Build typhoon almost commit suicide just to keep Build Boy Under Control.

 

No, he just has to give Sideburn specific instructions lest he blow off his duties to go harass Kelly again. He's going to do that anyway, but you have to work with what you've got.

The dubbing team got ahead of themselves, here. In Car Robots, no one knows what the ruins are yet.

She's blackout drunk in the living room.

Dubbing anime is hard.

Koji is either too old or far too young to be calling people "daddy".

I think it's because Buildboy/Wedge are engineering prodigies who are the best at what the team is actually supposed to be doing instead of running around fighting like Buildboy/Wedge wants to do.

That boy is far too young to be shopping for leather goods!

Her boyfriend doesn't like kids, what was she supposed to do?!

Spoiler: Car Robots #30

• GOD MAGNUS(!) AWAY!!!!
• I'm never going to get used to robots with little kid voices. Not ever.
• Gel Shark no! You're being set up!
• Gel Shark is too good for the Destrongers.
• Poor Yuki, his dad got kidnapped and his mom just disappeared off the face of the Earth.
• ...When did Gel Shark find the time to draw that picture of Doc Onishi?
• If Legacy Black Convoy does not come with that nifty visor, I will be very disappointed!
• Suddenly, Fire Convoy!
• PLEASE LEAVE, SPEED BREAKER! YOU ARE NOT NEEDED HERE OR ANYWHERE!
• How the fuck did a full-ass Titan just get up and move without anyone noticing?
• GOD MAGNUS(!) didn't come to the rescue because he likes Fire Convoy, he just came because Speed Breaker asked him to...baka!
• Black Convoy of all bots accusing Gel Shark of being a traitor is hilarious to me.
• Huh, so that's what happened to Cybertron City, the Buildmasters just moved it.
• Oh no! Now Gel Shark is in Black Convoy's clutches!

 

Kinda sad. Not only the Autobots, but Koji too seemed to have forgotten about him.

I really do hate this. I liked the idea of Megatron having two loyal minions competing for his favor like this. It's actually pretty unique in Transformers, IIRC.

Aww.   Sometimes the research depresses me and reminds me of the inexorable passage of time.

Well, Magnus should hate Prime enough to separate ASAP.

He can't deal with this now!

I'd say Prowl. the Autobot Brothers just seem... closer to Optimus overall.

Okay, cool Easter egg from Car Robots there.   Seriously, I really hope one of the things you list the show doing well, Liege, are Easter Eggs/shoutouts like this.

Situational amnesia. Truly the worst kind.

I'm legit astounded, too. This would be a perfect way to hook the small kids into the franchise and entertain adults, too!

I really felt sorry for him, here. And good on T-AI for trying to help out.

I'm not sure if it would've been worse or better for her not to have shown up period!

Eh... I've never seen Koji as a 'selfish little twerp'. he's always seemed to be a good kid overall.

These are but two of the reasons why Sky-Byte is probably the most-remembered character from this show.  

What's odd is they do verbally acknowledge the barrier, at least. And heck, good on Scourge to at least prepare! Still, not sure what they'll do to the barrier.

Wedge can't do his job because he's a hotheaded moron who needs to be smacked upside the head. Preferably with a shovel.

Well, to be kinda fair, how's he gonna stop the flying metal shark?  

Oh, god. Will this show do what Bast Wars II or Headmasters failed to do and break Liege?!

They opened fire to cover for optimus, so Koji wouldn't ask any awkward questions!

ugh, stop it! We're getting some good action but it's too damned short due to the frequent cuts!

I think I prefer Ultra Jerkus!

Tonal whiplash! Stop it, show! We're losing track of what's going on!

It actually was pretty touching to see them reunited.  

One two-second scene and then vanished into the ether. What. the. Hell, show?

Wedge is a fucking idiot.

 

So I found my old Megatron and Side Burn

 

Yes! Crush that annoying idiot beneath your feet, Megatron!

 

Its a trap.

 

Watch period: Tuesday, October 12 through Monday, October 18 @ 11:59:59pm Pacific.

EPISODES
1) (RID) A Friendly Contest/(CR) Gelshark's Trap
2) (RID) Peril from the Past/(CR) A Final Key? Farewell, Ai
3) (RID) Maximus Emerges/(CR) Stolen Plasma
4) (RID) The Human Element/(CR) They Mystery of Brave Maximus[/QUOTE]

Now that the two-week stretch for "week 7" is out of the way, time to get back on track for the final run.

Just to clear things up and set the schedule, here's what I'm looking at doing for this week aside from just "watch those episodes"

1) I have the first episode watched already, so I will write it up and post it either today (Tuesday) or tomorrow so that for once I'm at least ahead of my normal curve of having the first episode out on Thursday/Friday.

2) I will probably go back a couple weeks and do a very brief "greatest hits" look back at previous reply posts so I can respond to them, because those moments are often some of my favorite bits of these threads since it's more interactive than just me blathering on about an episode but I also often find that they're the first thing that gets sacrificed when my time starts getting crunched.

3) My hope is that I'll be done reviewing episodes by Sunday night, but I'm not going to make that promise because I know I'm terrible at keeping those sorts of schedule promises when I make them  

4) I may at some point during the week, maybe Saturday night, start doing some of the upkeep and setup necessary for the wrap, like linking episodes into the review index, finishing the indexes for series that haven't had them done yet, and punching grades into my workbook to get the graphs ready. Those are little things that likely don't impact anyone else at the moment, but they do need doing so you might see a lack of activity on the back end because I'm focusing on a lot of front end stuff.

5) We'll see how things start looking as we wrap and look ahead to Armada, but I'm considering a graphic overhaul for my posts, replacing some of the larger headers and images with something a little bit more streamlined to make posts still format well and stand out, but maybe be less bulky. That's kind of a low priority task though so maybe nothing comes of it yet.

The schedule might end up a little weird moving forward since for the first time in a while I've got hockey to watch at night when I would otherwise be doing episode reviews, but maybe those times where I can't watch an episode will be perfect for doing the response posts and other things I don't normally find time to do.

 

EPISODE 31: A FRIENDLY CONTEST (GELSHARK'S TRAP)
The Autobots: Succeeding without really trying since 2001

Spoiler

Hey, remember the O-Parts? They're back! In Pog form!

Pointless Simpsons joke aside, we really are back to examining the mystery of the O-Parts a little more fully ast he team finally sets about searching for these magic macguffins they've apparently been looking for throughout most of the series. But like how they looked for Dr. Onishi, it takes a sudden late-series surge of interest to actually make any progress on them. While it's great that they did finally get around to addressing this important aspect of the plot, I can't help but feel like perhaps the way this went down and how easy it ultimately ended up being serves to do little more than make the Autobots look like idiots for how much time they wasted accomplishing nothing (and, really, not even trying).

This lack of credibility and drama also seeps into a couple of otherwise pivotal scenes. There's what should be a tense hostage standoff where Wedge is captured and supposed to be ransomed for the O-Parts, but what could've been a great dramatic moment ends up accomplishing very little because it gets turned into just another comedy gag moment. And then at the very end there's some cheap drama wrung out of T-AI suddenly being wary of the O-Parts for absolutely no explained or foreshadowed reason. She just suddenly starts talking to the audience with an ominous internal monologue about curses and it comes out of absolutely nowhere right as the episode closes. They obviously wanted to hint at the idea that the O-Parts not being an easy magic bullet for an Autobot win, but they could've done a better job setting that up and selling it because the way it happened felt like a bit of an afterthought. It makes it clear that the writers didn't learn a lesson from how they handled the Dr. Onishi plot and instead seemed to think that was the right way to go about things, which is a shame.

Really, aside from the fact that the O-Parts plot is finally given some forward momentum what helps carry this episode is actual effective comedy from Sky-Byte and Slapper. Their plots and plans make less sense as the episode carries on, but they're worth some laughs and are the right way to bring levity to the plot instead of the hijacking of the Wedge hostage standoff.

This ultimately makes for an uneven episode that does a fair bit of good but takes a couple of big blows for some major missteps that are frustrating but also kind of in line with what we've come to expect out of the series. So it gets penalized a bit, but not so much that its grade is severely knocked down.

Spoiler

-We open in a somewhat generically South Asian location in front of what looks like a generic-but-indistinct version of Angkor Wat in Cambodia where the Autobot Brothers search for O-Parts while Sideburn uses a non-trademark-infringing version of a PKE Meter from Ghostbusters. Man, the art department of this episode is trying awfully hard to be super vague about alluding to all kinds of familiar things.

I don't see any O-Parts, but I am picking up a Class-5 Full-Roaming Vapor. A real nasty one.​

-The scanner was seemingly built by T-AI to find O-Parts based on their unique energy signature. So... if this was possible why not do it before? We've spent like 20+ episodes since the microchip was found and the very first O-Part was unveiled searching to keep these things out of Predacon hands and just NOW did it occur to them to figure out how to better detect their presence?

