complete it'll be one month to finish up this series. By the end of this week I'm going to decide if I want to put up a poll to ask what the next step is or if there's just an executive decision either amongst those of us in this thread or even just me. I've basically narrowed it down to 3 options: 1) continue on totally chronologically with Headmasters, 2) continue Western chronologically with Beast Wars, 3) vote on where to go next.

 

Just watched Surprise Party, I thought it was alright (not epic by any means).

On espionage, you only see Ravage once after the movie, I think it would have been pretty cool if Ravage and other cassettes could spy on wondering Autobots on Cybertron, and he could electronically send messages to Chaar (or even have Soundwave having a hidden base on Cybertron to transmit messages to Chaar).

Ah, the animation, with Bruticus boarding Blast Off.

Maybe in the heat of battle, First Aid forgets he is a pacifist and has regrets afterward.

For me, much of my frustration regarding season 3 is that you have a lot of new characters with no (or virtually no) introduction, and this episode was a good chance to provide some background information. If Wheelie and Danies went to Kup they could have got a bit of a backstory but they just went to Perceptor, who was of little help. To top it off, Ultra Magnus does not know his birthday (it would have nice if he just said what period of time he was created). I just think the writers did not give it much thought, which is a shame, IMO.

 

Just watched Madman's Paradise and it was alright, again nothing special.

It has Grimlock which is good and features the Autobots Cassettes. It would be good to see the Autobot cassettes battle the Decepticon cassettes (in the movie it looked like the Autobot cassettes were getting the better of the Decepticon cassettes and am interested to know how the Decepticons got out of trouble (I guess Soundwave sent Laserbeak to save them).

My main gripe with this episode is Transformers cartoon should mainly be focused on Autobots battling Decepticons, this episode does feel it is a more a Rescue Bots episode.

Also, why would the Red Wizard send Daniel to rest in the same room as a prisoner (this could only go wrong for the Red Wizard)?

 

Actually, no. Both Spike and Carly spoke in that episode.

 

Animation and voice error. Remember that time Bluestreak spoke 3 lines in a row in 3 different voices, none of which were his own?

Prove me wrong  

(full and obvious disclaimer: I don't honestly believe it's an error of any kind. I'm just trying to comically cover for my mistake by digging in my heels to ridiculous proportions and pretend that the series' history of shoddy production consistency can cover for me.)

 

NIGHTMARE PLANET

THE SHORT VERSION
It's a nightmare episode: Daniel's nightmares are the stuff that fuel the episode. The viewers' nightmares are being stuck inside Daniel's head for a half hour.

REVIEW
Perhaps fitting for a dream sequence episode, it's disjointed and all over the map in just about every aspect.

The basic plot is simple and weird and perhaps speaks to the fact that after nearly 100 episodes of the series plus the movie they were running out of really solid ideas for episodes. So we get this crazy dreamscape plot that seems designed to shove the Autobots into as many weird battles as they possibly can. I don't have too much of an idea with them thinking outside of the box, but it's just so oddly carried out, with the action constantly jumping from place to place to place and failing to maintain any sort of storytelling pace or consistency. We leave a scene, get a tiny bit of action elsewhere, then go back to the previous story to find tha things have radically changed with no explanation. You could argue that it's a meta sort of storytelling device to make use of everything being dreams, but that would presume that the seires has ever shown that level of forethought and planning in its story creation.

The animation is a mixed bag too. Sometimes it looks great. Almost to the level of a movie's production values. And sometimes it looks... less grate. Better than AKOM, but not up to Toei's usual standards. And it's not even consistent when that happens (as if it were the same characters or subplot getting the quality. Hell it's sometimes that each side in a single fight gets differing quality and it makes it more jarring.

That inconsistency and scattershot approach almost carries a bit of a "nobody cared" mentality in making this episode and it drags things down because it makes it seem like if nobody making the episode cared, why should I?

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-This is the third and final episode for Beth Bornstein after Child's Play (meh) and The Search for Alpha Trion (great). Let's see how this last effort moves the needle for her.

