I personally prefer Ghost in the Machine over Starscream's Ghost. I felt this episode was much better structured, whereas Starscream's Ghost always felt rushed and like it needed more time to develop its story.

I love Roger C. Carmel's Unicron. In fact, I like him more than Orson Welles. His voice didn't have the heavy processing and speeding up that Orson had, which made him sound much more natural and unnerving.

The Battlechargers. I love these bozos. They really added quite a bit of fun to an episode that already was pretty solid. I feel their addition here was pretty amusing, and I'm glad to aee them playing an active role at the end.

So yeah, I would actually would consider this one to be my favorite episode of the series (tied with Burden Hardest to Bear).

 

I loved Nightmare Planet immensely, and it made me realise we don't see enough of Springer!

Compared to Kup, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus, he's not really in a lot more episodes than I thought. So far Season 3 felt like Rodimus and Ultra Magnus show.

 

So Starscream-possessed Scourge versus Razorclaw? I can dig it.

Scale? In Transformers? Hahaha!

One thing I love noting? Starscream got shot, but he didn't explode/die. He still had his body at the end.

 

This is a good point. Honestly if I'm pressed I have a hard time identifying an iconic or crystallized personality for him the way I can for the other movie characters.

Hot Rod is the "turbo-revvin' young punk" and Rodimus Prime is the unprepared leader grappling with the pressure of a legacy he can't possibly live up to

Ultra Magnus is the stoic career soldier

Kup is the cantankerous old veteran

Arcee is the compassionate one, but also with a playful/snarky side (like her biting exchange with Hot Rod in the movie)

Blurr is the eager and excitable one

Wheelie is torture incarnate.

But Springer? I know there's the suggestion that if you look at the movie like Star Wars then he's the Han Solo type as the roguish, wisecracking, rule-bender whose cool facade masks how much he cares, but you don't really get that out of his appearances all that much. He's mostly just sort of there to be the lieutenant type to Rodimus who's more flippant and relaxed than Magnus but isn't part of the wacky personality brigade like most of the more rank-and-file Autobots.

He could've used a spotlight episode or two to really flesh out who he was.

you're absolutely right. I should've known better. I have shamed myself and my ancestors.  

I can imagine him just drifting endlessly through space, totally alive until after however long his energon reserves deplete and he basically starves to death. And then he gets sucked back in time so he can be there for Possession in Beast Wars.

 

Just watched Nightmare Planet, in isolation I do not have a problem with it, but too many Daniel episodes. Watching the episode I feel like the Decepticons have given up trying to get back Cybertron which is a bit sad.

On the Decepticons as a whole, it seems that they just pretty much stay on the burned-out planet of Char for the rest of the series. They never seem to take back planets that they must have held at the start of 2005.

 

Well, Nightmare Planet do showcase Springer's wisecracking traits but he's in no way a rogue, or self-serving type of guy. He's just a tough dude with a golden heart who happens to be Rodimus' best friend, basically. Even if he is a rogue-type, now that his best friend is basically the King/President of his race, he doesn't have anything better to do other than to just support him.

 

I just watched Ghost in the Machine, and I bloody love it. So many awesome moments. My personal favourite is the scene where Kup arrives at Metroplex to do a check-up and meeting up with the Autobot's earth forces (and was awesome to see Bumblebee and a few others again). It's just a scene about a character doing his military day-to-day duties and yeah I'm a sucker for details like that.

 

WEBWORLD

THE SHORT VERSION
I'm only sad we didn't do some sort of dream therapy with Galvatron. That would've been a trip. Or it would've made sure the episode didn't get past the standards & practices department.

REVIEW
In the past I've complained about episodes that felt disjointed or structurless in their plots. Where things happen without much thought or reason or ultimate payoff and seem to occur only so that they can show off a bot's powers or personality without any lasting consequence. In those instances I generally dock the episode points on its grade because it makes the plot feel unimportant and pointless.

One could argue that Webworld is a whole-episode useless plot as nothing that happens ultimately matters at all. But you know what? I don't care. Becuase it's hilarious and fun.