Don't ask questions about how bad the Autobots look. Just go with it.​

-Suddenly the Build Team shows up. They claim that they were sent to check on the Brothers and to help find the O-Parts by, at Optimus Prime's suggestion, having a race to see who can uncover more of the mysterious items.

I can't tell if this is Wedge being an idiot or if Optimus really did authorize all of this because honestly neither scenario sounds too outlandish given what we know of the characters.

-10 seconds later Prowl and Sideburn find another part. The easier this task is now the more it puts the gang to shame for how bad they were at it before this episode.

-Suddenly the Decepticons show up and we get a a battle of stock attack footage before everyone escapes through the space bridge.

-Meanwhile as the Decepticons fail, Sky-Byte and Slapper are watching in secret. And Sky-Byte is now wise to the fact that there's a way to scan for the parts. It's kind of weird that as Scourge seemingly gets a little bit dumber as he falls pray to his newfound Starscreamy tendencies, Sky-Byte is becoming more observant and thoughtful about what's going on (even if he does still routinely screw up)

-Back at Autobot base, Dr. Onishi says that it doesn't matter if they get almost all the O-Parts because if even one is missing the whole batch of them are useless. But that also means that as long as the Autobots have a couple of parts then they're useless to the Decepticons too. So that's kind of a positive.

-Back with the Preds, Sky-Byte shows off his new plan to Slapper: He's made a fake O-Part for.... reasons. not that I don't think a counterfeit is useful, but I don't see any reason it would be identical to a real O-Part on Autobot scanners, nor would the Autobots finding it help any if there's not a predetermined number of O-Parts out there (ie if the gang knows there are 15 O-Parts then finding the fake would mean they stop looking for the last part because they believe they're at the complete set of 15 when they only have 14). So unless it has a bomb in it or something it just seems like an exquisite piece of craftsmanship that serves no practical purpose.

awkward meta-commentary on 3rd party knockoff Transformers toys?​

-Ok, I was wrong. Apparently this fake O-Part puts out radio frequencies similar to a real O-Part and it's supposed to fool Scourge and the Autobots. Except I question if a frequency that's similar to a real O-Part might be different enough that the difference is detected by T-AI's scanner. Of course, it's Sky-Byte and it's not like his plans are foolproof genius ideas.

-Sideburn and Slapper dig a massive hole to hide the O-Part. As they are the Autobots pop up and start digging for O-Parts themselves. The Build Team find one almost immediately. At first I thought this meant they were somewhere else rather than where the Predacons were. But nope. When the Decepticons also show up and a fight breaks out, Sky-Byte comments on it. This means that he and Slapper were hiding an O-Part where another one already was and that their part seemingly didn't put off enough of a signal to confuse the Autobots' scanners. So does that mean the plan is a failure?

-Also while I'm thinking of it: Why did we shift gears so suddenly to O-Parts from Fortress Maximus? The Autobots have it hidden (badly) in the middle of Metrocity and seem to need to find out where Cerebros is in order to ensure it won't fall into Predcepticon hands. Wouldn't that be a higher priority task right now? Especially considering they've just finished establishing that as long as the Autobots hold a couple of O-Parts they've effectivley prevented the Predacons from being able to do anything of consequence with the rest?

-Sky-Byte pops up out of the ground and laments that if the Autobots are gone his plan failed.

No, dig up, stupid.​

-Commercial break cut to: Sky-Byte's new plan! Which is his old plan! Except with more fake O-Parts! BRILLIANT!

-Also they're not going to dig holes to hide the fake parts this time.

-Sky-Byte also made his own scanner, but somehow it's confused by his fakes and can't detect anything else. Doubly brilliant.

-One more cut later and now he's got a handful of even MORE fake O-Parts which he's marked "with an 'S'" Only this time, before he can distribute them, Scourge shows up and believes that Sky-Byte has a handful of real O-Parts. This won't end well.

-Also I've written the word "O-Parts" so many times that it's beginning to degrade and feel like less of an actual word (for as much as it is an actual word considering it's a fake one)

Also it's reminding me of a super obscure reference: failed early 2000s boy band "O-Town" that was literally built from a reality show. Which I only remember because it was referenced on equally obscure MTV Cartoon Clone High.

-Out of nowhere, mid-conversation, Scourge picks up a signal internally (no scanner in his hands) and it leads him right to a hidden (real) O-Part.

"I could've done this whenever I wanted. I just didn't feel like it before."​

So.... what the heck is going on? Why does Scourge get to sense the parts internally but not anyone else?

-This causes Scourge to monologue about his "real mission" that he was sent to Earth for. Which he says was to locate the O-Parts and use them to obtain the power of Fortress Maximus so he can conquer the universe.

Considering he was an Autobot protoform before being reformatted by Megatron, I somehow doubt the validity of that. though if his purpose was tied to the O-Parts it would explain how he's able to track them without a scanner.

-this is also discussed as he remembers the scenes of his creation in the Decepticons' debut episode. Because that's cheaper than fresh animation of him being sent to Earth.

-But before he can do anything the space bridge opens up and the Build Team appear and all get stock transformations. Except Wedge. Also the Autobot Brothers are there and don't get stock footage themselves either. Rather inconsistent, no?

-Scourge mocks the Autobots for being too late and this causes (of course) Sideburn to attack him in a fit of rage. Like he could honestly go toe to toe with Scourge...

Actually? Go ahead and try, Sideburn. You've got this. Give it all you've got. Don't back down even if it looks like Scourge has the upper hand.

This should be the part like in most Samurai movies where the two stand across from each other after the clash and 3 seconds later Sideburn topples over, dead.​

-And that's when Ultra Magnus shows up so he can intervene.

-His cannon makes some odd noises. Almost hollow tube sorts of noises like one of those tennis ball cannons. Strange choice by the foley guy.

-This causes Scourge to lose his O-Part and allows the Build Team to swipe it and get away clean.

-With the other autobots gone, Magnus decides his work here is done. So... he cares about them now? Wouldn't he just want to keep fighting the Decepticons because that's what he's always done?

-  Slapper comments on Sky-Byte's plan being ruined and asks if he can keep the fake O-Parts because he thinks they're cool.

-In the Space Bridge Sideburn and Wedge have a childish fight about their contest and Sideburn is reduced to a blubbering, spoiled mess.

Good. Good. Late the sadness flow through you.​

I approve of this development.

-Meanwhile Dr. Onishi asks Optimus to meet with him about his research. At least they're getting value out of Dr. Onishi being back in the fold. They really should've gone and freed him sooner. It's almost like Optimus was intentionally dragging his feet so he could have a better hold over Koji...

-Back in the field Sky-Byte initiates the next phase of his plan: to convince the autobots that the O-Parts they've collected are all fakes and that Sky-Byte has the real ones.

I think his plans are getting dumber.

-And when he crashes and burns and drops one of his fake parts, Sideburn scans it and discovers, as I suspected all along, that the forgeries put out a different signal and its easily distinguishable from the real deal. So all of Sky-Byte's work was for nothing!

-  Slapper comes upon a knocked-out Sky-Byte (he got shot at by Wedge) and says he can't deal with the Autobots alone. So he just fakes being passed out himself. I laughed at this.

-And then Wedge starts having a crisis over whether he does actually have fake O-Parts or not and chooses to drop the real part he already had and pick up the fake one Sky-Byte dropped.

WEDGE YOU IDIOT! JUST PICK THEM BOTH UP!

-Though it works out for him that he made the switch as Scourge appears, knocks the fake out of Wedge's hand and kicks the real one at him while mocking him about accepting the fake.

-Sky-byte comes to, explains Scourge's gaffe to him and the pair get into a fight. Meanwhile Wedge sorta chastises himself for falling for Sky-Byte's terrible con job.

Yes, you should feel sorry for yourself, Wedge. You're an idiot.

-Except he still thinks he has the fake? What? Did the writers lose track or something?

-And Wedge and Sideburn still have their childish fight. Even Hightower gets sick of Wedge's act.

-As they leave they say there's only one more part to find.

-Which is apparently in Egypt and Wedge finds it in seconds under the capstone of a pyramid.

-Suddenly out of nowhere comes Kelly in a red jeep. And Sideburn loses his mind (while Kelly loses her sanity.)

-And that's before the Decepticons show up and stampede past her, spinning her out in the desert and sending her off to the horizon complaining that another trip has been ruined.

-Sideburn takes issue with Scourge harassing Kelly('s car). *cough*irony!*cough*

-But before he can throw himself at Scourge in a futile effort Megatron shows up. So Optimus and Ultra Magnus show up at the same time. That was quick!

-And then, of course, someone has to ruin it. And you only likely need 2 guesses as to who it is.




It's Wedge. Wedge ruins everything. He loudly declares he's going to show everyone and make Optimus prouder of him than he's ever been before. (which probably isn't a high bar to clear)

His plan to achieve this new level of respect? Scream like a banshee while charging directly at Megatron.