-We start with Daniel running through a creepy Cybertron being pursued by a) a clown jack-in-the-box, a giant witch, and a giant Galvatron.

-Giant Galvatron goes to squash him under his foot. I hope he finishes the job.

-Wait... so Rodimus is just hanging out in Daniel's room watching him sleep? Not creepy and concerning at all. Perhaps this sort of To Catch A Predator type behavior is a precursor to the other Japanese G1 shows where the Autobots just head off on their merry way to war with "adopted" kids in tow.

-Something seems off about Rodimus' voice. It's far deeper than normal. I'm not sure if it's just supposed to be a side effect of Dick Gauthier trying to talk quietly or what the deal is.

-The Inside of Daniel's room is heavily meade up to look like a typical Earth bedroom with a window and curtains and everything. But from the outside it looks like they're in a normal part of an Autobot base with big metal tunnels and futuristic sliding doors. I guess the room design is meant to be more familiar and calming for Daniel, but it just seems kind of jarring.

-Right before the scene transition we see a tentacle creep over Daniel's bed. I just quietly hope we haven't accidentally wandered into some 80s anime tentacle porn movie by mistake.

-Why is Cybertron so foggy? Fog requires atmospheric moisture and Cybertron doesn't have an organic ecosystem.

-Ultra Magnus can't tell how many Predacons there are. Uhh, Rodimus? There's 5 of them. Just like always.

-The animation in this episode is quite weird. Sometimes it's standard bland season 3 and sometimes it's very stylized and detailed, almost like The Movie. Predaking, for example, shifts between one extreme and the other from one shot to the next.

-As completley nuts as this sequence of the Autobots being attacked by Predaking and a bunch of giant movie monsters is, I'm 100% on board for a giant purple dragon going after the individual Predacons.

-Correction: Just Razorclaw and Springer

-Rodimus tells everyone to not fire, then the giant witch screams "for that I'll cast a spell on all of you. Was someone supposed to shoot and it simply wasn't animated.

-We return to Daniel to find out that the tentacle on Daniel's bed was just the Quintessons kidnapping him so they could hook him up to a machine that would turn his dreams into reality and destroy the Transformers. Thank god. That's a much more palatable explanation than the other option I was considering.

-The dragon makes about the most non-threatening dragon "roar" I could've imagined. Daniel is apparently terrified of purple dragons that go "blah blah blah!!"

-The fairy-tale princess and witch in this episode are apparently voiced by Linda Gary in what TFWiki has as her only credited roles. That said, the research I did back in the Search for Alpha Trion review indicate that she was actually the voice of Chromia in that episode as well. But she's more memorable for being basically half the female cast of the He-Man and She-Ra and Aut May in the 90s Spider-Man cartoon.

-So... all these images are coming from Daniel's subconcsious, right? Like, the Quintessons aren't making any of this up, they're just pulling it right out of the kid's brain. So does anyone want to tackle the psychological implications of the fact that Princess Pointy-Hat kinda looks a lot like his mom?

-Springer has a ton of shading and detail in this shot. Again, the art is quite inconsistent, waffling between "better than AKOM" basic and "almost movie level" from scene to scene.

-Razorclaw seems awfully enticed by the possibility of a reward of gold.

-Insert an obvious joke here about the giant looking like your average transformers fan playing with his toys.

-Rodimus says "strange, we have no effect on the monsters..." and in that shot his optics are suddenly a very obvious Decepticon Red.

-Rodimus knows how to defeat the Witch by the fact that he talked TV with Wreck-Gar. But thankfully not specifically enough to actually have to bring up some sort of trademark-invoking Wizard of Oz references.

-Unsurprisingly, this whole plot by the Quintessons is meant to get control over Cybertron. It's not a shock that's their goal, but at the same time it's a bit of an indictment of them that their plans go right from the Five Faces of Darkness plan to this.

-There's a lot of really synth-heavy music in this one. It's quite different from the usual score from the last couple movies. There was also a piece earlier that was a direct pull right from The Movie.