This is the episode to cement how much fun it is to have crazy, unhinged, completely warped-out-of-his mind Galvatron in charge of the Decepticons instead of Megatron. Nothing against Megs, who is iconic and important as a foil against Optimus and the goodness of the Autobots, but it's so easy to just absolutely relish the cackling, cartoonish supervillain glee of Galvatron shrieking nonsense at everyone and opening fire on anyone who so much as looks at him cross-eyed.

It also has some good light comedy bits like Cyclonus dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork, ineffectual psychotherapy, a cross-section of suitably weird insane asylum type inhabitants and even just some of Galvatron's slighly more lucid and sane moments (for which I use both terms very loosely)

Does the episode suffer from not having a "real" conflict (this is an extremely rare episode where the Autobots are only there for like the opening 5 minutes to motivate the main plot, then vanish entirely)? Sure. Does it suffer for the fact that ultimately it ends right where it began with no real gains made for any party? yeah, kinda. But in the end the absolute unhinged fun of Galvatron assembling a gun in his therapy class and screaming that he hates everyone is too much to overlook. This is a silly fun episode focusing on a silly fun character and giving everyone a good look at how you can play the extreme end of Galvatron's personality for good comedy and even a bit of dramatic tension (as he relishes taking his revenge on Torkulon after all the failed therapy attempts). I feel like this one belongs on the list of season 3 essential viewing episodes.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-Gonna start this one off with one of my all-time favorite bits of Transformers writer trivia. This episode was written by the seemingly totally random combination of Len Wein and Diane Duane. Duane is a prolific sci-fi author having written a multitude of books of her own devising as well as a bunch of licensed property novels including 10 Star Trek novels, a novel for the cult sci-fi series SeaQuest DSV, an X-Men novel, and a trio of Spider-Man ones in the 90s. On the TV side of things she wrote for multiple Hasbro cartoon properties, Hanna-Barbera series, the original Ducktales, and an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But in spite of her pretty notable an successful career, she is easily the second fiddle in this pairing behind co-writer Wein. Len Wein was an iconic comic book writer for Marvel and DC (Among other companies) and his work included being the editor on the original Watchmen limited series, creating Swamp Thing, co-creating noteworthy X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus, and creating this incredibly niche Canadian X-Men character. I'm sure you've never heard of him. Wolver-something. I dunno. It sounds like a C-Lister at best.   What I'm getting at though is that this is one of the bigger "heavy hitter" writer credits that G1, or any Transformers series for that matter, managed to attract.

-Ratbat's "voice" feels like a pretty tame effort. Like it was the end of the recording day and Frank Welker just wanted to get out of the booth and get home. The result is a surprisingly generic squawk sound.

-The early passes of the flying decepticons are surprisingly simple looking models. The bland, generic Soundwave almost had me believing this was an AKOM effort, but nope. TFWiki says this was Toei. Makes me wonder if Toei handed this to one of their junior animator teams or if they were just late enough into the production of the series that they were in full "screw it, we don't care anymore" mode.

-Obviously necessary to motivate the plot, but Crazy Galvatron is cranked waaaaay up in this one. It's not even sufficient to say he's up to 11. It's more like a 26 out of 10.

-A rare instance of Soundwave's voice missing the processing effect. We get full, unadulterated Dr. Claw.

-So the Decepticons need Isidrite to repair their weapons (I guess due to Trypticon/Starscream neutralizing their weapons in the previous episode?) and the Autobots are taking it... for some reason. It's fun and interesting to get this bit of world building and another fictional element, but it would've bene cool to know what the Autobots are doing there (even if I get that it's mostly irrelevant)

-Isidrite continues the longstanding tradition of having mysterious elemental things the bots are fighting over being rendered as brightly colored crystalline structures. At least this time it's orange instead of bright neon green like all those season 1 and 2 episodes that loved making green crystals the focus of everything.

-Rare use of Sky-Lynx in just his bird mode, separated from the 4-legged lion (until we cut away and back and he's suddenly whole)

-Frank Welker seems to be thoroughly enjoying cutting lose and going nuts.

-It's rare to have a singular Dinobot sighting in an episode and have it not be Grimlock. Here Sludge is involved in the fight at multiple points but he is clearly the only Dinobot that's part of the Autobot team.

