I did not post a reminder this month, because I am horrible. And also because I woke up this morning and it was somehow already the 15th of the month.. I suspect time travel may have been involved.

Well, even if you don't have a review ready, you can still follow along if you want. I won't judge.

"Desertion of the Dinobots" is episode #37 of the original Transformers series.  It first aired on October 21, 1985.  Written by Earl Kress, it's notable as a Dinobot spotlight episode brought to us by somebody other than Don F. Glut.  It's the first of a two-part story, and I have a real love-hate relationship with this particular pair of episodes.  Part one is great, and has some really amazing moments, but part two drags so hard and I kind of hate it.

So our episode begins with a scientist named Dr. Green testing out a new remote-controlled vehicle called an ultraplane.  The twin-cockpit jet, perhaps a precursor to Slugslinger and Doubleheader, is apparently a big deal, since the good doctor seems to think it will protect the world from the Decepticons.  Not too far away, Ironhide is camped out in van mode, perhaps as a perimeter guard, with Blaster and Soundwave in the back of his vehicle form.  I'm honestly not sure what circumstances transpired that resulted in Soundwave sitting around inside Ironhide's hatchback.  I suppose we'll never know.  Soundwave ejects Ravage, but Blaster partially transforms, extending an arm to grasp Ravage's tail.  He struggles with Ravage inside the beleagured Ironhide while Soundwave falls out and escapes, leaving his poor pet kitty behind.  

What does this have to do with the plot?  Um, basically nothing.  As a two-part episode, this installment really takes its sweet time getting to the point.  I really think this might be another instance of a staff writer submitting an episode and Hasbro, loving the concept, asking for it to be extended into a two-part story.  So, we get a really slow build in these first few minutes, mostly a showcase for the Transformers doing a lot of Transformer stuff without having a direct bearing on the main story.  

Watching from afar are Megatron and Starscream (missing his air intakes, because he has to retract them whenever he dresses up like Optimus Prime for Halloween).  Soundwave reports that the ultraplane has been completed, and Starscream is prepared to blast it into smithereens.  Megatron suggests a more discreet approach and provides Starscream with a bomb of some sort.  Are the Decepticons worried about the ultraplane?  Is that what this episode is going to be about?  Um, no.  Not really.

Ironhide, who I guess has been sleeping, finally takes notice of Blaster and Ravage fighting inside of him and transforms to robot mode, with both combatants spilling out of him.  Starscream flies low enough to drop the bomb on top of the ultraplane and it explodes.  Blaster and Ironhide report to Optimus Prime that the Decepticons have been spotted.  Optimus is more interested in checking out the wreckage of the ultraplane.  Is that what this episode is about?  A secret contained within the wreckage of the crashed jet?  Um, no.

So the Decepticons head to a research facility and demand some fighter plane blueprints, which I assume is the ultraplane.  Is that what this episode is about?  Are the Decepticons going to build their own ultra plane?  Well, no.  But Starscream never misses an opportunity to make Megatron look bad.  He tells the scientists to surrender the blueprints and they will not be harmed.  Starscream deliberately mischaracterizes this as Megatron being "soft," and offers an alternative to the humans, threatening to kill them if they don't hand over the plans.  They're locked in a vault, which Soundwave determines is made of a tungsten-steel alloy, but Megatron is confident he can blast through the vault door.  

Just then, the Autobots show up and do a bunch of Autobot stuff.  Jazz lets loose with his sound and light show.  Mirage turns invisible and actually has the balls to grab Megatron's cannon right off his arm.  He and Mirage fight for control over it.  Starscream and Soundwave spot Megatron outside, gesturing for them to retreat, and they gladly do so.  But, it turns out to be a hologram projected by Hound.  He turns off his hologram beam gun after a few seconds, so I'm not sure why Starscream and Soundwave never end up coming back.  But, that's neither here nor there.  Prime punts Megatron right out of the facility and he flies off.

Meanwhile, in a completely different episode, Spike and Carly and Bumblebee are going for rides at the Fun-A-Rama amusement park.  Spike and Carly seem to be having a good time, but Bumblebee fails to understand why the rides are supposed to be enjoyable.  Carly switches off his equilibrium circuitry, which I guess normally helps stabilize him, and then he starts cackling in delight.  This is perhaps the first scene in the episode, four minutes into the show, that finally seems to come close to resembling a plot point.  We now know that Carly is familiar enough with Transformers to understand and tinker with their internal workings.  

A bit later, Spike and Carly and Bumblebee are picking up Sparkplug from the EJK Airport.  No, I didn't say JFK.  It's clearly the EJK.  No idea what that stands for, but Earl J. Kress probably does.  Anyway, why is Sparkplug at the airport?  The guy is a mechanic.  Or a ruby crystal miner.  Or an oil rig worker.  But he's definitely not a businessman who travels for work.  He's even in a suit and necktie, for crying out loud.  This is weird.  As a widower, maybe he's settling something legal related to Mrs. Witwicky, like a property sale or an estate in escrow or something.  No idea.  The episode does not explain it.  There are so many potential plot points that get introduced just to be totally forgotten about in ten seconds.  This episode is like a Transformers fever dream.