-Man, we're just bouncing back and forth between scenes in this one. You can always tell when an episode is flittering about with how much the scene transition jingle pops up.

-After the scene transition when Rodimus says "there must be something around here we can fight with" as he flies up into frame you can almost see the transparent background of the cel his model is mounted on rise up and overlay everything in the background.

-This fight between the Transformers and the giant dream snake/tentacle/squid/flytrap monster is the biggest bit of back-and-forth quality changes so far. Rodimus and Magnus look great, the monster looks dead simplistic, and the remaining Predacons are somewhere in between.

-Where the heck did Springer get that lance? And why didn't my Siege Sprigner come with one?

-I'll give the animators credit that the funhouse mirror models look pretty good for the first couple instances, before they have to interact with the Predacons and turn to amorphous gray blobs.

-Rodimus has red optics again. Maybe this is part of Daniel's dream and he actually secretly fears that Rodimus is a secret Decepticon out to kill them all?

-Galvatron laments the lost resale value of having taken his Rodimus Prime and Headstrong out of their package.

-Now the Giant Rodimus has Red Optics again.

-And when the hell did we end up in this funpark?

-Ok seriously, Rodimus' Optics are changing color almost every cut now.

-Dream Princess Pointy-Hat sure does manage to use some A+ reverse psychology.

-Springer and Razorclaw defeating the Dragon is about the most anime thing this episode does. It almost makes me want to recreate it if I wasn't paranoid about the stressors of disassembling my Predaking.

-Speaking of that scene, a bunch of in between frames are missing as Springer gets onto Razorclaw's back. It's like 3 rough jumps to go through the animation with no smoothness whatsoever.

-Engrish alert: the dream machine conrol panel has its 4 settings levels and a box that says "Over Lord" instead of "overload." Unless its actual function is to summon the Masterfoce villain to attack everyone. Actually, I think I'd like to see that.

-Wait so now Princess Pointy-Hat is a self-aware piece of his dreams that is aware of her nature as a dream and the state his mind is in? That's werid and meta.

-Also the weirdness of this episode is cranked up to 11. Including hte princess imploring Daniel to control his dreams even though she is one of his dreams.

-Seriously, she looks a lot like Carly.

-At points in the rush to find Daniel at various points Rodimus' proportions look almost more like Hot Rod (albeit with the different, less pink Rodimus coloring.

-After everything that happened, Springer doens't get that the princess wasn't real? I never realized he was this much of a dope.

-What a weird way for Razorclaw to slie into frame and talk to Rodimus without turning his head and with Rodimus never loking in the right direction.

-Even if Headstrong couldn't form Predaking because of his injury, it still looked like 5-on-3. They should've been able to take the autobots.

-It's crazy that Daniel sleeps through the entire episode and is none the wiser about what actually happened at the end.

-Most unsettling Rodimus face ever?




-On a less unsettling note, I just realized that this episode clocks in at just under 19 minutes, making it one of the shorter episodes I can remember seeing. I haven't kept track of length for the entire run of the series, but it seems to me that it's been rare to have an episode that was under 20 minutes of non-commercial runtime.

FAVORITE LINES
"Fool! Galvatron can be any size he wants!"
-Let's be honest. If it was the real Galvatron that said this and not a giant dream version, would anyone bat an eye?


Final Grade: C-

 

This episode was weird, but what saves it is the intensity of the voice acting and the introduction of the season three synth music (which I always felt was better than the season one music; season two's music I mainly think of as G.I. Joe music), which I felt made even the most weird of episodes (Carnage in C-Minor and Call of the Primitives) even more intense and enjoyable.

Other than that, yeeeeah, this episode needed much more work. Too many goofs going on with it.

 

Wouldn't even shake my head at that.