What could possibly go wrong?

-Lots, it turns out. As Megs fires his dragon breath attack and takes Wedge down in one hit.

-Then he gets stomped on repeatedly. Which he totally deserves.

Watching this almost makes his being a complete wanker worth it.​

-Now Megatron has a hostage which he barters for the O-Parts.

I'd just leave Wedge to his fate. The O-Parts are more important. Sure the autobots won't be able to access Landfill, but it's a small price to pay for the greater scope win.

-Optimus considers the importance of the O-Parts with a brief flash to Fort Max, which seemingly ties their use to his reactivation even though none of the Autobots have explicitly made that connection yet. And then he launches into a speech about how important friendship is and it's more important to him than the O-Parts

no. Bad Optimus. Wedge is a twerp who won't be missed. Keep the O-Parts and get yourself a big, shiny new Fortress Maximus! That's worth a million Wedges!

-Shockingly Ultra Magnus doesn't voice his opposition to this plan even though it would seem to be right in his wheelhouse to declare that one weak Autobot isn't worth the bigger victory.

-At the top of a dune Sky-Byte and Slapper plot to use this opportunity to steal the real O-Parts from Optimus, somehow not seeing that Megatron has a hostage that he's using to force a trade. Sky-Byte runs down, collides with Optimus and the real and fake O-Parts scatter.

-In the confusion Optimus and Magnus end up having enough time to get in their massive Omega Prime stock combination sequences (during which Megatron should've been able to tear Wedge limb-from-limb at least 3 times.)

-and megs just drops Wedge in the confusion, making him look like a rank amateur. So he escapes, the Decepticons escape, and the Autobots are left with all the real O-Parts, the fake ones, and Wedge. That was shockingly easy and kind of a cheat of the tension they were building up.

-Back at base the O-Parts are brought together as they begin to glow and Optimus talks about Dr. Onishi's research into how they'll change everything. Out of nowhere T-AI expresses some internal misgivings about them (outright suggesting they might be a "curse") and it seems oddly out of character for her considering how she's usually wholly on board with the rest of the Autobots and rarely expresses dissenting independent views. another random characterization change to craft further drama? We'll see... next time on Robots in Disguise (or further into the future than that if the writers shift gears again)

T-AI has serious concerns but chooses not to voice them, once again proving that poor communication is the Autobots' worst enemy​

Pros
+Sky-Byte and Slapper's silly plans are worth a laugh even if they make progressively less and less sense.

+The O-Parts plot is finally being paid off

+Dr. Onishi pays immediate dividends

+The hostage plot is a potentially big dramatic moment



Cons
-Wedge and Sideburn are even more annoying together than they are individually

-The dramatic tension of the hostage-taking of Wedge fizzles out for a comedy gag

-T-AI's weird random concerns at the end of the episode come from nowhere

-The fact that the O-Parts are so easily gathered now vs how long htey had prior to this episode makes the Autobots look incompetent (like how they did in their failure to rescue Dr. Onishi)

 

Remember Alf? Too Simpsons-referential?  

Don't cross the continuity streams.

Well, optimus was too busy creeping on Koji. Sideburn was too busy creeping on red cars. Wedge was too busy being a hyperactive idiot. The Spychangers were too busy hiding out behind billboards...

Well, to be fair to Wedge one of the other members of the Build team pipe up and confirm Prime sent them.

I can't believe this, but this reminds of an episode of Sienfeld where george realizes he's been making all the wrong decisions, does the opposite of what he feels is right and gains success. While at the same time Elaine's life just gets worse.

Yeah. i don't get it, either.

And this reminds me of an arc of the 1992 Sailor Moon anime where the Sailor Senshi have to find seven crystals in order to summon the Imperium Silver Crystal, and they, the Dark Kingdom and Tuxedo Kamen-who was a rogue element at the time-each get their hands on some of the crystals and they're all useless to each faction.

Well, like you realize later, it's so the Autobots stop searching and can't use them for Fortress Maximus. It is a good plan, IMHO.

The sad thing is they've got the numbers to search for the O-parts and Cerebros at the same time. Call in the Trainbots, Skid-Z, Towline and the Spychangers! Drown Megatron in numbers!

What's that old definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results?

it's Sky-Byte. That's where it'll start for him.

And I have not thought of O-Town in probably close to two decades...

Methinks some of Megatron's megalomania got mixed in.

well, the Build team are new toys and Wedge is an idiot.

One could only hope it would've ended like that one time Wedge got his ass handed to him by Scourge.

Hell, in his earliest appearances he would've shot the Autobots himself for not being tough enough!

I friggin' loved the interplay between Slapper and Sky-Byte. Very amusing overall.  

And I think I'm getting dumber seeing them.  

So did I. really, really funny here.  

Wedge, you have no ground to stand on, especially with what's coming up!

They're not the only ones...

Sadly this is probably one of the better outcomes for Kelly. poor, poor Kelly.

Good lord he just doesn't get what an idiot he really is.

i should not be cheering the bad guy on, yet here I am, doing that. Go, Megatron!

they'd still have the Build Team, so the ground Bridge Network can still be expanded and repaired!

And would easily replace Landfill, too!

hell, he'd probably put a plasma bolt right through Wedge's spark chamber.

Eh, genre convention.  

it almost looks like t-AI is contemplating using the O-parts to RULE THE WORLD!

 

Of course. No one steals Side Burn's skirt chasing trophy, especially not a truck bot. That'd be as if someone tried to one-up Doc from Love Boat.  

 

EPISODE 32: PERIL FROM THE PAST (THE FINAL KEY? FAREWELL AI)
more like "Farewell, Ai. For about 5 minutes."

Spoiler

I'm really starting to get a bit worried about how things are going to wrap up and whether we're going to go the Beast Wars Neo route of "a bunch of stuff happens at the end and who cares about explanations and making sense it's all fine and the good guys win and it's fine!"

We get a globe-hopping desert adventure where most of the cast gets to show up and do something. While it doesn't involve the whole cast, it's nice to see that this show isn't honing in on just Optimus and Magnus now that they form the newest, shiniest Autobot toy (short of Fortress Maximus) and the story remains somewhat of an ensemble work.

Plus there's the end reveal of Galvatron that feels like a good way to do the mandatory villain upgrade that is a staple of anime and has kind of been a staple of Transformers all the way back to G1 and while nothing happens with him in a broad sense since he only shows up right at the end of the episode, it's still a solid reveal and tease of what's to come.

But the biggest problem is that the central point of this story: the resolution of the O-Parts plot thread and its link to Fortress Maximus, is somewhat shoddily handled. I suppose it's to be expected given that the O-Parts have been badly handled as a plot point since practically the time they were introduced. What's one more disappointment with them after a whole series of relative disappointment? But we get them together, find out they make a map, use that map to head to the location to find another magic macguffin (The Orb of Sigma) which becomes yet another map that leads the gang to the location of the parts of Fortress Maximus, essentially half of which they already knew because of the giant fortress body that rose up underneath Metrocity. The orb itself is kind of an issue because it gets treated with an amount of reverence that belies the way it's dropped into the story as if nobody has any clue about it. In that regard it's kind of like the Matrix, but at least the Matrix earned its place in the mythos as it went. This thing has its immediate use and by the end of the episode its function is done and it can just be ignored from that point on.

We also have a weird sort of Koji/T-AI subplot where Koji is really wrapped up in saving T-AI from the danger she's in except that they've barely interacted in a serious way before now and her plot is ultimately resolved with little fanfare and the Autobot Brothers pulling the latest installment of characters forgetting about something of importance so they can react with shock and surprise at learning info they should already know.

It's an important episode that moves things forward, but does so in a very clumsy way that doesn't feel like the writers really cared about handling all those points since they're just stepping stones on the way to the characters being in the positions they want by the time the credits roll.

Spoiler

-Things continue right from where last episode ended with the O-Parts assembled into some kind of glowing ring thing. T-AI says there's a data stream inside and suggests that she can interface with the device and learn what information it holds, even somewhat flippantly playing off the apparent real danger it would pose to the stability and survivability of her program as if she doesn't even matter. What happened to all that dread and concern and talk of a "curse" from the last episode? Here she's super cheerful and not concerned in the slightest?

-It actually seems like Koji and Optimus are more concerned than she is.

-But she goes ahead with the plan and "merges" into the O-Parts field, turning it into a weird sorta ball-like thing.

Yep, all those O-Parts certainly are arranged in an aesthetically interesting manner​

-Out of nowhere Dr. Onishi recognizes that the energy sphere's color and forms look like a globe representation of the Earth with an O-Part on each continent. I know I shouldn't pick at this given the Transformers' absolutely terrible history with maps, but... wow is it bad. So bad that they squish all the continents onto one side of the sphere so that we can see them in a single shot.

