I dunno if it's really a curse. G1 was of the era where cartoons were aired 5 or even 6 days a week sometimes, thus we got a 2nd season that was like twice the length of the rest of the series put together. Beast Wars and Beast Machines were expensive and time consuming to make so they got short seasons to compensate, anime series usually are set for 30-35 or 52 episode runs so they last either for a whole year or a fall-spring run.

Really most of the shows ran for 3ish seasons/years.

G1: 3 + Rebirth (plus "season 5" and "gen 2" reruns)
JPG1: 3 shows at 1 a year
Beast Wars: 3 seasons
Beast Machines: 2 seasons
RiD '01: 1 season but it was destined to be a space filler the whole way
Unicron Trilogy: 3 shows at 1 a year
Animated: 3 seasons
Prime: 3 seasons and a movie.

As a toy commercial targeted largely at kids in that 7-12 age range 3 years worth of content is a decent cycle that will catch a fair amount of audience until they start aging out and you need to go through a refresh to capture the incoming audience.

 

rescue bots was able to achieve a 4th season can't say the same for Academy.

 

From a purely narrative/threat-level standpoint, Meltdown is probably the show's best human villain. The others are fun, but they never come close to reaching his level of menace (or are so annoying that the audience doesn't care if they do. Looking at you, Headmaster.)

The idiot ball plot strikes again!

Forget Sari's key or how most of the Autobots came online without the AllSpark. Professor Sumdac's business success is the biggest unexplained mystery in the show.

This may be the best advertisement for a Transformers toy that we've yet seen.

The Autobots reacting to human television never gets old. Though the Autobots from G1 groaning when their soap opera was interrupted is probably still the best example of it in the franchise so far.

Admittedly this is a pretty unique and memorable sales pitch.

There's the Cheetor archetype we've come to now and love mostly tolerate because it's not as annoying as Hot Shot!

Has there ever been a pro wrestling event in a TV show or movie that didn't include some reference to steroids?

So that's what that accent is supposed to be!

And this is why Bumblebee is more tolerable than Hot Shot. He actually gets comeuppance for doing stupid things.

Props to Fanzone for having the common sense to realize that utilizing such an unstable form of bioengineering is a bad idea. You just know that if Professor Sumdac was in charge of the police force he would have greenlit the program immediately and ignored all the obvious warning signs.

Maybe he already has a contract with the city's sanitation department or something and he's trying to secure an additional contract with the police for more money?

Meet the human equivalent of Sentinel Prime (complete with an over-screen communication introduction)!

This does seem as though it would be effective in deterring crime. Mainly because everyone in their right mind would be terrified of being murdered by it.

The brown-haired lady seems to be the mayor's assistant, since she's always with him at political functions. Weirdly, she also seems to do all his speaking for him (as the mayor never actually speaks in the show).

The really sad thing is that Professor Sumdac is such a moron that it would've been equally convincing had this not been sabotage.

Bulkhead has an adorable face here. Prowl's expression is good too. Animated seems to be the master of great facial expressions (second to only possibly Beast Wars).
And hurrah for Prowl's continued character development!

Star Saber approves (but is sure that they could get a longer sequence if they really tried).

He probably has the best design out of any of the human villains. And whoever created the character designs for the human villains here must have had Batman on the brain.

Sari is probably more of a responsible adult than he is and she isn't even a decade old!

I'm just shocked that Professor Sumdac had the common sense to include this sort of emergency security system in the first place.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day...

Narrative consistency? What's that?

Props to the writers for at least continuing to force the Autobots to use their brains to obtain victory.

Every Autobot knows that acid that can melt Cybertronian metals is completely powerless against bronze! Which is why the Autobots have such a high casualty rate.

Couldn't we have just gone straight to this instead of making the Autobots look stupid for believing that Meltdown's acid wouldn't be able to melt through a bell?

Making fun of him is for his own good. It prevents him from becoming another Hot Shot.

 

  Weird Al is the best.

I am also a big dinosaur nerd and a huge Dinobots fan. My inner five-year-old spent the entire rewatch of this episode overriding my thoughts about Professor Sumdac's stupidity with "Robot dinosaurs! YAAAAY!!!!" Needless to say, this was also a fun watch for me.

It's also nice that this episode serves as a continuation of their dynamic in the previous episode.

Professor Sumdac is teetering on the verge of being too stupid to live.

Totally different! This one is in the future and has robots!

No wonder Sari never listens to Tutor Bot. Not only does it try to teach her high school-level mathematics and history, it's not even programmed with accurate facts!