 

Reviews of what I like to call ....
THE DANIEL TRILOGY

Surprise Party - Surprise Party genuinely surprised me. It has more action and intriguing stuff than I had remembered. This one really cemented how much of a badass Ultra Magnus actually is, with actual action and not just lip service. In a way, this episode also felt like the sequel to Killing Jar too, with the focus on Ultra Magnus and Cyclonus. Speaking of Cyclonus, his plans were pretty well-thought out all things considered, potentially devastating the Rodimus efforts of peace. Only thing dragged this down was that this plan of his, for some reason, fell apart immediately after Ultra Magnus landed. Cyclonus didn’t follow through with his initial threats. This episode would’ve gotten higher score for me if it wasn’t the case. Oh well.

Grade: 7/10 (Average, almost good)


Madman’s Paradise - I feel this episode do not have many noteworthy stuff that we haven’t seen before. The entire plot basically threaded in the “been there, done that” territory for the series. So it ended up fairly generic all around. The Autobots fought against the wrong side is a nice touch but ultimately breezed through fairly quickly and inconsequential. Oddly enough the best parts of the episode is when Rodimus is on the scene - at the first act with the aliem ambassador, and at the middle episode when Daniel was caught missing with a delicious dry joke. Call him what you want but the guy has just not been boring so far this season, even when his role is limited.

Grade: 6/10 (Average)


Nightmare Planet - I thoroughly enjoyed the script in this one. First act is loony but they get to the good stuff pretty quick. First off, the spotlight on the Predacons and Springer (surprisingly, not featured enough this season) was highly welcomed. Then, it was really enjoyable seeing dynamics between Springer and Razorclaw, meanwhile Rodimus having to lead the other Predacons through the madness. Nice action throughout, filled with awesome quips from our characters, and this episode sure packs a lot. Daniel’s part in this is also well done and in a way sort of meta with the imaginations. Troubled production, but nothing too egregious to put it down.

Grade: 9/10 (Excellent)

 

exactly. The biggest advantage of Crazy Galvatron™ over Megatron is that you can put pretty much whatever insane dialogue you want into the mouth of the former and it won't sound too outlandish for the character.

I mean, if Galvatron shot Ultra Magnus in the chest and then triumphantly screamed "I am the mashed potato emperor! All will bow before my army of walking clocks and tremble! Present your offerings of copper llama statues or be destroyed!" we'd probably all go "yeah, OK. Sounds about right." and move on.

EDIT: bonus points if you read the line in Galvatron's voice.

 

love the season 3 new synth music. It really made it sound like '2005'. If only it had been used in some of the earlier episodes like 5 faces of darkness.

 

GHOST IN THE MACHINE

THE SHORT VERSION
It's a continuation of Starscream's Ghost, from exactly where that episode left off!

"But wasn't Starscream already in control of Scourge at the end of that episode?"

...FROM EXACTLY WHERE THAT EPISODE LEFT OFF!!!

REVIEW
As a pseudo-sequel to Starscream's Ghost, this episode once again feels like a lot of the mediocre Season 3 episodes does: wasted potential. It's a fun story that has some great bits, but bad animation, stilted plot progression, and unfulfilling fights fail to capitalize on a great setup and end up delivering more mediocrity.

I don't really want to spend a lot of time harping on the animation quality because it's another AKOM episode and I could be here all evening taking shots at AKOM's usual level of polish and detail, but this episode does feel like it's among the studio's worse efforts, right behind Five Faces of Darkness. It's not littered with coloring errors or wrong models/characters showing up like that 5-parter had, but there are a ton of really drab, boring, detail-less segments or really awkward modeling with things like wonky proportions or awkward character design. It doesn't sink the episode, but it holds it back.

The story has some really fun dialogue. It's a total showcase for Crazy Galvatron at his craziest as he reacts like you'd expect to treachery and insanity and produces several laugh-out-loud moments. He also gets a great foil in Starscream's ability to be an annoying twerp and press his buttons. And there are some excellent moments from bots like the Battlechargers and Astrotrain as they're at the mercy of Starscream's possession. Finally I want to highlight the excellent performance of Roger Carmel as he replaces Orson Welles and does a damn fine job of it in the process. But at the same time, the good dialogue is at times at the mercy of the inconsistent plot that forces a bunch of really awkward dialogue that serves no purpose besides rocketing the plot forward at lightning speed and pressing us through each mini setpiece in as little time as possible. This lends to things feeling inconsistent and very stop-go as we push the plot ahead in fits and spurts and then have a few minutes of the action slowing down and dragging us into our next starting position for a burst of action and advancement. Again it doesn't sink the episode, but it's still enough to hold it back.