-Speaking of team members, where the heck is Soundwave? As soon as he announced Ratbat's findings, he vanished and the fight became little more than the new movie Cons (Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, and a Sweep or two) and I guess Swindle who appears at the end of the end of the fight and was never relevant beforehand.

-So the Autobots pile into Sky-Lynx and beat it to get away from Galvatron's craziness. Wouldn't that just leave the Decepticons free to find whatever Isidrite is left on the asteroid for their own personal use? So hey don't even stand in the way of the Decepticons achieving their goal here?

-Cyclonus shouts at the fleeing Autobots that "this isn't over". Spoiling narrator: "It was, in fact, over." The Autobots do not appear again in the episode. In fact, at just under 4 minutes into the show (counting title sequence) this might be the earliest the Autobots have checked out of a plot and is one of the rare times we get an episode that's entirely or almost entirely Decepticon-focused.

-How did a Quintesson just happen to show up at just the right time to push the plot by suggesting the planet Torkulon to Cyclonus to deal with Galvatron? I get the why, but were they just hanging out in orbit listening to all the Decepticons' conversations waiting for an opportune moment to enact their plan?

-Cyclonus is a terrible actor  

-I love that Galvatron's craziness is so obvious that the Torkulon workers need all of 10 seconds to figure out he's their patient.

-We have corroboration that it was the time spent dunking in the plasma after being chucked out of Unicron that is responsible for Galvatron's total craziness.

-I like that we stop the episode for like 30 seconds so that we can make a "sign here and here and here and here" paperwork joke that goes nowhere.

-Aww, the interior schematic of Galvatron is a lot less detailed and interesting than it was in the movie.

-The establishing shot of the Torkulon major therapy building is strangly shaded and detailed. It makes it stand out from the background quite a bit.

-If I stopped every few minutes to laugh about and comment on Galvatron being extra crazy, this episode would take me 3 hours to get through.

-What kind of stupid therapy program would be dumb enough to give their patients the parts they could potentially assemble into a laser pistol? That seems like a huge accident waiting to happen.

-Having Galvatron "Act out his problems" seems like a bad choice. His problems are that he's crazy and wants to kill people.

-I do love that Galvatron gets shot with the stun ray so often that he becomes immune to it.

-"But you've already been changed. That's the problem." A line with double meaning? Do they mean that the plasma bath changed him by making him crazy? or that he was changed by being converted from Megatron to Galvatron.

-And in a shocking turn of events, the dopey ineffectual psychiatrist aliens reveal that their trump card: robo-lobotomization. One gets the sense that Wein and/or Duane have a pretty dim view of psychiatry.

-They're also the worst doctors ever if they ignore the wishes of the patient and his guardians/caretakers to continue with their plan to wipe his brain.

-Silliness aside, this is a really cool conceit to have the planet be alive and have the whole lobotomization plan be built around this alien bug creature symbiosis and whatnot. It's a hell of a creative setup.

"He'll be just a machine!" "aren't we all? In a way..." This coffee table psychology made me chuckle. Good job, writers.

-I almost feel bad for this review in that I can't really make snarky fun comments about it the way I do with most other episodes simply because it's so crazy on its own that I can't top anything canon to the episode itself or make zany asides that are zanier than what's really presented.

-Galvatron is so crazy that he actually corrupts an entire planetary computer. That's a strong statement about his mental state.

-Man, that was just the biggest transformation cheat ever as a Sweep glows yellow and morphs into his vehicle mode instead of actually transforming.

-It took until the 19th minute of the episode for Cyclonus to actually realize what we've known all along: "he is crazy!"

-Galvatron's ultimate retribution is to ravage an entire planet. How very Dragonball Z of him.

-And the ultimate conclusion of the episode is just to fly away from the ruins of Torkulon with Galvatron as crazy as ever. It's like it's not even an ending and the entire plot was for absolutely nothing. Not that I'm complaining because it was super fun. But still.

FAVORITE LINES
"Galvatron don't fight it. Just say whatever comes to mind."
"Kill. Smash. Destroy."
"Erm, yes. Go on."
"Rend. Mangle! DISTORT!"
-Galvatron explains his thought process to his therapist.