Holy crap! That would mean that the Cybertronian race is older than the Earth itself!

To be fair, dinosaurs are awesome.

How many children do you suppose this traumatized (in-universe)?

Hurrah! Science with Wheeljack returns (and for a very appropriate episode too!)
Also, why is Tutor Bot so bad at its job? It's because Professor Sumdac programmed it, isn't it?

How has Professor Sumdac not accidentally killed himself by now?

Animated is very fair in its distribution of slapstick injuries.

Megatron's continued scheming is entertaining. Too bad that it also requires Sumdac to be such a moron.

He seems to be following the same logic that led the G1 Autobots to believe that exiling the Dinobots to an isolated island would be a good way for them to learn finesse.

"When they first opened Disneyland, nothing worked!"
"Yeah, but when the Pirates of the Caribbean ride breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!"

Prowl's really taking a beating in this episode.

So...Animated Prowl is G1 Tailgate?

Yes. Him is.

No, Prospectneeds!  

Aaand now Tutor Bot's faulty information has doomed humanity.

Star Saber approves.

Yeeeesssssss.

Well, he already seemed to think that they were alive...

  There's atrophied social skills, and then there's utter idiocy for the service of the plot. Professor Sumdac has slid into the latter territory.

This was a nice nod to a moment that doesn't get excessively homaged.
And I am very glad that Slag stealing Snarl's name didn't become a permanent thing.

I was sort of assuming that it was melted asphalt. And thus the Dinobots continue their grand tradition of being trapped by tar!

Maybe Sumdac has a cave in his lab and he wanted to have them sealed in there?  

Of course he didn't! Professor Sumdac is a brain-dead moron who should by all rights not have survived nearly as long as he has!

It's a mystery!

Leader-1 magic. The answer is always Leader-1 magic (except when it's the magic of Sari's key).

Grimlock! YAY!!!

 

EPISODE 07: THE THRILL OF THE HUNT
Staring vacantly into the distance while Creedence Clearwater Revival plays in the background: The episode

Spoiler

Youtube

Tubi release
Transformers: Animated S01:E07 - The Thrill Of The Hunt

When I finished this episode my first instinct was to give it an A. I thought it was good. Really good. But my first instinct was that I didn't come away from it saying "wow, that was amazing and I have to top the scale"

but then it came time to tally up the things I liked and disliked. I liked that we got a unique, cool, and threatening villain. I liked that the fights were inventive and clever and weren't bog-standard Transformers fights. I liked that we did a deep dive into Ratchet's history and learned what makes him who he is now while also reframing his crusty, curmudgeonly, anti-social nature into one that's more broken and embittered than it is anti-social and distant. I liked that we got to see a familiar face and hear a familiar voice in a way that was some nice fanservice without just being fanservice.

and what didn't I like?

Well...

There was that bit where...

Um.....

What about....

Ok, in absolute fairness I didn't like that the EMP was a little clumsily handled and worked inconsistently across the episode. But that's like one small thing in an otherwise excellent showing that I couldn't find many flaws in. So that makes it rise above being simply an A episode. Instead it gets Animated's first A+.

Spoiler

-Things open with Ratchet decrying the most barbaric thing he's seen on Earth: an auto parts store. I guess when you think about it from his perspective it's kind of like a shop that's hawking organs and the like.

-He questions what kind of nutcase would go in for this sort of thing. Cue Bumblebee rolling out of the store's garage to show off his newly installed horn. It plays the "robots in disguise" jingle. Cute.

He's also got fuzzy dice, a pine tree air freshener, and one of those little dashboard hula girl figurines.

We're basically learning that Bumblebee is the type who would see the fancy set of steak knives on the 2am infomercial and buy 3 sets of them because they're such a deal.

-Ratchet's grumpy (as usual) and Optimus actually takes Bumblebee's side, suggesting his medic could do with some time to explore and unwind.

-As the argue a mysterious car roars up the street and nearly runs the Autobots down. Then it nearly runs down some humans only for them to be saved by Optimus and... hey! It's those humans again!

I guess by the 2050s bell-bottoms and sideburns will come back in style again​

TFWiki helpfully informs us that the lady's name is Adrias (according to the Allspark Almanac. Her given identifier in Animated production material is just "Press Secretary".) She only gasps here but her character page lists her as voiced by Tara Strong. Of course she is. Because on a good day Mrs. Strong can out-Scott-McNeil the actual Scott McNeil.