Maybe it's supposed to be a post-breakup Pangaea?​

-T-AI tells us that the data indicates the O-Parts are linked to the "Orb of Sigma" which is hidden in the Sahara Desert. Woo! More mysterious McGuffins out of nowhere!

-But before we can learn more the globe of energy/parts does something and T-AI explains that she's now stuck inside and is unable to escape. Great.

-Her transmissions out are also damaged because she says to Optimus "if we bring the two globes together then the O-Parts might start to..." before freezing.

Two globes? I guess she means the glowing globe thingy and the Orb of Sigma?

-Sideburn acts rather unconcerned with T-AI's imminent danger too. Jackass.

-Then he attempts to leave Koji behind when they all depart for the desert.

-Miraculously after the Autobots emerge in the desert we see that two others are there by seeming sheer coincidence: Ultra Magnus is atop a rocky ridge watching them drive through the sand and Kelly is wandering the desert by herself and looking rather ragged before collapsing. Yay for the show treating a life-threatening situation as sheer comedy!

Don't worry, Kelly. Your suffering is almost at an end.​

-Except it's not all comedy as she wakes up and is buckled up in X-Brawn's driver's seat. Only that doesn't last because one off-hand comment by Kelly about cooling off in an oasis and X-Brawn ejects her out the roof and into the water. How positively Sideburn-ish of him.

-Movor is back up in space to monitor the Autobots. So much for the supposed difficulty of getting him up there, needing to swap in with a real shuttle launch, etc.

-He spots the Autobots in Egypt and Megatron makes the shocking announcement that he's going to lead the mission personally right from the beginning this time. Will it go any better than when Scourge or Sky-Byte are in charge? Time will tell.

-Meanwhile the Autobots arrive at the location of the supposed Orb, at which point Optimus finds out that Sideburn brought Koji along. He's not exactly angry about it, but he does at least question it, which is nice because it means it's not a "zero consequences" situation.

-Also in this moment I suddenly found myself thinking about how much Neil Kaplan's voice takes on a very Optimus-y quality. More than I remember it being at the beginning of the series (where I said it was at least pretty close but had some stark differences). Not that I always hear it since much of the time right now I'm watching episodes at 150% playback speed to try and get them done in a reasonable time frame and my player achieves that speed increase by a method that also pitches all the sound up. So it ends up sounding like I'm watching Alvin & The Chipmunks do Transformers impressions.  

Still, for the bit that I did hear at regular speed, it caught me a bit off guard how similar the voice sounded, and how much closer it sounded to that Cullen-esque core "this is what Optimus Prime sounds like" voice that I think we all end up having in our head than I remember it being in the earliest episodes.

-Meanwhile Koji sounds more like a kid as he whines "Buuuut Optimuuuuuus...." when told to stay out of trouble.

-Sideburn is being surprisingly mature about being told to stay behind. I expected him to dash off into danger the moment Optimus' back is turned.

-So the rest of the gang enters the nearby cave/temple/ruins thing and finds... a pyramid inside! Those wacky Egyptians, building pyramids inside of other structures.

Temples inside of temples?​

-I half expected them to enter the pyramid and find another, smaller pyramid. Instead they find a giant door that opens with the use of the O-Parts orb. That also opens up a bunch of other doors/walls and acts like a light source. It can do everything!

-Back on the surface, Sky-Byte "ambushes" Sideburn while the Dark Scream and the other Predacons wonder why they didn't just shoot Sideburn before alerting him to their presence.

Why indeed?

-The Decepticons show up too and now it's like 10-on-1 (or 1.5 if you count Koji. 1.25? 1.105? Some small percentage.)

-Of course as they flee they fall into some kind of shaft that's either a trap or a conveniently placed air vent.

Dang. Sideburn saved himself. Too bad.​

-Meanwhile, back at the A-plot, the Autobots have seemingly found the Orb of Sigma. It's... kinda disappointing, to be honest. I was expecting something fancy, but it just sort of looks like a globe representation of Earth. I knew better than to expect it to look like Vector Sigma because that name was likely just a creation of the RID writers (and indeed it was. The Japanese name is the less auspicious "Jurassic Globe") but I still wanted to see something with a bit more panache to sell that this was a big deal for the Autobots to find.

Before Cybertron was, I was.... a Fisher-Price light-up globe.​

-But we don't get to stick with that for long as we switch back to Sideburn/Koji as they hit bottom in their plummet into the caves/pyramid and then fall down another sloped segment and that's it. This show has serious ADD sometimes, flitting between scenes with little reason besides "it's been 10-15 seconds since we showed you what was going on over here, so let's go there now!" Just pick a scene and stick with it until a logical point to break away. Then leave it be for a few minutes before we need to worry about going back.

-Because we're back with Optimus, who we just left like 5 seconds earlier, so that the O-Parts can glow and T-AI can tell him something's going on. Then she somehow merges her o-parts orb into the globe and tells Optimus that for whatever reason now she needs to be taken back to base and re-booted with the base computer soon or something bad will happen. What that bad thing is doesn't really get touched on because a flash of light cuts her off and she goes silent. VAGUELY OMINOUS!

Are we gonna create some new Autobots? Because maybe we could make use of the ones we don't see before adding to the cast.​

-And that's when we switch back to Koji and Sideburn. So that Sideburn can say that he's somehow up to speed on what's going on because she's been in contact with him the whole time.

-Also now the Decepticons are in the temple and present with Optimus, Prowl, and X-Brawn.

-Optimus sets about stalling the 'cons and Megatron so the others can get the orb away. And they all fail miserably!

-Megs grabs the orb, the pedestal sinks away (never a good sign) and a shaft of light bursts through a hole in the ceiling (also never a good sign), causing Megatron to scream in pain and/or confusion.

Oh..... no?​

-And it just keeps going, and going, and going. Repeating the same shot of Megatron screaming about "this power" like they're obviously stalling for time.

-So the Predacons leave him there.

-And that's when we can check back on Koji and Sideburn like they're important.

-Sideburn's a bot who just can't read the room, gleefully joking about how they could jump down to where the rest of the Autobots are while Koji is obviously worried about the gravity of the current situation.

Always a professional​

-Sideburn is having none of Koji's concern though. He straps Koji in and plummets down the chasm screaming "THIS IS COOOOOOOL!!!!" while Koji is inside staring death in the face and surely regretting a lot of his life choices over the past few weeks/months/however long this series' events have been going on for.

-He's also very specifically concerned about T-AI. not that I think he should be unconcerned with her fate, but he's placing a significant amount of emphasis on saving her, with far more emotional investment than we've ever seen out of him in relation to her.

-Sideburn does the very anime ninja move of hopping from one piece of falling debris to another as he heads down before half-transforming so he can pop his arm out from the side of his car mode and snag the combined orb out of Megatron's hands. As silly as it looks, props to the animators for the fact that you can actually kinda make out Koji's spiky tuft of hair in the passenger seat as the scene unfolds.

He saw X-Brawn's head-in-the-drivers-seat and thought "I want in on that."​

-With the orb retrieved, Optimus orders everyone to cover Sideburn as they attempt to retreat. Meanwhile Sky-Byte and the Decepticons chase the orb while the other Preds just sort of sit on the side and make snarky commentary

-And that's when Sky-Byte gets run over by the Decepticons and Autobots in a very Looney Tunes sequence.

Someday he'll get that Road Runner​

-As everyone bursts up to the surface we're reminded that Ultra Magnus has seemingly been standing around doing nothing for the last little while. Though it does put him in position to cover the autobots as they escape

-Sideburn calls him "Big Mag"

No. Stop, Sideburn. Never do that again. "Big Mag" is not catching on. It's never going to happen.

-Now as the final big battle begins, we have to get in a healthy dose of stock footage to kill some time.

-Scourge then decides to pull back because the powered-up Autobots are too strong, leaving not just Sky-Byte to deal with the Autobots, but also to help Megatron.

-Not that he needs help, because he bursts up through the sand and is acting rather weird.

-This, of course, leads to the obligatory Omega Prime combination so that he can take on Megatron. That's kind of a disappointment because we saw before that super-mode Optimus was somewhat of a match for Megs. But now Omega is a match for Megatron.

-Omega still manages to defeat Megatron rather easily, suggesting that they haven't seen the last of him (of course not, we've still got like 6 episodes to go)

-That lets us transition back to the Autobot base where the gang works dilligently to save T-AI from her orb-y prison while Koji sounds like someone desperate to save his secret crush rather than just a concerned friend. He sounds like he's on the verge of tears and talks about not getting to say goodbye and how they have to save her. This would've been a much better and more impactful angle for Koji if they had just shown more scenes of him and T-AI working together or hanging out. Or maybe also if she wasn't a hologram and instead had a physical form he could interact with.

At least someone's working hard​

-Optimus starts talking about how there are powers in play that nobody understands, that T-AI set up some research program and he hopes it'll find a solution and it's all dramatic and serious.

-And then everything's fine out of nowhere and she's back and is OK. That kind of fizzled out.