Extra special favorite line bonus:
"Yes. Tell me about the Autobots."
"I hate the Autobots! I hate Cyclonus! And I'm not very fond of YOU either!!"
-I think the important takeaway is that Galvatron has some anger issues.


Final Grade: A-

 

I think I might've just been not in the right mood for Ghost in the Machine. Or the awful AKOM animation made it harder for me to enjoy. Everyone else seems to love it but I came away with a sort of "meh" reaction.

 

CARNAGE IN C-MINOR

THE SHORT VERSION
Easily the worst musical thing Marvel productions has ever put out besides Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark

REVIEW
Uuuuuughhhhhhh.

This episode probably isn't as repulsive in terms of plot as BOT was, but the execution was just...

Uuuuuuuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhh.

Between AKOM's awful (even by their own terrible standards) visual work, the incredibly stupid need to have the alien characters "sing" (in the most tenuous use of the term I could possibly imagine) all their dialogue and that somehow their sung dialogue is unintelligble to every Transformer besides Blaster and Soundwave for some dumb reason (which in turn requires basically every statement that one of the aliens makes to be parroted by said Transformers, eating up valuable episode time on duplicates of half its lines), this episode becomes hard to watch, hard to follow, and runs far slower than it needs to.

The idea that the Decepticons are after an alien weapon and that the two sides of Cybertornians get dragged into a civil dispute on said world? That's a cool concept that could've and should've been done better. But instead of getting a good episode out of a neat concept, we get 20 minutes of hard-to-watch cringe and repetition that isn't even interesting to look at.

Honestly, when the most "fun" (used loosely) part of the episode is laughing at a dead bot miraculously returning to life in a fantastically slipshod animation error, you know you're in trouble.

There's almost nothing redeeming about this one. This is an episode I not only am totally ok with people skipping, but recommend skipping if you're showing the series to a fan who doesn't already "get" the appeal of the franchise. because this is the sort of thing to turn them off the brand.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-Buzz Dixon, previously having written The God Gambit and Prime Target, signs off from his time writing this series here. There's not much to say except that I have a weird memory of Dixon doing more work on the series than just these 3 episodes, especially considering I hold this episode in such low regard that I usually avoid watching it whenever possible.

-Galvatron seems shockingly sane all of a sudden. It's as if the events of Webworld didn't happen.

-It's also weird to see this episode, an AKOM one, manage to look both better and worse than Webworld (a Toei one). Though I know from memory that this statement is going to be disproven hard before the episode is over (I know this is a rough one)

-"See? See? I told you there were Decepticons!" Come on, Perceptor. Nobody likes a gloater.

-Look a tiny Superion flying with the rest of the Autobots. Also, look at those awful flight-pose Autobots.


-Where the heck did Broadside come from? Also why does Broadside look so fugly?

-I'm going to say right now that I'm going to do my best to not harp on every weird animation error and quirk. This episode is remembered as one of the worst in the series for awful animation. So it's a bit like beating a dead horse. But I will still point out the worst of the worst.

-Such as Brawn, miscolored Huffer, and... I'm not sure who the last one is. A constructicon? shooting at the Decepticons. So two bots who are dead, one who's the wrong color, and one who's on the wrong side. And we're less than 2 minutes into the episode. Awesome.


-The "flight" in this episode is generally awful. Everyone moves so stiffly.

-and once again we get tiny Broadside and tiny Superion in the Autobot group.

-Obligatory "sound can't travel in a vacuum" nitpick.

-Ah, yes. The introduction of the Eurythmans. The "singing" aliens (and I use the term in quotes because what they're doing barely qualifies as singing.)

-Soundwave gushes to Galvatron about the harmony that destroyed the comment. It's downright unsettling to hear him be so... I'm not sure if 'emotional' is the word, but enthused.

-It's kind of sad that this is the big showcase episode for Broadside given how badly it's done. It's hard to take him seriously as an interesting bot when he looks so awful.

-We also get a weird introduction to Broadside's personality as he's apparently concerned about his paint job.

-Devastator is brought own by a single shot from Perceptor of all bots. This is a new low for him.

-Seriously, this episode looks awful

-Ultra Magnus is apparently big enough to manhandle a pair of Constructicons as if they were action figures. This episode makes no sense.