Oddly the other guy doesn't get a name or wiki entry even though he has a spoken line here. As a result I can't place his voice with total certainty. But it's likely it's just one of the regular cast members and my ears want to say it sounds kind of Corey Burton-ish, which wouldn't be surprising given that Ratchet is one of the stars of this episode so he'd already have been in the booth.

-The car drives off the makeshift ramp that Optimus used to save the humans and flies right at Ratchet. Too bad for him that he has a PTSD-induced war flashback.

flying cars? Ridiculous!​

-In the flashback he's pinned down by Decepticon fire and trying to locate an intelligence operative that Ultra Magnus says has valuable information. And look at that Cybertronian landscape

Looks like an average weekday on Cybertron.​

He finds the operative at the bottom of a bombed out bunker or building or whatever and it's someone who looks (and sounds!) very familiar.

Oh no! She's had her nose blown off in the war!​

Yep, it's Arcee. And it's also Susan Blu. She's the first G1 actor to reprise their G1 role in this series (spoilers: She won't be the last). She was also a nice and easy casting choice given that she was already around the show, serving as the voice director.

Oh, and this isn't really germane to this episode, but when I was looking at the cast list and thought I recognized the name of Arcee's Japanese dub actress (I didn't. I have no idea what I would know her from) I decided to check on the dub cast for the main characters of this series. After several series where it seemed like Takara (or whoever was handling the dubbing) constantly brought in new actors with no Transformers connections, this show is positively bursting with them

Spoiler: The Japanese cast of this show

Optimus is Hiroki Takahashi, previously Starscream/Hellscream in Beast Wars II and both Guildo (Darkscream) and Build Hurricane (Grimlock) in Car Robots/RID '01.

Bulkhead (or Ironhide in Japan because this is the last vestige of them clinging to the idea of marrying this show to the Bayverse continuity) is Kenta Miyake, Landmine and Omega Supreme in SuperLink

Bumblebee is Daisuke Kishio, who was (ugh) Kicker in SuperLink

Prowl is Koji Yusa, who played Ironhide/Irontread (Demolishor in Micron Legend and SuperLink), Micron Legend Thrust, and SuperLink's Wing Saber

Ratchet is Toru Okawa, Micron Legend's Convoy and Scourge (Nemesis Prime)

Megatron is the legendary Norio Wakamoto, whose only Transformers role before this one was Galaxy Force's Flame Convoy (Scourge to those of us watching Cybertron)

Blackarachnia is Ryoka Yuzuki, a legacy casting gag since she was Beast Wars/Machines Blackarachnia. She also was the Predacon computer (known as its own character in the Japanese dub, NAVI-ko.)

Blitzwing is Yuichi Nagashima, who briefly played Brawn and Rumble in G1 (in a pair of episodes) but has also been Beast Wars Tarantulas, Beast Machines' aero and cycle drones (but not Jetstorm or Thrust) and Savage/Noble, SuperLink's Alpha Q, and the dub voice for John Tuturro's Agent Simmons in the Bayverse movies.

Lugnut is the only actor without any previous Transformers experience, Kentario Ito.

And Starscream is Jin Yamanoi, who was Micron Legend Starscream and Shockwave (Tidal Wave), SuperLink's Tidal Wave, Skyblast, and Dr. Jones (but not Starscream) and the dub voice for Tyrese as Robert Epps in the Bayverse movies.

Anyway... where was I? Oh yeah Arcee!

Because it's Susan Blu doing Arcee *ding* Fanservice (G1)

-Ratchet tries to fix up Arcee, who's missing one of her legs. Ratchet has an EMP that he uses to knock her out so he can fix her leg. She resists though, saying that it could wipe her memory and take the valuable access codes she has stored. But he notes that it would take a much stronger burst to do anything to her memory. This feels important and will probably be on the test.

-Back at base after being rescued by Bumblebee during his PTSD lockup, Ratchet refuses to talk about it with Optimus. And bless Optimus, he's trying so hard to do the "cool dad" routine with the whole "if you ever wanna, you know, talk... I'm here. You can come to me with anything." speech.

It's adorable how awkward it is even before you consider that Ratchet is older than him.  

-Meanwhile the other Autobots watch a news report about the cops following their mystery car, who's causing a blackout around him as he drives.

-Meanwhile it's time for more flashbacks! Ratchet attaches a temporary leg to Arcee and loads her into his Cybertronian ambulance mode before he gets chased by a mystery car. A mystery car that transformers into a creepy looking bot with no identified faction and a deep, menacing voice.