-And that's when T-AI reveals she now understands the purpose of the O-Parts and the orb: They're the key to locating Cerebros and activating Fortress Maximus. Yay, an actual real purpose for them to be important rather than just "they're objects of great power, we must have them!"

-Cut to X-Brawn and Sideburn being confused about Fort Max and whether it's good or not that they unlock his power.

But I thought they all knew the "legend" of Fortress Maximus a few episodes ago when he first was brought up? Why are they so uncertain now?

-Meanwhile, down in the ruins in Egypt the Predacons (besides Sky-Byte) dig themselves out of the rubble and see a glowing pyramid frame of energy that's doing... something. And then it... I think absorbs a bunch of energy from them? and feeds it into Megatron who emerges from the rubble in a new form and a lot of fancy lighting.

Oh no, someone woke up Tornadron!​

-Behold... GALVATRON! DUN DUN DUN!

I summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon in attack mode and attack your life points directly!
​

Pros
+Finally a payoff for the O-Parts

+The desert adventure and ruins-diving is kinda fun

+Everyone gets something to do (at least everyone that shows up)

+Galvatron!



Cons
-Sideburn is a dick

-The O-Parts and Orb of Sigma are kind of shoddily explained and handled, taking away a bit of their impact

-The Autobot Brothers seem to forget all about what they already knew regarding Fortress Maximus

-Koji's preoccupation with saving T-AI is nice, but a little underdeveloped.

 

Come on, T-AI! You should be smarter than directly interfacing with an unknown computer program/source of power! At least patch it through something first!

Gotta be honest, I think it would've been better if he O-parts connected together directly. The glowing orb just... doesn't cut it for me.

Yeah, not a good globe.

Gotta squeeze as much mystery into this as we can before the show's over!

Told you, T-AI!

If I wanna be generous, he's concerned for Koji's safety. If I wanna be generous.

Which is in continuity with her previous appearance, too! I'm legit surprised she's still alive at this point!

Oh, no. This is a LOT more compassionate than Sideburn!

Movor was just feeling lazy that day.  

I really think he's underrated as an Optimus voice actor.

Hey, he's not Wedge!  

Pyramid-ception?

Ooh, haven't used that one in a while.  

It slices! It dices! It juliennes! And for the low, low price of 49.99 we'll throw in this FREE knife sharpener and tote bag!

By now the Predacons' only purpose is comedy/fourth-wall breaking.

Yeah. At least it should've been floating.

Like Towline? Skid-Z? The Spychangers?

This is a big temple to hold all these guys!

Ugh, Megatron! Haven't you seen any movies? Never just 'take' the orb of power!

Well... thinking about it, maybe after the trauma with his dad he doesn't wanna run the risk of losing someone else? I mean T-AI was probably the one he interacted with the most.

I gotta be honest. I thought this was a really cool action scene.

ONE MORE TOY TO BUY!

As for the O-Parts, I am glad their plot did go somewhere, even if it's to find more MacGuffins. They proved useful in the end to move the plot along.

 

I still just love that Galvatron is just a 1:1 repaint of Megatron, they just made some fan modes canon modes.

 

Eh, I still feel the ending of the show, though there is stuff that feels a bit rushed, is better than Neo's finale.

 

Did she try jiggling the handle?

Except no actual consequences are to be had.

YOU WERE TOLD TO ONLY TOUCH THE LAMP! NOTHING ELSE!

Dubbing is hard, especially when you skip ahead before things were actually revealed in the source material.

Spoiler: Car Robots #32

• What's the point of the OOPArts again? They already have Brave Maximus, what else is there for them to do?
• AI, what did your programmer tell you about interfacing with strange computers?
• I like how the humans already know its a bad idea to try to go after Gigatron. He operates out in the open and no one so much as glares at his dumb-looking spaceship.
• Are the Destrongers even still in Gigatron's army? It's like he forgot they exist, not that I blame him.
• They call that thing a Jurassic globe, but it looks just like a (crappy) regular globe. The landmasses are all arranged like they are now instead of being the supercontinent Pangea like in the actual Jurassic period.
• Being Gel Shark is suffering. He and Waspinator would be the best of friends.
• Everyone relax, GOD MAGNUS(!) is here!
• WTF why was God Fire Convoy's head so tiny in that shot?!
• Okay, now we know what the OOPArts are for.
• Behold—GALVATRON DEVIL GIGATRON!

Yes, he really is!

 

EPISODE 33: MAXIMUS EMERGES (STOLEN PLASMA)
He's finally here, sort of.

Spoiler

It's kind of more of the same for this episode, falling into many of the traps that the previous episodes suffered from and coming up kind of short as a result.

Once again we get characters forgetting what happened in the previous episode for a rather lazy setup to particular plot and dialogue choices, or possibly because of a "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" problem with the cast of multiple writers. Koji and T-AI's now ongoing attachment to one another continues, but still feels like it just manifested from nowhere and that hurts how impactful it is. And then we get both sides of the conflict being jobbed out at various points in the episode for little explainable reason besides "it makes sense for them to lose here" The Autobots hold their own against the Decepticons, then suddenly are weaker than we've seen them so they can be put into a bleak situation just in time to valiantly roar back and save the day. Meanwhile Galvatron shows up with all this attention paid to his newfound power and the threat he poses only for him to be basically no threat at all and retreat at the first sign of opposition.

And to top it all off we are continuing to set up Koji as this vitally important hero for the story, which is giving me some awful flashbacks to Masterforce and its "humans are special and the best and better and more heroic than the robots" kind of message it had at the worst of times. I'm in this franchise and series for the Transformer characters. I want them to do well and the humans to be supporting pieces who maybe get smaller victories or little interventions here or there that help turn the tide without being the crux of the win in totality. So seeing things head in this direction where Koji gets to save the day and the other bots are kind of at his mercy in terms of whether they get to stand up for anything or not.

But hey, there are interesting things happening too, especially around Fortress Maximus. His reveal and the scope of him against the rest of the cast is one of the better depictions of that massive size and power disparity. And having him be in the hands of the bad guys is a serious threat that really adds tension to the story, which is continued through the end of the episode as the Autobots don't get a neat, clean, "win" with finality that leaves them in the drivers' seat. I applaud them for that direction and for the way that Fort Max can potentially change the game, it just wasn't enough to redeem some of the more frustrating aspects of this one.

Spoiler

-We're getting right into the thick of things as the Decepticons roll up next to a spiral-built temple wherever they are in the world, claiming to have tracked the Autobots to that location. So is this where Cerebros is supposed to be? We just learned that at the end of last episode. They sure aren't messing around this time.

But does this one have a tinier temple inside of it?​

-Somehow the Decepticons can "boost the audio signal" and get a visual scan of the interior of the temple so we can see the Autobot Brothers and Build Team walking down a corridor. How?

-But at least we find out that yes, it is because Cerebros is supposed to be here.

-It also turns out that they have no idea how Cerebros works and how he's able to control Fort Max. Figuring that out is left to nerds like T-AI and Dr. Onishi. So he's now an energy scientist/adventuring archeologist/cybernetics and advanced AI expert? Sure, just pile the hats on! What's one more?

-The Decepticons open fire on the temple, a stone statue falls over and it's got Cerebros inside.

Being cooped up in that statue didn't stop him from working his abs​

-It appears in this continuity that Cerebros is the smallest component of the traditional double-headmaster Fort Max setup. So instead of being the bot that turns into Max's head, he's the bot that turns into the head of the bot that turns into Fort Max's head. The equivalent of Spike in The Rebirth or Emissary from the TR Fort Max release.

-And Wedge and Sideburn make light of their near-death experience and current showdown with the Decepticons by fawning over how awesome the Build Team is.

-Meanwhile, off in some bushes the Predacons are watching things go on while unsure of what to do because Megatron didn't "leave them any instructions."

But... we saw Galvatron emerge from the rubble at the end of last episode. And the 3 non-Sky-Byte Predacons saw this too because they were there. Why are we acting like that never happened?

-Reluctantly the Preds decide they have to help the Decepticons even if Scourge is in charge. So when Ultra Magnus shows up they step in and snatch Cerebros from the unaware Autobots, making them look like total boobs.

-And Gas Skunk then almost ruins it by blabbing about how Sky-Byte said he hates Scourge while Scourge is listening. It'd been a while since the group had acted really dumb, so I guess they had to make up for lost time.

-So the Decepticons create a distraction and escape and the Autobots are left to report in about their abject failure.

-And T-AI is piiiiiiissssssssed. X-Brawn tries to explain their screw-up as a mistake, but she's not having any of it.

She almost died for this mission, so she absolutely can expect the other Autobots to do better​

-But then moments later she explains that even if the Decepticons have Cerebros, there's a "command block" in place that would prevent him/Fort Max from obeying an enemy and compromising his primary goal of protecting the Earth. So while it's a big deal that Cerebros is in Decepticon clutches, it's not like they need to be worried about the biggest weapon/bot on the planet being used against them, right?