And speaking of the action, the complaint I have is that for an episode that would lend itself easily to a lot of interesting fights, most of them come off kind of disappointing. Scourge being forced to fight his fellow Decepticons is cool for as long as he's attacking Galvatron, but on the whole it just becomes a generic "stand and shoot" fight afterward. The later battles involving the Autobots suffer much the same fate as I just don't feel like there's enough action in them to really hook me as the viewer. It doesn't sink the episode but... (all together now) it's enough to hold it back.

You can see what the arc words are for this review. It's an episode that's less than the sum of its parts, and one that buries its very intriguing core elements in poor execution and suffers for it. Which is a shame becuase if it had lived up to Starscream's Ghost it would've made for a highlight of this season. Instead it just feels like an incomplete attempt to ride the coattails of a much better predecessor.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-As I note off the top, this episode is played like a direct sequel to Starscream's Ghost. But that episode ended with Starscream having already possessed Scourge before the credits roll. This one has Scourge walking across Chaar with a group of Decepticons before Starscream just appears and without a word takes him over. From here almost no mention of the events of that episode will occur. So it's like a sequel but not really but it only really makes sense if you've seen that episode but also will likely confuse you since things don't line up. Isn't continuity fun?!?!  

-The Sweep that asks Scourge if he's OK sounds suspiciously like Starscream. I know it's just a side-effect of getting Chris Latta to voice more than one character while he's present, but it would've been funny if it was a nameless sweep that Starscream possessed and who happened to already sound like Starscream just by coincidence.

-Starscream's ghost has a bit of an unusual possession mechanic this time around in that Scourge appears to be conscious and able to at least temporarily wrest control away from Starscream in order to stop himself from doing anything or to speak.

-Galvatron's quick reaction to denounce Scourge as defective and requiring destruction is the perfect Galvatron response.

-The way Cyclonus pronounces "Scourge" always makes me chuckle for some reason. Scooooooo-urge.

-Also I'm beginning to notice that Roger Carmel's voice for Cyclonus is somewhat inconsistent. For most of his lines he sounds almost elderly and wheezing. It is worth noting that this episode aired little more than a month before Carmel would die of heart failure. It's possible he was already somewhat weakened and ill by the point these lines were recorded.

-Cyclonus' line about Scourge where he says "he's a traitor, give him no quarter" has always stuck with me as extremely odd in the way that he recites it in a nearly sing-song fashion.

-I feel like this is the first episode that has explicitly called attention to the fact that Scourge's face sticks out of the tower/fin thing on his vehicle mode. To the point that he even talks (with a moving mouth) while in vechile mode.

-Ok, both other Sweeps sound like they're voiced by Chris Latta. Interesting.

-  As Starscream says "give me any more trouble and I'll never vacate the premises!" there's an obvious cut as the background appears to hit its end and has to loop back around to the beginning. That's some lazy staging, even by AKOM standards.

-So... Unicron's head was still alive and the only thing preventing it from being active was a single wire? Amazing.

-As far as I can remember, this is the debut of Unicron's season 3 voice, provided by Roger Carmel. He does a damn fine job of impersonating Orson Welles' voice from the movie. It's no wonder that the urban legend persisted that someone else (either Leonard Nimoy or Carmel) doubled some of Welles lines in the movie due to Welles' failing health.

-Man, Starscream has some serious bug eyes (bug-optics?) in some shots.



-Unicron requests that Starscream perform three labors. I like the choice of words with "labors". It makes me wonder if one of them is to slay the Nemean Lion.

-Uincron wants Metroplex's eyes, but Metroplex is magnitudes smaller than Unicron. Shouldn't his eyes be far too small.

-Metroplex has gone from being stationed in a city/fortress in an area with forests and cliffs to being near a human city and now it's out in a bland, rocky wasteland.