He looks like he's ready for the Day of the Dead, a KISS concert, a Crow movie, or is the world's biggest fan of Sting (the wrestler, not the musician. Did you know the latter actually owes the former royalties for the name?  )​

-He snaps out of his flashback daze just in time to accompany the other Autobots in their search for the new mystery car that is absolutely not related to Ratchet's random flashbacks.

-  Optimus skids to a stop at one point in order to avoid crashing through a tanker truck. But the best part is that he then approaches the driver's window and apologizes for any damage and that he understands "something called 'insurance' can take care of that."

-As everyone else gives chase the mystery car fires a strange field at the Autobots and vanishes. In this moment Ratchet starts putting the pieces together and says "it's impossible."

so of course it's very possible

-This leads us into another flashback. After tangling with the mystery bot in the tunnels previously, Ratchet tried to use his EMP on the bot, only to get trapped by a falling door while only severing the opponent's arm. So this time that bot is shown attaching a hook to his stump and introducing himself as Lockdown, a bounty hunter who isn't a Decepticon by design, just by employment.


now that we have a name to the character, Lockdown is voiced by legendary b-movie and genre actor Lance Henriksen, best known for his roles in the Alien movies and The Terminator (the first one).

Japanese Lockdown is Akio Otsuka, a non-Transformers veteran most widely known for a downright bizarre array of roles including the Japanese voice of Solid Snake from the Metal Gear games, Batou in Ghost in the Shell, Launchpad in DuckTales and Darkwing Duck, Bobby from the Goodfeathers segments on Animaniacs, Two-Face in Batman: The Animated Series, Spawn from the HBO animated series of the same name, and Iron Will in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Oh, and for a bit of fanservice, Lockdown doesn't display a faction symbol. Instead he has a small silver-bordered square with a black interior which mimics G1 toy rubsigns

*Ding* Fanservice (G1)

-Lockdown has Ratchet and Arcee tied to tables while he sets up to extract the codes she has to sell to the Decepticons. plus he took Ratchet's EMP generator.

-Back in the present he uses the generator to knock out and abduct Optimus

-After the commercial break the other 3 Autobots (not Ratchet) discuss the fact that they can't find trace of Optimus and how weird it is that some human would be able to take him. And Ratchet is incredibly shifty and suspicious as he snaps at the others for accosting him even though nobody was. Plus he gets to do a riff on the Star Trek standby of Dr. McCoy's "I'm a doctor, not a..." gag with "I'm a medibot, not a field commander."

-But he breaks down when Bumblebee prods at him and finally spills everything he knows about Lockdown.

-Cut to Lockdown's ship where he's got Optimus tied up and ready to be cashed in for a sweet bounty.

-Optimus manages to cleverly get out of his bindings by using his grappling cables to snag his axe back from Lockdown, but he's not quick enough to avoid the EMP blast that knocks him out again.

-Already enamored with Optimus' axe, he also sets his sights on the grappling cables. So he preps for surgery by turning his left arm into a chainsaw. Ow.

This won't hurt a bit. It'll hurt a lot​

-As they discuss the abduction, Prowl realizes that Lockdown is hiding in plain sight, using a hologram generator to disguise his ship as a warehouse in a lot that's supposed to be empty. Clever. But Ratchet doesn't feel like coming along.

-In said ship, Lockdown negotiates with Blitzwing, getting the most screentime he's had since his introductory scene in the pilot.

-We're also reminded that Blitzwing is crazy.

Cackling intensifies​

-The Autobots roll up to the fake warehouse and plan their assault. By which I mean Prowl wants to plan his assault but Bulkhead doesn't have time for that and just wants to smash everything.

-Bulkhead is hte first bot to take on Lockdown. He lasts about 10 seconds before he gets doused with some kind of foaming clue agent that hardens and immobilizes him. Then Bumblebee gets taken out by an oil slick. They're really not making a good showing of this. At least until Prowl flies in (almost literally) and grinds his motorcycle wheel on Lockdown's face.

Come on, Prowl. That facepaint takes FOREVER to apply.​

-Sadly his advantage his short-lived as Lockdown zaps him with the EMP. But this time it's Ratchet to the rescue.

-Ratchet isn't messing around as he uses his magnets to block the EMP and knock out Lockdown, giving him time to get inside and free Optimus. There's also a fun line where he faked out Lockdown and used that to launch a surprise attack. He remarks that humans call it "playing possum" while also noting that he has no idea what a 'possum' is.  

-They try to go for the door but an awake Lockdown cuts them off and the ship begins to launch.