-Optimus orders some of the gang to search for Cerebros while the others keep an eye on Fort Max. And T-AI singles out Sideburn as a high risk to goof off, telling him not to chase little red sports cars. When Sideburn tries to play off her threat she takes it even further, telling him she has ways of making him do his job whether he wants to or not.

Damn, where did this new, feisty T-AI come from?

-Immediately cut to Kelly happily noting that she hasn't been bothered by Sideburn in a while. And as she does she's passed by Tow-Line, who has Sideburn hooked up to his winch and is pulling him to their destination.

It'd be more satisfying if I didn't think this might be one of Sideburn's kinks.​

Damn, T-AI, that's cold. But I like it  

-Tow-line doesn't speak though.

-Over at Pred base, Cerebros is getting powered up, but Mega-Octane detects the command block and recognizes that there's no way they're going to be able to get him to do their bidding.

-Scourge is undeterred though. He believes that thanks to his scanning Optimus Prime he has enough resemblance to the Autobot leader to fool Cerebros' scan.

-And it turns out he's right. Scourge is most pleased with himself.

-The big Autobot symbol on Fort Max's tower starts to glow and a passing Rollbar stops and says "I've never seen that before". Ro-Tor is also there to witness it from the sky, begging the question of how stupid the Decepticons were if they never noticed the obvious giant blue Autobot tower sticking out from the suspiciously tarped off area in the middle of the town the Autobots are known to heavily operate in (and which is more or less directly above where the ruins that housed Max were discovered)

How did he ever find such a well-hidden location?​

-The Autobots see the lit up symbol, understand that this is really bad and it's all hands on deck. If only they hadn't been beaten so easily by Sky-Byte. And been so confident that it wouldn't amount to anything.

-Aaaand now the Decepticons have announced that they can bypass the command block as well, so all those assurances that Fort Max was unusable by the Decepticons was for nothing.

-This means that it's a massive showdown: All the Autobots lined up at Fort Max to fend off the incoming near-complete set of Decepticon/Predacon troops.

Though I say "all the autobots" but it's Optimus, the brothers, and the Build Team with Team Bullet Train somewhere nearby. Not present are Tow-Line, Skid-Z, or the Spychangers.

-Scourge gloats and says it'll all be over once the Decepticons call "the emissary." but nobody knows what that is. Not even T-AI.

-Ok, "Emissary Activation Protocol" which Scourge triggers is just Max transforming to robot mode and bonding with Cerebros. This starts with the fortress ejecting the component that forms the body of what we normally know as Cerebros (the Deluxe scale bot whose alt mode is Max's head. Cerebros mostly looks like what you expect for Cerebros, albeit with the Japanese face design (no faceplate) and in red and black instead of white and grey.

Knowing previous versions of Fortress, it probably took him ages to decide on that color scheme.​

-Also yeesh, that lazy Autobot symbol on his chest. You'd think they would try harder for what will obviously become their stock footage of this transformation.

-Fort Max literally roars to life. You know, like good guys do, with an unholy guttural growl.

-First up is a pretty cool shot of the robot mode Max towering above Metrocity. It's nice to really get a sense of these big bots' scope and scale given that most of the time in G1 or even Headmasters their battles were out away from human cities or anything that provided strong points of comparison.

"I think we're gonna need a bigger boat."​

-Koji realizes that the Autobots need help and picks what is clearly the most logical choice for backup: Himself! Yeah, go Koji! Don't call any of the other Autobots! You can do it all yourself! Just like I'm sure Wedge taught you.

-And he even admits as he runs off that he has no idea how he can help but "I'm sure I'll think of something"

-Is it just me or have they sped up the Ruination combination sequence. It definitely feels faster than I remember, but watching so many episodes at 1.5x speed means I might have warped my sense of how much time it actually takes now.

-Wedge says that he, and I assume the rest of the Build Team, have "proven" that they can handle the Decepticons and Predacons. No, Wedge. you haven't proven a damn thing. Because you're an idiot.

-So the Build Team combine in to Landfill, now announcing "quad power combiner mode" as they try to take out Scourge since he controls Fort Max

-Now out of nowhere Team Bullet Train forms Rail Racer as if they're right there listening to the conversation even though they were shown separately from everyone else.

-And now Ultra Magnus shows up and takes Ruination with one shot by himself.

So we have 2 combiners on the Autobot team but it's the singular Magnus that's a match for Ruination.

The ongoing meme of "the Decepticons are stronger apart than they are together" strikes again.

-And now we get "supercharge" stock footage for the Autobot Brothers. Because we gotta eat up more time!

-Suddenly a laugh cuts through the battlefield and *gasp* It's "Megatron!" X-Brawn says "I thought he was gone for good!" and Optimus responds "So did I..."

No you bloody well didn't! You very specifically said "I don't think we've seen the last of him" after Omega Prime blew him up last episode!

Argh, dammit, show. CONTINUITY MATTERS!

-It turns out that this "I thought Megatron was dead" belief was entirely to ham-fist in a chance for Galvatron to announce that "Megatron" is dead and he is in his new form and thus a new identity. Come on, show. You can do better than that.

-Scourge calls it a "pity" that Galvatron avoided being vaporized in the explosion. I can't tell if he actually says it out loud or is only thinking it. If it's the former he's suddenly gotten VERY ballsy.

-Oh, also we get a good look at Galvatron in robot mode now, showing that he is very similar to Megatron in design but replaces a lot of the purples and darker colors with golds and whites.

In a series with creeper Sideburn and Stalkermus Prime, Megatron's dastardly plan was to simply color himself more like a good guy and look better by comparison.​

This is likely not news to anyone that has or had the figures, but Galvatron (or "Devil Gigatron" in Car Robots) is a recolor of the previous Megatron figure with one small tooling alteration in the form of some tabs to facilitate his altered transformations (which we'll get to when they start showing up)

-Galvatron also now identifies himself as a Decepticon and not a Predacon (if he ever actually called himself a Predacon to begin with.

-And just now Koji shows up at the battle. On foot. Intending to accomplish... something.

-But this provides a distraction to allow Scourge to order Fort Max to kill the Autobots.

-Only it doesn't work, and Max simply states there's an "access error" and unauthorized user. Strangely Galvatron understands all this perfectly and points out the issue even though he was here for precisely none of it.

-Ultra Magnus almost gets crushed by the seemingly kinda brainless and indifferent Fort Max, only to be saved by Optimus, who acts while Sideburn only shouts "Ultra Magnus, watch out!" as if he can do something while being shot by Ruination. Good job, Sideburn. Way to contribute.

-Welp, Magnus is still a dick. He thanks Optimus in a very dickish fashion.

-Meanwhile Fort Max stomps through the city and shoots massive lasers at the Predacons, almost certainly killing a ton of people in the process.


It's worse in Car Robots, as a scene cut from RID for post-9/11 sensitivity concerns shows that Fort Max also used his lasers to cut a swath of destruction across a section full of multi-story buildings, meaning that even more people were almost certainly killed.



Does this show have the highest probable collateral human death count of any Transformers show made so far? Aside from maybe G1 where there were a couple of Decepticon plots that put the entire planet in mortal peril at once (The Ultimate Doom and the impact of Cybertron entering Earth orbit, or The Revenge of Bruticus where they shoved Earth towards the sun and heated up the globe significantly before the Autobots reversed it)

-And the brothers now have a "supercharged triple beam attack" where they fire all their guns at once in a united formation. Let's see if they ever use it again after this episode.

-Especially when it does absolutely nothing to Ruination

-And now Ruination is now a match for Omega Prime. Consistent power levels? What's that?

-Koji steps in and decides that his plan to help is to talk to Fort Max, from the ground. Saying "I know you can hear me" and "what you're doing is wrong." I swear, if this works....

-oh piss off, it worked... Koji's plaintive, whiny nagging causes Max's Autobot symbol to glow and he stops rampaging. This feels perilously close to some Masterforce level "humans are super special awesome" junk.

-With Max stopped, suddenly the Decepticons/Predacons are easily dispatched with a couple of hits, including Galvatron ordering a swift retreat.

-Also Rail Racer finally shows up. Better late than never, I guess

-And Fort Max recedes back into the ground , likely leaving a massive hole where he sinks even though it's not anywhere close to where he started.

-Also Galvatron nabs Cerebros as they flee, so the Autobots are robbed of any chance to recover their comrade (I'm hesitant to use that word given that it seems like Max's intelligence is rudimentary at best.)

-Back at base T-AI lauds Koji for being a hero and talks about how great he is. This is the sort of thing I haven't missed during the period where we didn't have human companions.

-And somehow the Autobots can't find any trace of the giant, hundreds-of-feet-tall fortress/robot that just cut a huuuuuge hole in the ground. Wow, guys. That's a bad look.