-Broadside has in the past transported multiple bots within his plane mode. But not here. instead Magnus and Blaster just grab onto his wings and everyone flies off in the most rickety-looking fashion.

-I feel bad for Broadside, but I also feel bad for Hot Spot. this is the most he's ever had to do and it's in this garbage episode.

-How can Blaster tell the entire Eurythman civilization is based on musical harmony? He's heard one harmony and seen a bunch of buildings that don't look particularly musical.

-Never mind that, how can Blaster know it's going to be difficult to talk to the "Dude" that produced the harmony? This makes no sense except for plot convenience.

-In an episode full of awful writing conceits and decisions, this is one of the worst: In spite of the fact that the Eurythmans speak the same English that we hear for everyone else, only badly "sung", somehow only Blaster can understand what they say and translate it to Ultra Magnus. So every line one of the aliens delivers has to be said out loud twice just so the Autobots can know what's going on. Brilliant way to waste time in a thin-plotted episode!

-Soundwave seems to have inherited Blaster's plot-psychicness, picking up that Allegra is a "she".

-did Blaster's "horns" just grow as he took in the 'beauty' of this planet? Holy obvious metaphors, batman.

-Soundwave actually says "think that destroyed them, Galvatron?" I am really not used to this more chatty and less direct Soundwave.

-I didn't know Broadside was supposed to be so vain. This feels like it was written for Sunstreaker or Tracks instead.

-Oh god. We're not even halfway through the episode and the repeated need to translate the Eurythman's 'language' is infuriating.

-Interestingly, neither Transformers Wiki (the good one, TFWiki, and the worse Fandom one) have a listed actor for Allegra. Basso Profundo is credited to Ed Gilbert, and I don't even need the wiki to tell that Zebob Skandana is Paul Eiding, but there's nothing for Allegra. The easy guess is Arlene Banas given that she seems to voice basically every female voice in this season that's not Susan Blu, and voice acting website Behind the Voice Actors does seem to confirm that it is Banas, if their credits are accurate.

-Now Soundwave is tiny compared to Galvatron to facilitate him being picked up.

-The three primary Eurythmans have a weird naming structure. Allegra is the only one with a single name. She and Basso Profundo have classical/operatic musical term names. Meanwhile there's Zebob Skandana, whose name seems to just be some hip-cat scatting terms.

-Blaster's processing on his voice disappears. It's odd how much it lowers his tone of voice.

-Soundwave uses the third of the harmony that he has and it destroys a rock spire. Then he uses it again against Ultra Magnus and it just pushes the Autobots back instead of hurting them.

-I have no idea what's going on anymore. This makes no sense.

-Have I mentioned that I'm watching this episode with headphones on and it's making the sing-songy musical stuff even more frustrating?

-Only Galvatron could be so infuriated and swear vengance on a tiny flesh creature for such a small slight as being knocked back down a pit.

- Oh wow, it's the biggest, most intense fight between Soundwave and Blaster in the series! And all it looks like is a glorified wrestling match on the ground. Still probably better than the Headmasters fight everyone overrates. There, I said it.

-Once again Hot Spot suddenly develops a mouth instead of a faceplate even though he clearly had a faceplate earlier in the episode.

-For what's supposed to be a harmony sound, it's so over-processed that it doesn't really sound harmonic anymore.

-Whoa. now this is a fun animation screw-up. Hot Spot is standing in front of Perceptor and Defensor in the fight against the Decepticons. Hell of a thing for Defensor to be standing there without the bot that accounts for like 60% of his body.


-Basso Profundo's comptputer sounds like Paul Eiding as well. Did they only have like 2 or 3 cast members who could even halfway carry a tune?

-The Eurythman's healing powers can also "heal" a mechanical being like Perceptor? Sure.

-Holy crap, it's the second appearance of Scamper, Metroplex's little "drone" bot in this season. This time he sounds a bit like he's got an Aussie accent like Dan Gilvezan uses for Outback.

-Ok, it's not an Aussie accent. It's... something else.

-More Soundwave/Blaster wrestling!

-Soundwave has a literal erase button on his waist in his tape player controls. That seems like a hilarious design oversight.

-What a weird ending. Ultra Magnus lectures the Eurythmans for like 3 lines and they just sort of go "cool, OK" and that's it?