No, I don't know what direction it's facing​

Unnamed in the episode, as far as I know his ship was given a whole bunch of info in the Allspark alamanc and other supplementary, not-canon-to-the-show sources. Most of that info is also a fun series of references to other bounty hunters in different sci-fi franchises.

• The ship is named the Death's Head after the character from the Marvel G1 UK stories. Lockdown himself was originally conceived of as an Animated version of Death's Head, but the character's rights belong to Marvel and not Hasbro, hence the swap.
• It's called an IG-2000 class ship, referring to the ship of Star Wars bounty hunter IG-88 (the robot one dispatched to capture Luke in The Empire Strikes back)
• Its weapons include "Deckard Cannons" and "Samus Blasters" named for Rick Deckard from Blade Runner and Samus Aran from the Metroid franchise.

-Lockdown has already integrated Optimus' grapplers. But it doesn't matter as Ratchet gets the drop on him and traps him under a trophy case. Then he remarks that normally he would use the EMP generator to do any sort of surgical procedures painlessly but he can't anymore since Lockdown stole the tech. So he just uses his magnets to rip Optimus' grappler out of Lockdown's arm while Lockdown begs for the EMP to be used to spare him the pain.

Ow.

-More flashbacks! As Lockdown taunts Arcee, she manages to kick the EMP generator to Ratchet and asks him to use it on her at full power to wipe her memory core and prevent the Decepticons from obtaining the intel she has. Lockdown sees them scheming, but in the process it causes the EMP to overload. Ratchet pulls Arcee out and they get off the ship, but the overload ended up wiping her memory after all and she has no memory of Ratchet or herself, leaving Ratchet mournfully consider everything that had transpired.

-Back from that memory, Ratchet scoffs at Lockdown asking for mercy and takes the EMP by force, using it ot disable the ship while lecturing him about his perversion of medical tools.

Ratchet then leaps out and uses his magnets to soften the landing with Optimus while the ship crashes.

-Back at base Optimus has his grappler reattached and recognizes that Ratchet carries a heavy burden. A burden that he understands Ratchet not wanting to remember.

Ratchet: "It's not that I don't want to remember. I have to remember... For those who can't."

Ow. My feels.

-And finally Ratchet recognizes the value in talking about his experiences with a friend and he opens up to Optimus as we pull out.

The end.


Fanservice Tracker
G1: 2 (total: 9)
Beast Wars: 0 (total: 3)
Overall: 2 (total: 12)

Pros
+Lockdown is cool and threatening

+The fights use a ton of cleverness and avoid just being straight-up laser battles

+Ratchet's history is revealed and it dramatically reframes his character

+ARCEE! Susan Blu as Arcee!

+The history with Arcee is heavy, tragic, and not at all what you'd expect from a kids' show.

+The show demonstrates that it can pull off an episode with no real human influence.



Cons
-Honestly I don't know. I had a hard time figuring out any cons to put here. Maybe the somewhat inconsistent function of the EMP? Like it works on Ratchet a couple of times, but others have him stating he's immune to it?

 

responses to anything I can get to tomorrow. I should have time during the hockey games I'll be watching.

 

Thrill of the Hunt was the episode that truly established Animated as a force to be reckoned with. It has a tight script, excellent character moments for Ratchet, and one of the best antagonists in the franchise up to this point with Lockdown. A well-earned A plus in my opinion.

 

Or, where Animated grew the beard, to use the trope term.

And well deserved. Also, it's their first... but not their last!

On the one hand, he'd get along famously with Tailgate from G1 if they were using Tailgate's G1 bio.   On the other hand... seriously, Ratchet? There's no upgrading like this on Cybertron?

You know, for kids!

But seriously, this is how you do mature, IDW!

Good lord, this is intense! Much better than anything from the movies until Bumblebee!

She's more useful in this series than she was in G1, and here she was a teacher before the Great War!

Foreshadowing, oh no!

I do love how she says when they first meet that she can't feel it.  

It's all gonna connect together, and I love how they do it.

I knew that and love it. Did you know that Sting teamed up with the Ultimate Warrior in their early days as the 'Blade Runners'?

This does raise a question on what insurance companies do when Autobots and Decepticons are known quantities in their worlds.

Ah, faction-less Transformers! We need more of these! Also, he gets paid in 'upgrades'. interesting...

For once, I can understand why someone is holding back vital info like this. He's been having PTSD throughout the whole damned episode!

I love it when the good guys and bad guys are smart like this.

Kudos to Lockdown for being impressed. Set-up for later on...