-Finally Optimus wonders aloud what impact the fact that Koji was able to stop Fort Max will have on things going forward. At least he brings up the (sadly probably not accurate) possibility that Max stopping when Koji shouted at him was just a coincidence.

-But we'll answer those questions possibly next time, on Robots in Disguise.

Pros
+The threat of the bad guys getting control of Fort Max is a big deal

+Galvatron's new form is interesting

+The actual reveal of Fortress Maximus in all his glory is great and really sells the scale of his titanic size

+It's not a neat, clean ending where the Autobots achieve anything. They just stall and are still threatened by the Decepticon/Predacon possession of Cerebros at the end



Cons
-Mobilizing "all" the Autobots ignores like half the cast because they're not new(er) or bigger toys

-Several characters outright forget what just happened 1 episode ago to allow for some ham-fisted plot and line choices

-Koji is the hero in a really weak and potentially frustrating way

-Galvatron debuts with all sorts of pomp and circumstance about his new power, but is beaten just as easily if not more easily than he was as Megatron

-The Autobots are at a power disadvantage suddenly and for no reason, only for it to vanish when it's time for them to valiantly fight back

-The odd, sort-of out of nowhere attachment between Koji and T-AI continues. Not that I'm against it entirely, it just doesn't feel like it really came from anywhere.

 

I fell asleep before I finished posting that episode last night  

I'll have 34 up some time later today.

 

See? Side Burn does get comeuppance.

I always liked this color scheme. I like the "city-at-night" vibe.

 

EPISODE 34: THE HUMAN ELEMENT (THE MYSTERY OF BRAVE MAXIMUS)
Stalkermus Prime approves of this episode's plan.

Spoiler

Ugh, the slide continues. THere's some more interesting action from Fortress Maximus, but everything that's been an issue the last few episodes is back with a vengeance as we get more "humans are super special and will save everything" junk, more stuff out of nowhere, more characters forgetting about stuff or changing their minds on a dime, and generally just more bad and forboding things as we're now down to just 4 episodes left in the series after this.

I still want to have hope for how the series can close out, but every episode that ticks by with these problems mounting and becoming more significant I begin to worry more about the series pulling a Beast Wras Neo and falling flat on its face in the closing act. There's just so much about this one that I disliked and it wasn't helped by the fact that the story ended up feeling really thin when you consider how little happens outside the central focus on Koji's specialness and the power of friendship saving the day.

I think this is our first D for this show, which ends a solid run of otherwise solid work and nearly the worst possible time.

Do better, RID. You don't have much time left to redeem yourself.

Spoiler

-Previously on Transformers!

It's kind of funny, though not unexpected, that the show is referred to just as "Transformers" and not "Transformers: Robots in Disguise"

Anyway, the previously segment is what you'd expect it to be!

"You're dead!"
"I'm not dead!"
"Megatron!"
"My name is Galvatron!"
"But you can't be alive!"
"I technobabbled my way back to life! Now die!"
"No!"


And that's it. No mention of Fortress Maximus at all.

-Scourge blames the issues controlling Max on the fact that Cerebros' brain is "extremely complex". Funny that's the case when Cerebros displays zero personality or sense of liveliness like a regular Cybertronian. Since Cybertronians are already robotic beings with fully sentient minds you would think that understanding the nature of a similar but ultimately much more limited mind would not be nearly as difficult.

-Scourge calls himself Galvatron's "most loyal servant" lol.

-Meanwhile Sky-Byte sets about figuring out how to control Max to get into Galvatron's good books

-While Scourge realizes that instead of altering Cerebros' programming, they need to replicate the signature of whomever Cerebros/Max will obey. But Scourge knows it's not necessarily Optimus Prime. Instead he recognizes it's not any Autobot. instead he focuses on Koji.

"Wasn't this the thing to scan human memories for useful information?"
"It can do other things, why shouldn't it?"​

-Mega-Octane brings up the very salient point that they have no proof Max stopping last episode was because of anything Koji did in his whingy-sounding "stop Maximus, you're an autobot and you protect humans and you must staaahhhp." command. Scourge's response is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about feeling Maximus' energy when he commanded the big guy and how he felt another energy resisting him which felt "human" somehow. what?

-Scourge also calls Koji "braver than most" Barf.

-Then he says he never considered "the simplest explanation of all"

-Up in space Movor searches for where Maximus is supposed to be. And there he is. in a desert somehow. How'd he move there? Shut up. That's how.

-Back at Autobot base T-AI explains that she too has been going over scan data from the Fort Max event to determine how he's controlled and reckons that there was something different about Koji's ability to interface with the giant bot than Scourge or Optimus. So Sideburn immediately suggests maybe Koji has "some special power" Please no. Please make this something simple like "Max listens to humans because he's supposed to protect humans."

I hate, hate, hate the way that multiple Japanese series seem to denigrate the validity or value of the Transformers as life forms by asserting that humans are somehow special and "better" than them for vague, innate reasons that have to do with spirit or strength of will or whatever. I was mildly OK with it when the Aerialbots found that humans had different advantages from Cybertronians to help turn around their dislike of protecting the squishy fleshbags, but that was all about humans being "the same but different." and not superior.

-Sideburn continues to say that everyone is special, but Koji may be more special. Only he gets interrupted by Dr. Onishi who finds the whole thing preposterous. That's right, the person who's going to shoot down the reinforcement/lauding of a young child is his own father. Now I don't agree with the idea that Koji should be special, but it seems unnecessarily mean to have his own dad be the guy that's the biggest opponent to the theory.

-The evidence they submit for Koji's specialness is kind of specious. It's that "why did Max only listen to Koji?"

Uhhhhh, maybe because almost nobody tried to command Maximus besides Scourge and Optimus? Ever consider that? Maybe, for all we know, Max would've listened to Kelly. In fact, let's put Kelly in charge of him! Have her use him to squash Sideburn into a fine paste!

-Koji goes from disarmingly humble and "I'm not special, I just tried my best" to "wow, cool! I am something unique and powerful" in about 30 seconds.

-Before once again in comes Dr. Onishi to splash cold water on his son's hopes and dreams by calling all of this "nonsense" and "an outlandish theory."

You tell 'em, Dr. Onishi! Tell them your son's just a worthless lump of no redeeming value! While he's standing right there!  

Again, I realize the hypocrisy of complaining about how the show wants Koji to be special when I hate the concept while also complaining about Dr. Onishi rejecting the idea out of hand, but it's not about the concepts themselves (well, not entirely) and is more about how they're being presented.

If they want Koji to be the link to Fort Max, don't make it about him. Make it about humanity in general based on the idea that Max is apparently for some reason there to protect the humans (how and why I don't know because they've not adequately explained it, but just go with that) and that it could be any human, it just happened that Koji was there (and/or that by being the first one he becomes the only voice Max locks on to).

Hi, it's me from the future to point out that I know this relates somewhat to how things actually do turn out by episode's end. But if that was what they were going for they could've gotten there without spending so much time focused specifically on beatifying Koji in particular on the way.

If they want Koji to not be special have Dr. Onishi object to the idea that they're throwing his son into danger in order to forward an untested theory without significant evidence to validate the risk and that Dr. Onishi, knowing how dangerous the Decepticons are since he was held captive by them for the entire series, doesn't want his son in the line of fire unless they're absolutely sure there's no other way to go about this.

Either of those are massively preferable to what they're doing which is that they're actually doing both things, but having it be "Koji is special and awesome because he's a human and humans are unique and more powerful/valuable than us simple robots" type stuff we got in Masterforce and even in Victory a bit crossed with Dr. Onishi being a rather callous-sounding prick to while his own kid is in the room for no real explainable reason other than "he's a scientist and scientists are unemotional assholes only concerned with the data and results." sort of thing.

I also get that this is very much in line with the Japanese way of thinking and storytelling. Japan loves itself some "people are special because of force of will and determination and the indomitable power of the human spirit" and its preference for humans solving the problems of its shows because alien space robots are a silly concept who can't compare to us groady blood-bags."

It's just all a giant confluence of some of the more frustrating tropes that sunk earlier series and tend to grate on me in anime in general sometimes and I feel like it's starting to leech away at the positive aspects of this series and make me more concerned about how things are going to wrap up over the last 4 episodes after this one.

-Returning from my long, tangential rant, we return to the plot to have T-AI say that she's detecting activity at a grid that the map shows is in Africa. Optimus is not surprised because "that's where we found Maximus"


...uhhhhhhh no you didn't. You found Fortress Maximus under Metrocity. And you found Cerebros in some temple that, while never explicitly stated to be in any specific place, is pretty certainly not Egypt/northern Africa because it is shown to be in a region that is full of forested mountains like you probably wouldn't find in that region.

So... what the hell, Optimus?

-Dr. Onishi suggests Koji and him should go too, saying that if Koji is the only one Max will obey, he has to go too.

What? Weren't you just saying it was, and I quote you directly, "preposterous" that Koji could be the control point for Fort Max? And now in the span of a couple minutes and with nothing else added that should change your mind, you've flip-flopped and demanded he go along?