-Thank god it's over.

FAVORITE LINES
None. I can't bring myself to recite any of the lines from this episode.

Final Grade: F

 

Awesome trivia! Len Wein's involvement showed in the writing on this one.

I have nothing to add about Webworld. It's simply fantastic and a lot have been said about it already.

As the episode didn't specify exactly, it's not unlikely that at all those unconscious Torkuli was the Decepticon's doing. I'm also not against the notion that Galvatron probably slaughtered most of them before he went off by the end. It puts end of the episode in a nicely grim tone and I love it.

 

I think Nightmare Planet would have been the perfect episode to do this in if the writers had made him and Razorclaw the focal point of the episode. It would have been especially effective because Springer and Razorclaw have contrasting personalities. It would also have served to promote the Predacons a lot better since they spend the whole episode getting consistently attacked and humiliated. It was a terrible showcase episode.

 

Thanks!

Madman's Paradise, much like Nightmare Planet, is an episode that has a lot of cool ideas but fails to execute them properly, resulting in a story that is unengaging in spite of all its potential and promise. Like you pointed out, this would have been an awesome clash of fantasy and science fiction. I mean c'mon, we have a robot with a rocket launcher defending a castle against wizards and we have a robot rhino charging through barbarians. That sounds so freaking cool.

I think that's why I was sad about not liking it at the end of my critical viewing; I could see all the ways it could have been fun and it just didn't go that way.

 

Cool ideas that are executed poorly feels like a bit of a recurring theme in this season. I don't know if it's just a shift in the writers' room, the wear of having already written like 90+ scripts and having covered a lot of ground, or just more people mentally checking out on the silly toy commercial show, there are a lot of plots that have a cool idea at their center and then go on to botch it to some degree.

The two already mentioned are examples. Thief in the Night could've been a lot better. Forever is a Long Time Coming could've been better. Hell, I even said Carnage in C-Minor could've been done better in my review (though to be fair, that's a low bar to clear since almost anything could've made that flaming mess of garbage better) Looking ahead I have a feeling I'm going to say the same about a couple of the episodes coming up as well.

"The season that could've been better" seems like a fair tagline for season 3.

 

I intend to watch Carnage in C-Minor in the next 24 hours. My main problem is Devastator's new low (easily defeated by Perceptor), I can accept that Devastator is really just a bully (good at picking on smaller robots but a terrible fighter against robots his own size, Omega and Bruticus for example) but the writers are just giving Devastator no respect in this episode, which I think is bad given that Devastator must be one of the most iconic gestalt of the franchise.

Also dislike the flight scene with Broadside, where both Ultra Magnus and Blaster are holding on to Broadside wings rather just riding aboard Broadside in a conventional way.

One thing in this episode is that Soundwave is heavily featured instead of Cyclonus, I like to think that after the events of Webword, Cyclonus is not back in Galvatron's good book.

 

Webworld is gloriously loony, and I love it for it.

Carnage in C-Minor is... is... it is. What it is, is it's horrible.

 

This week's episodes:


1) The Quintesson Journal
2) The Ultimate Weapon
3) The Big Broadcast of 2006
4) Fight or Flee

This should be reasonably fun. We get a small running plot thread, an interesting sorta philosophical episode, and the introduction to a character that we already saw like a week ago.

 

THE QUINTESSON JOURNAL

THE SHORT VERSION
Airing an episode before the other episode that establishes an important bit of information about what you're going to be watching: A proud part of G1 Season 3's history

I admit that this seems like a total non joke if you're not Canadian and didn't grow up with those Canadian Heritage Minute commercials that always aired in the middle of... basically everything. I'm comfortable making gag for an audience of potentially just me. So for those of you who don't get it, here's a picture of Outback making one of his super rare appearances in this season.



No, there's probably not a joke about that picture that you're not getting. The joke simply is that Outback featured prominently in this episode.

REVIEW
We've already had Thief in the Night airing before Fight or Flee and Starscream's Ghost to establish why Octane was on the run from the Decepticons, so episodes going out of storytelling order is nothing new for the series at this point. But here we go again as The Big Broadcast of 2006 (which I'll be getting to 2 episodes from now) introduced a vital piece of Quintesson tech which forms the center of this episode, only for this show to go out first and give us no real background on it at the beginning. It's simply... there.