Hey, he got the main lesson in at least.  

I think the right side is the fore of the ship, but not 100% sure. It's badass, whatever direction.

Hmm, feeling any sympathy or pity for Lockdown?

...

Nope! Also, yeah. Pretty damned hardcore of Ratchet.

God, that line hits.

I love that the wiki says at the end, as they talk, the audience hears the saddest rendition of 'More Than Meets the Eye' ever. And it is.

All right, here's Ratchet!



On the left is his Cybertronian version, and on the right is him on Earth. I like the broken crest on the Earth one.   Both are pretty good toys, really cool evolution. The Cybertronian one comes with a pair of 'shock paddles'. The Earth one has some tools that go onto pegs on his back, but have nowhere to go in vehicle mode. Also, his electromagnets are these black bars that look pretty bad. I've got a pair from an upgrade kit attached. He's got his EMP generator on his right arm, and that's from Lockdown. We'll be seeing Lockdown later.   Finally, Earth mode Ratchet doesn't have really good heels. I'll be honest... he could do with an upgraded toy, too.

 

Hmm, have to say I think Ratchet's Cybertronian toy actually looks better than his Earth mode one.

 

Definitely one of my favorite episodes of the show, if only for introducing one of my favorite characters in the franchise.

On the topic of the Japanese VAs, a fun fact about Hiroki Takahashi (dub voice for TFA Optimus) is that, according to an interview with him, he apparently disliked voicing BWII Starscream so much that he would flinch at the name whenever it would come up when dubbing Animated. I always found that tidbit to be funny, although I'm not familiar enough with BWII Starscream to understand why he felt that way.

 

Now we've hit paydirt!

So a butcher's shop?

I love this Bumblebee, he's such a crass little shit!

Seems like an awful important mission to leave to a simple field medic.

Well now I have to track down the Japanese dub because Norio Wakamoto is an experience.

Oh, don't mind me, I'm just cleaning my gun I got from that Chekhov guy and putting it on my mantle.

Optimus just tries so hard, and I love him for it. He may be in over his head, but Optimus Prime is always there to help.

Back in my day, we called them Energon chips, and boy was I surprised when I later found out that G1 had them too.

"I don't need no anesthetic! Did Lincoln ask for girly gas when they blowed his head off?!"

That got a good laugh out of me as well.

*BLAM*

Ah! My gun fell off the mantle and discharged somehow!

And the rest is silence...because really, there is no better line to end the episode.

 

Yes, well no one said he was the smartest man alive. You can be talented in areas and be utterly incompetent in others. He's a stereotypical nerd who got rich. I'd say he's not all too much of a people person.

Issac thinking "Ehh, He probably watched a few Godzilla movies."

I mean, yeah. It is a bit of a stretch. And i know saying "it's only a cartoon" is bad since cartoons shouldn't be badly written just because they're for children. But for me, when i was a child when this aired, this revelation of Isaac working with Megatron was really shocking and cool. It was like "Oh no! he's working with the bad guy!" And i may be watching this with rose tinted glasses but i can't get mad at silly things like this.

We do see a few broken security/police robots/drones destroyed around the cage, so Bulkhead and Prowl probably destroyed them.

 

The Thrill of the Hunt is an episode that really tackles heavy themes. Upon re watching it as an adult the episode is just a really good story, but as a kid all you care about is the "Scary transformer." The balls they had to tackle PTSD and trauma in a children's show is just amazing. It's easily a 5/5. One of the best in the series.

 

It really fits with this Megatron, who has an ego but doesn't seem to put it in the driver's seat the way his previous incarnations do. This one has a plan and is going to go about enacting it. the only time he loses his cool is when things go badly and he does his best to keep it under control so that he doesn't do something stupid like build a giant purple griffin battle fortress for some reason.

I've been purposely avoiding Earthspark because it might be fun to eventually watch it with totally fresh eyes on here.

Also we don't have Paramount+ in Canada, no networks here picked up its rights for international distribution, and I'm not going to fuss around with subscribing to a service that I have to use a VPN to access and can only watch on my computer. I'll have a couple years to find it elsewhere or hope it pops up on another service in the meantime.

It makes a sort-of beep-boopy noise when she uses it.

I understand what they're going for, cobbling together all the various awkward genius tropes together by making him absent-minded, poor in street/common sense, bad at interacting with other people, prone to overestimating himself, ignorant of things that don't interest him in the moment, etc. Problem is that by putting all those things into one character he comes across as a guy who in no way should've been able to create a robotics empire without someone swindling all his profits away or the company falling to ruin because he forgot to get some permits or licenses or because a constant stream of failed inventions causing collateral damage would lead to tons of lawsuits. Sometimes it feels like it's a miracle he's able to dress himself and remember how to breathe.