What are you doing writers?

-T-AI agrees too. And then so does Optimus because he understands the desire to save his own world.

Whatever.

-Koji explains what he did last time to his dad, and says he felt like he tried really hard to make Max understand him and "it was like a door opened."

That almost makes sense when Scourge talked about controlling the bot because they had a direct link formed by their systems and robotic life would likely have senses that includes the ability to perceive things like signals being traded and whatnot. But for Koji it should've gone only as far as "I told him to stop and he did"

-and we flash back to the whole scene just to kill some time. Even the slow bits in the middle that were unnecessary.

-Now Koji is believing his own hype and he believes he has a special power. But his dad, back in wet blanket mode, mocks him by saying "being able to eat 3 cheeseburgers in one meal is your special power. There has to be a rational explanation for what happened, we just haven't found it yet."

Man, Dr. Onishi is not a good parent. And if you're back to believing Koji's input was a fluke, then why the hell are you bringing him along on this dangerous mission?

-Also some lazy art direction going on as Koji is shown laughing in a callout bit on the scene while his face (still visible in the communicator screen in X-Brawn's console) is a static, resting expression.

An accurate, stylized portrayal of Koji's rapidly waffling mental state​

-Out in the desert Scourge and the Decepticons are waiting for the Autobots, as is Sky-Byte.

-And the arrival of the Autobots, with full stock footage transformations!

-As soon as the Decpeticons confront Optimus, Ruination is formed. This likely takes the team out of consideration for being threatening to the Autobots, given the track record of their work in combined form.

-The autobot brothers all want to jump in and help, but X-Brawn and Prowl have to outright tackle Sideburn to remind him that he has to stick with Koji and Dr. Onishi as per Optimus' orders. "We" agreed that it would be Sideburn, says Prowl. But obviously it's just X-Brawn and him ganging up on Sideburn because he's Sideburn.

-And so Sideburn is left with Koji and Dr. Onishi and looks/sounds completely upset about it while remaining in earshot of the humans. nothing like telling them that you don't regard their safety as an important job to take on!

a fitting look for him.​

-"Stop wasting time, Scourge. What are you doing here? What do you want?"

The hell do you mean "what do you want?" Optimus? You know what he wants.

-Scourge now recounts his origin story (AGAIN) and says that he had 3 input sources: 1) Megatron's programming, Optimus' data, and... the bio-energy tanker truck's human passenger (Kelly). what? Since when was that a thing?

Hey, who let AKOM handle this episode?​

Though it would explain Scourge's seething hatred of the Autobots.

-This bio-energy is what allows Scourge to control Fort Max. Well, at least it means that Koji isn't necessarily special. It really is all humans that have the potential to control Fort Max.

-I'm never going to get used to Fort Max letting out a weird feral roar when he forms.

-Scourge gets Max to kneel and open his command module (the boxy thing on his shoulder). Ruh-roh. The Autobots should be screwed now.

-Scourge also paraphrases Neil Armstrong's moon landing quote. Because of course he knows that reference.

-Sideburn watches the other Autobots fight and stands there and whines about having to hang back and protect the Onishis. Basically right to the Onishis' faces. Show some tact, man.

-Koji then gives Sideburn an out by saying he is going to stop Max but has to get closer. And then when his dad steps in to stop him from running off (make up your mind, man! If you think the Autobots didn't want him to get hurt and he can't do anything then why did you OK him coming along in the first place?) Koji blows him off and rushes away anyways. I'm just not sure if he learned this valuable lesson from his dad's seeming tendency to just gallivant about the world while paying little attention to his son, or Optimus' weird grooming-like behavior where he constantly encouraged Koji to abandon his home and family to come hang out at their secret robot base.

-But who cares about that, Ultra Magnus is here! He's apparently so cool. especially to Sideburn.

-Except he's not? He says he was taking a nap and Sideburn responds as if he's used to Magnus abandoning the Autobots and not helping.

-So as if to show Sideburn up he heads off alone and combines right away with Optimus to form Omega Prime. This lets him take out Ruination in a matter of seconds, continuing the combiner's descent into irrelevance.

-So things turn to Koji once again saying he has to head off and try to stop Maximus. And once again Dr. Onishi tries to stop him. This time he says that Maximus won't listen because Scourge is in the command module and has a tighter grip on the bot. SO WHY DIDN'T YOU EXPLAIN THAT BEFORE?

-But Koji gives us the "I gotta try!" excuse and rockets off with Sideburn while his dad keeps screaming at him to stop.

-Sideburn supercharges to his red mode, but there's a weird difference this time as his body turns transparent (except for his flame decals) and we see al lhis underlying bot parts as well as his seats and Koji before another flash restores them to their supercharged red color. It's a weird and random mid-phase to his transformation that we've never seen before from him or any other of the Autobot Brothers. And probably will never see again.

Actually used as a flimsy justification for a real recolor/remold​

-Koji tries desperately to guilt Maximus into listening but it doesn't work as Scourge has more control.

-And so Koji gets all depressed and mopey and gives up.

-In that exact moment Dr. Onishi apparently figures out how to beat Scourge's control. So he uses his super-cool Dick Tracy wristwatch communicator to call T-AI.

"There's no time to worry about Koji, T-AI. We have to stop Big Boy Caprice and Lips Manlis' rum-smuggling racket!​

Why didn't Koji have one of those instead of his weird lanyard cell phone?

-It's apparently a strange request, but we don't get to hear what it is as we cut back to Koji to preserve drama. And watch Koji and Sideburn get buried by a giant wave of sand brought up by a Max stomp.

It's kind of like that scene from The Mummy, if you wanted the bad guy to win.​

which I'm almost disappointed didn't get called the "Max Stomp!" as a called attack.

-Sideburn transforms mid-air as he gets blown back by the sand wave and Koji basically falls out of him and plummets towards the sand below.

Good job Sideburn, you've just killed Koji.

-Only he doesn't die because he's saved by.... SKY-BYTE!?!?!?

Apparently the only thing it rains in this desert is small children​

-Who then panics when he realizes what he's just done and what it looks like that means. So he drops Koji and bails.

"Primus no! Get it off! Get it off! get it off!"​

-And so the undeterred Fort Max continues forward unopposed, about to crush the Autobots when...

-A depressed Koji is given a pep-talk laden with technobabble by his dad. To combat Scourge's amplified human "bio-signature" they just need an even stronger signal. That will come courtesy of the arriving Team Bullet Train and Build Team who are carrying in their passenger compartments.... a ton of kids?

The authorities are going to have a lot of questions for the Autobots after this.​

Uhh... Why does it have to be kids? If only human bio-energy matters, surely it would be easier to round up adults who can consent to this. Because how the heck did they get so many kids without resorting to kidnapping? Did they just pull up to a school and load everyone on?

-Midnight Express coaxes the kids to start shouting at Fort Max to stop "trying to wreck the Autobots" and other assorted anti-Decepticon comments.

-And... it works? Weird. Especially when this time there's no visual signifier that it worked like Max's Autobot symbol glowing.

-T-AI cuts in to the celebration to say "When Dr. Onishi told me to send a thousand kids into the desert I thought he'd lost his marbles."

You're not wrong, T-AI.

-Omega confronts Scourge now to tell him that the Decepticons and Galvatron "will not overcome the power of the human race." barf.

- And so one shot from Omega ejects Scourge from the command pod and Max sinks back below the sand, with his head ejecting off once again.

-Galvatron, who's apparently been standing there the whole time and never once reacted to anything that happened, snags Cerebros and flies off, swearing vengeance.

-Afterwards Koji apologizes for his headstrong ways and Dr. Onishi tells him it's OK and he's special and all sorts of other sweet, saccharine stuff. And I guess all those other kids have been returned home? Or at least Optimus will tell Dr. Onishi that's what happened?

-And we close on a sunset with Optimus and Koji talking about how they're not going to give up protecting the Earth, retrieving Cerebros, and finding a way to defeat Galvatron.

-Optimus' speech is kind of trite though, especially when he calls the Decepticons/Predacons "Galvatron and his gang of evil-doers."

Nobody talks like that except cheesy old pulp heroes.

Pros
+The Autobots vs Fort Max is brief and kinda unimpressive in terms of action, but feels like a suitably one-sided squash until the tide is turned.



Cons
-So much "humans are special" nonsense

-Dr. Onishi's weird flip-flopping

-Dickish Sideburn

-Koji's awkward depressive/confident circling of the idea of him having special powers

-Fort Max is defeated by the power of children

-Children the Autobots surely abducted from somewhere

-Not a lot really happens in this episode for how much appears to be going on.

-Flashbacks to the worst parts of Masterforce

-We're also doing the BW Neo slide of a good/great show fumbling its closing arc and now I'm worried about the finale.

 

I am 100% on board with this idea. Kelly needs some good luck for a change, and I REALLY want to see Sideburn get stomped.