In fairness, it doesn't really sabotage the episode to a huge extent. We get the basics of what the journal is in the opening sequence and it's enough to carry us through the basis of the necessary plot points it requires. It's just frustrating to know that there was a better explanation and lead in that should've and could've been a part of this story if they had ordered things correctly.

That said, if we ignore that big blip, the other problem with this episode is that it's just pretty middle of the road. The political machinations plot of the Quintessons is cool, but it largely serves as background noise to motivate the central conflicts of the episode (the fight over the journal and the peace conference) without really getting to serve as the focal point. And that's a shame because it was far more interesting than the things we got, and what we got just felt sorta meh. It's a generic fight between the Autobots and Decepticons and the peace conference is kind of interesting, but also so predictable (until the end at least) that it never really grabs your attention significantly.

It's not a bad episode, by any means. It's just also not a great one.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-Before we start, I'm going to cop to something: I went and looked up how to spell Xetaxxis and Lanarq on TFWiki before I started writing this. I would've probably been pretty close on "Lanarq" had I just taken a stab at it, but the other one... not a chance.

-"For centuries now the planets Xetaxxis and Lanarq have been engaged in a senseless and brutal struggle." Did I turn on the wrong show? Is this some sort of other sci-fi space epic and not about the Transformers?

-No. We were just watching an exposition-dump of a video about a war while the key parties of that war sit at the negotiating table. While I appreciate the attempt to keep the exposition to a setup that works within the plot of the episode, I kinda doubt that the people attending the negotiation need to be reminded why they're even there in the first place.

-Rodimus thanks "Melkorr" for apparently narrating the video presentation in person. Melkorr, in spite his name, also apepars to be entirely human, just wearing a space suit of some sort. He's also never seen again.

-Now we get our look at the warring factions. And they are.... Knock-off Sand People from Star Wars vs and ones that for some reason remind me of off-brand Junkions, especially since that one has a robo-mustache.

-A simple opening handshake reduces the sides to fighting like a pair of uncoordinated dorks. Yeah. This is going to go super well, isn't it?

-Now we cut to a strange golden tube like thing plummeting through a tree and to the ground. Had we watched "The Big Broadcast of 2006" before this episode, we might cotton on to the fact that this thing is important to the Quintessons. Instead we're left to simply be told it's important because Predaking picks up its signal and that it's a Quintesson frequency.

-Also, why are Predaking's guns mounted under his armpits? Dammit AKOM.

-Perceptor also picks up this signal and notes it's on the old Quintesson frequency. How can there be an old frequency when the Autobots seemingly didn't know about the Quintessons until less than a year ago?

-Why are Steeljaw and Ramhorn riding around in cassette mode outside of Blaster?

-And just to make it better, as everyone goes to evacuate and drop from Sky Lynx, Blaster and the cassettes just sort of jitter themselves to the door in their alt modes. Real lazy, AKOM.

-The Autobots are attacked by a bunch of tentacle-like vines. If this was a Toei episode there'd be a joke to be made about a Japanese animation studio drawing a handsy tentacle monster, but sadly this might be one of the rare times where AKOM saves an episode's animation from being made fun of.

-I started to think by this point that Outback's voice seemed a little bit off from last time he appeared and it turns out I was right. In Five Faces of Darkness he was noticeably voiced by Dan Gilvezan sounding just like Aussie Bumblebee. Here it's Gregg Berger instead.

-There are a lot of quick cuts and transition jingles in this one. That sometimes feels like a telltale sign that the episode was sparse and needed to be padded out.

-Remember when Ramhorn used to be able to talk?

-Or when Blaster didn't make painful rhymes?

-It feels wrong that Sky Lynx is treated as a match for Predaking.

-I didn't think the giant warp gates appeared and disappeared like they apparently do here after this one grabs Sky Lynx. I thought they were set fixtures in space.

-Let's just not snark and enjoy for a moment the fact that the Quintessons use guns with their tentacles.

-The Quintessons didn't take any of the Autobots' weapons? They deserve anything that happens to them.