-Blaster's voice seems to have far less processing than normal.

-Oh AKOM. You and your inability to give Bumblebee proportionate wheels. Either that or the 20 years between Season 2 and Season 3 has seen Bumblebee discover his real passion for bitchin' off-road adventures.


-It's at least nice to get some continuity in the form of Spike and Bee reminiscing about old times as they adventure together.

-The way that Metroplex seemed dormant raises some questions about the nature of his living as a base and whether he's always online and conscious or if the autobots "shut him off" while he's in base mode.

-It's fun seeing the results of Metroplex transforming with other Autobots inside of him, even if it's terribly animated.

-And his eye cavities exploding as the bomb goes off is pretty brutal even if it's poorly animated since his visor appears to suffer no damage.

-Really the interesting parts of the action so far are undercut by AKOM's poor animation quality.

-If I have one warm memory of this episode, it's that it's the one and only appearance of Runabout. I had a Runabout figure when I was little. I think I still have it somewhere, though he may no longer transform since the pullback motor is broken.

-Of course we had to sneak a Treasure of Sierra Madre "we don't need no stinking badges" joke in at some point.

-Scourge boards Astrotrain by obviously walking through is side with no actual door.

-Galvatron seems rather measured and calm about relating his understanding of the situation to Thrust, Dirge, and the Battlechargers. This is so unlike him...

-... Oh, no. There we go. He sums everything up with a crazy shout and shooting the comm screen. That's more like it.

-Hot Spot has a mouth in this episode instead of his usual (and correct) faceplate)

-Starscream bails out of possessing Astrotrain to leave him at the mercy of the Autobots, but we don't see Scourge get out with the eyes. So what gives?

-Scourge is pretty ballsy for mouthing of to Transformer Satan.

-Rodimus takes Starscream's ghost being present and working for the Decepticons or Unicron in stride. Should he not be more concerned about the fact that one of the most notorious Decepticons of all time isn't nearly as dead as he was purported to be?

-Hey, now Hot Spot has a mouthplate. Intra-episode continuity!!!  

-So many scene transitions. Sometimes I wonder if the writers build in extra transitions knowing that each one adds 3-4 seconds to the episode and eats up time they would otherwise have to write action or dialogue for.

-Now Galvatron flips out over Trypticon. This is a spotlight episode for Crazy Galvatron™

-Why did Unicron require Starscream to haul Trypticon all the way to his head? Why not just extract the cog while Trypticon was still on Chaar (or wherever)? At least then it would be possible to do it stealthily instead of attracting both the Autobots and Decepticons.

-A transformation cog is all that's necessary to hook Unicron to Cybertron and get a new body? It almost feels like it could've been a setup to allow for a greater link between Unicron and Cybertron historically almost like the Primus mythology. but then we're gonna find out he was made by a goofy space imp for no good reason.

-For everything awful I say about this episode, I want to highlight one thing: Starscream getting his body and then bailing on Unicron is absolutely fantastic. It's about the most Starscream-y thing that could've happened.

-And this is the last we'll ever see of Starscream. That's too bad.

-Rodimus happily congratulates Ultra Magnus, Springer, and Hot Spot with a smile on his face. And then he totally messes with them for his own amusement. That's great.

-What is the twinkle in Unicron's eye supposed to indicate? We'll never know because he only makes one more relatively passive appearance in the present time frame of the series.

FAVORITE LINES
"There is no reasoning with him! Destroy him! He's lost his mind!!!"
-Galvatron demonstrates the finer points of irony.


Final Grade: C+

 

Looking forward to seeing this episode in the next few days. I still wish that Starscream realized he had control of Trypticon, thus could or should kill Galvatron.

I felt the show never gave Starscream enough time (was it 30 seconds) as the uncontested leader. In my ideal transformers world, Bruticus and Starscream would have killed Megatron in Starscream's Brigade, Starscream would have been the leader for at least a few episodes but Shockwave would have killed Starscream (or Shockwave could have been the one to be reformatted by Unicron).