Maybe they're Sumdac Systems robotic trees?

Very true. Once I'm friends with someone I'm fine but making friends is hard. Usually because I keep a lid on the full-strength crazy like I display in this thread. So real me tends to be quiet and boring because I can't just lead a conversation with "hey, do you like toys and cartoons about shape-changing alien robots?"

I wonder what would happen if you tried to use mini-con magic against allspark-powered key magic.

I struggled to figure out why anyone would ever need those things combined.

Worker 1: "Man, this factory just isn't efficient enough. The arms grab all the parts, but something just doesn't let them work as quickly as we need."
Worker 2: "You know what would help? Fire."
Worker 1: "Brilliant!"

What would've happened if they needed to sell another toy for the holiday season? The Autobots playing with Candyland? Mr. Potato Head? A lite-brite?

They still make Lite-Brites. That surprised me for some reason.

 

I neglected to say this earlier, but welcome board! Great to have more new faces along for the ride and providing long-form reactions too!

As someone who grew up with G1 this was a fun throwback and almost had the effect making me think the animators were saying "don't worry, we know where we came from and we're not abandoning that." in a way that let me trust what they were going to do with this show.

The only thing that sucked about it is the weird obsessive rise of people who believed that the sequence's presence signified that the show was meant to be a far-future sequel to G1.

I always have a soft spot for G1 Ratchet, but his personality was kind of bland. This was one of the first times he got to be something besides "is medic." or "gets gorily shot through the chest and killed"

At his core this Optimus is more Optimus-y than a lot of subsequent versions. Later versions, the one that I and others have groused about, that are all stoic speeches about the sanctity of life and peace and being all serene and messiah-like are more like someone's half-remembered idea of "Optimus is a hero so he must be a perfect being who's a force for good."

This Optimus, however, really evokes the best parts of the G1 version that birthed the character: He doesn't always know what he's doing but that doesn't mean he won't make the best decisions he can for the sake of his fellow Autobots and innocent humans. He knows he has to fight the Decepticons but it's treated like a necessary evil at best. And he looks out for his crew in a kind, paternal way that tries its best to connect with them and be the cool dad. This one literally does awkward cool dad interactions as one of his primary features. He's a hero because he's a simple bot doing the right thing because it's right and not because the universe divinely mandates it.

Who knew that the best modern-ish Optimus would come courtesy of a former Megatron?  

He's like a fusion of Rattrap and Cheetor

It's a weird fusion of the bayverse allspark and the G1 Matrix (though more the marvel Creation Matrix than the more benign sunbow Matrix of Leadership

I wish I could remember if there was ever a protracted Starscream/Bulkhead fight so that the show did Spongebob vs Patrick.

I don't think anyone will top Venus Terzo for me but you can't go wrong with Cree Summer. She offers a nice spin on the character.

It's just that she's a lonely rich kid with an overprotective dad and nothing else.

 

Her annoying moments are still endearing in a "this is how a kid would act" way. Not like Headmasters Daniel screeching about everything and fighting with Wheelie or acting weirdly upbeat and happy about dire things like his family being hurt or Ultra Magnus dying. Or Kicker's "UGH THIS IS NOT A PHASE, MOM! I HATE EVERYTHING!" presence.

That was mostly a toys issue with Hasbro as the whole reason Arcee was created was one of the show producers making a pitch to Hasbro that his daughter loved the show and he thought it would be good to have a female character even if there was no taste among the toy execs for an Arcee on teh shelves (though the prototypes did show that they tried. As awful as the attempt was)

I'm trying to think back to cartoons of the time but I didn't watch a ton by this point since I was a moody teen/early 20s person who was in the phase of not watching much in the way of cartoons. But I do remember stuff like the 2003 TMNT show doing a lot with April in an active role, or even going back into the 90s with Darkwing Duck (being a superhero parody show it was almost certainly more aimed at boys as the audience instead of girls) that had Gosalyn as the biggest supporting character besides Launchpad.

It did happen and I think the biggest factor is simply that if you make a character interesting then people will like them regardless of gender.

Whoops. No idea why I made that mistake. I did know better at the time.

It's still largely an invention of stuff that's canon adjacent and not actually direct canon.

 

I had to go back to Buffer because I was always a bit more of a WCW guy.