-I also appreciate the fact that they lampshade how easy their escape was. Copping to something doesn't always work as an excuse/justification, but it's nice to hear sometimes.

-Crazy Galvatron instantly makes any episode better.

-Oh yeah. I'd almost forgotten about the peace conference plot.

-Ok, even if the peace conference plot is kind of lame, having it turn out that the Quintessons are playing both sides of the war is a fun twist and works to further them as duplicitous villains.

-Galvatron recognizing that Xataxxis and Lanarq are the plot-relevant planets for whom there's a peace conference is totally random and fun. The idea that Crazy Galvatron just randomly happens to keep abreast of galactic politics is kind of like Homer Simpson randomly having in-depth knowledge of US Supreme Court Justices for no sensible or explainable reason. And that's what makes it funny.

-The writer has really made an effort to have Blaster rhyme a lot in this episode. I know that he does sometimes rhyme/rap as part of his gimmick, but it's never forced like this. It almost makes me feel like some of his lines were once met for Wheelie.

-Why does Galvatron even want the Quintesson journal? He just finished saying it was nothing but useless info.

-Wrestling is fake! What a topical reference! Also it's a good thing they did this after the GI Joe movie and not when they were trying to court Sgt. Slaughter to voice himself.

-It's weird to have the Allicon guard gleefully talk about profit when normally they're barely sentient goons.

-Mentioning internal ship's pressure dropping rapidly is one of the rare times that they actually acknowledge that any ships have contained atmospheres.

-Rodimus Prime: dispensing diplomacy through headlocks.


-Rodimus Prime: also forgetting to take weapons away from conference attendees so they don't shoot each other. Unless that's Ultra Magnus' fault. Maybe he couldn't deal with that right now.

-The Xataxxins and Lanarqans seemed oddly terrified of Sky Lynx.

-There are armed bombs on the ship. Let's blast it and make it explode! Sensible planning!

-I actually really like that the ending doesn't have the Xataxxins or Lanarqans make up and be happy allies and that they continue to be bitter, angry jerks, just ones that aren't going to poitlessly kill each other anymore. The reality that not everyone can get along is actually, dare I say, a decent moral?

-Another episode ends with a brief ideological conversation featuring Rodimus and/or Ultra Magnus. That feels like a running theme this season.

FAVORITE LINES
To be honest, nothing really stood out for me in this one.

Final Grade: C+

 

As an Australian, I am glad there is a character like Outback (Crocodile Dundee must have made a pretty decent impact on N. America).

I thought the episode was enjoyable, I really like that there are other inhabited planets out there.

I think a Transformer Sunbow planetary map would be pretty cool to see (where the planets are in relation to one another after Cybertron stops floating through space some point after the Ultimate Doom episode).

There are some issues with the episode such as weird animation with Blaster's tapes in cassette mode outside of Blaster.

I find it strange that Predaking is flying through space for no obvious reason when he first gets the old Quintesson signal.

It is like the writers forgot about that only Blitzwing seemed to have some vague recollection of the Quintessons and both Autobot and Decepticons seem experts on Quintessons.

Lastly, SkyLynx is injured, therefore Blaster, Outback, Steeljaw and Ramhorn are in danger, you think that maybe Scourge and the Sweeps should have been sent to retrieve the journal, with Galvatron, Predacons and Cyclonus trying to finish the aforementioned Autobots off. Instead , Galvatron virtually lets SkyLynx recover and those Autobots live to fight another day.

 

Crocodile Dundee was a bit part of it, but in general North America went through this weird sort of fad-like infatuation with Australia in the late 80s.

It was also funny hearing Outback have a less over-the-top Aussie accent in this episode vs his one or two lines in FFOD. I guess that's just down to how strong of an accent each voice actor was capable of.

It also makes me want to look back over the history of the series and find all the times that the same character was voiced in separate appearances by a different actor, like Outback or Skids. (Not counting things like misattributed lines or Wally Burr filling in for a character that only had a line or two but was otherwise consistent in who voiced them)

I'm hoping to have The Ultimate Weapon watched and maybe reviewed tonight. Getting anything done tomorrow night is going to be a bit dodgy and I don't want to have 3 episodes to cover on the weekend.