We can't show you, the show can't get above PG.

And just in case anyone's unclear about the ratings, here's a helpful clip from Freakazoid starring the actual head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti.

Same. Though really I was just a kid during Hulkamania and not really following seriously so I don't remember much about the stories from that period.

I had forgotten what David Flair's music was. Or that his entrance video had more shots of his dad than it did of him.  

Also it seems impossible that Ric freaking Flair fathered a kid with all the charisma of a kitchen sponge. He does seem to be batting 1-for-2 though because a look at his lineage and family history seems to indicate that David's little sister became the star he never could.

The image from that video is a perfect encapsulation of Dusty because the polka dot tights were supposed to be humiliating because Vince McMahon was nothing if not a petty, vindictive ass but Dusty took them and made it work.

I forget if it was ever said if that was really Peter Weller in the costume or they got a double. But I do remember hearing/reading about the fact that they hyped up this stupid crossover promotional thing but then were restricted from having Robocop do anything of consequence because the studio was afraid it would break the costume.

I don't think it's in here, but there was a channel I've watched that reviewed the show with some additional background on the Robocop stuff where appropriate and was a fun nostalgia-dive of the time if you've got 20 minutes. It's first match featured The Road Warriors vs Cactus Jack! And then things got weird. Like John Lauranitis/Johnny Ace (aka Road Warrior Animal's brother) vs not-yet-The-Undertaker "Mean" Mark Callus levels of weird.  

I always had a soft spot for Disco. It was such a stupid gimmick but that's what made it fun.

Shame that he seems to have turned into a bit of a bitter "things were better in my day" knob since then.

I think the bigger question is how frequently does the tower get attacked for it to necessitate a security system like that?

It's hilariously fun that the chair thing was a toy feature. I wonder if it was one that was pointed out or if it was like all the weird extra modes in the Japanese shows where someone gave the animators the toys and said "see what you can figure out."

 

writers have no sense of scale

they already blew it with the dinosaur stuff. What's one more botch in the episode?

the Tailgate thing was definitely in the back of my head when I thought of this point. I know it ultimately proves correct when we learn that the Dinobots are intelligent (by strictest definition of the word) but nobody knew that at this point.

I think Megatron is more in line with Cave Johnson's "Lemons" rant from the video game Portal 2 (as performed in the game by JK Simmons, so that was immediately points in its favor)

I do question why the park was built on a giant steel plate though.

It always seems worse when they screw up a Starscream because he really shouldn't be that easy to screw up.

 

He's like the anti-Kup. Kup was a gruff old codger but he loved his stories and was generally fairly amiable. Ratchet is a sour, embittered grump who doesn't want to talk about anything

I'm pretty sure it's still the 21st century. They never specify what the year is during the opening portions of the pilot, but only 50 years passes and info I have seen since would seem to indicate that it was roughly present day to when the show aired. So that would mean that after the timeskip it's somewhere in the late 2050s to early 2060s.

Though I've praised the fact that most of the fanservice has been built into the show in a way that meant it wasn't necessary to understand things, I have also wondered what it must've been like for someone who wouldn't know all the references to have seen the show and only later understand all the extra bits that it was throwing at the older audience.

 

Yeah, he's leagues more threatening than Angry Archer was or Nanosec will be. He's basically the only "serious" one in a batch full of silly ones.

Probably not. Though there are times when they don't focus on the steroids because they're too busy focusing on the "it's fake" part.

Like I noted elsewhere, It doesn't really sound like any Swedish accent I've ever heard, so I'm not sure if it's a function of the actor maybe moving around a bit or if it's just something he does because it makes him sound unique and weird (and being a weirdo is pretty much his niche)

Yeah, I've seen her pop up a couple more times since this episode. The other guy does as well, though I get the sense that since he doesn't have much of a character they've just let him be voiced by whoever was on hand at the time (whereas the mayor's assistant is supposed to always be Tara Strong if you've got her on the show why not have her voice every woman and child that ever utters a sound?

He approves but is also disappointed that they don't seem as committed as they could be.

and one of these days I'm going to get irrelevant-to-this show pics of my Star Saber. Because right now he's just sitting on the desk next to me

Yeah, everyone feels very Batman-ish. Though that might also be because Batman has had one of the broadest arrays of villains in comics history. It'd be hard to find a villain archetype that wasn't represented in Batman history at some point.

  that reminds me of the bit in Megamind where the hero claims his weakness is copper and Megamind thinks that's so preposterous that he can't believe it