However, Spike happens to notice a couple of F-15 jets, which seem out of place to him at a commercial airport.  The fact that they're colored like Thrust and Thundercracker and have Decepticon symbols on the wings doesn't dawn on him—just the fact that they're military-style aircraft and not passenger planes.  Not surprisingly, this is where Megatron has temporarily taken refuge.  Bumblebee calls for back-up, but Prime's team is still repairing the research lab and Wheeljack doesn't have enough Autobots at the volcano to send.  So, the Dinobots are summoned from their storage closet. 

Wheeljack implores with the stubborn Dinobots to help out.  Grimlock absolutely refuses, but when Wheeljack questions his motives, Grimlock is so dumb that he doesn't even know why he's refusing to help.  This alone, it seems, is enough to get him to change his mind.  (For some reason, Sludge and Snarl are drawn about two-thirds the size of Slag and Swoop and Grimlock when they walk out of the closet.)  

Megatron is still determined to hit the research laboratory again and eradicate the fighter plane blueprints, while Starscream is berating him for calling the retreat (which, of course, he never actually did).  The Dinobots arrive, tearing through the airport hangar doors with their horns and teeth.  The Decepticons put up a good fight, at first, even charging headlong into the Dinobots after an initial setback.  However, they're quickly defeated.  The Dinobots cheer and return to robot mode.  

However, the Decepticons haven't been defeated at all!  Megatron was waiting for them to switch back to robot mode, recognizing they're more vulnerable in this form.  He orders that sneaky Skywarp to open fire, and he does the same. Their weaponsfire hits a refueling truck that explodes, sending airplane bits and Dinobot arms flying everywhere.  How did Megatron know they were weaker in robot mode?  How did a simple explosion tear the Dinobots apart?  Well, who cares.  It's honestly great pathos.  A show that usually played it close to the vest is taking a bold move in destroying the Dinobots.  The cliffhanger is worthy of a commercial break.  
As we begin act two, an Autobot response team shows up (Hoist, Inferno, and Red Alert) to deal with the damage.  Inferno douses the flaming airplanes (or what's left of them, anyway) and they pile what's left of the Dinobots into one of the busted-up airliners.  Is it stealing if it's a piece of garbage that can't be salvaged?  Well, Hoist doesn't seem to care, and tows the entire jet back to the volcano.  

And so begins an Autobot marathon session to try to restore the Dinobots and bring them back up to fighting form.  Ratchet complains that the tools they have available to work with are primitive, and Hoist (who is using a hammer to bang Grimlock's wing back into shape) concurs that the tools on Cybertron were much better.  So, is THAT what this episode is about?  The Autobots have to go to Cybertron to find the necessary tools to fix the Dinobots?  Oh, forget it.  I give up.  This episode is about whatever it wants to be about, at least for the next twenty seconds..  

Mirage takes a moment to call up footage from Cybertron and makes a remark about how everything was better back on his homeworld.  With the benefit of hindsight, we know that this actually does function as foreshadowing on some level, since characters will, indeed, end up visiting Cybertron in this story.  But there have already been so many red herrings and misdirects at this point that it's hard to trust any plot threads that this episode tries to establish.  (Also, in Mirage's footage, there's an entirely green robot that transforms into an entirely purple vehicle, and the kibble on the robot's back doesn't factor into the design of his vehicle form in any way, shape, or form. It's a throwaway design, of course, but it's a decidedly odd throwaway design.)

On Saturday, May 15, 2021 at 11:38:53 AM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
>Part one is great, and has some really amazing moments, but part two drags so hard and I kind of hate it.

You think? It's the opposite for me (going from memory anyway). The Cybertron scenes in part two are kind of interesting.

> Are the Decepticons worried about the ultraplane? Is that what this episode is going to be about? Um, no. Not really.

This is part of why I like part 2 better, all this meandering around has nothing to do with anything. Why are the Decepticons so interested in this ultraplane? The episode never tells us.

>. This episode is like a Transformers fever dream.

Which really says something. I've seen many fans less charitable than you and I refer to this whole series as a Transformers fever dream.

> Not surprisingly, this is where Megatron has temporarily taken refuge.

Is it temporary though? They've got all their fancy Cybertronian monitors set up. I wonder if this was meant to be a base for some sick game Megatron is playing, like in "Enter the Nightbird". Of course how he managed to set up a base in the middle of an airport without any humans noticing is a question left unexplored. :P

> Wheeljack implores with the stubborn Dinobots to help out. Grimlock absolutely refuses, but when Wheeljack questions his motives, Grimlock is so dumb that he doesn't even know why he's refusing to help.

Grimlock is only like a year or two old. You know how toddlers can get.

> (For some reason, Sludge and Snarl are drawn about two-thirds the size of Slag and Swoop and Grimlock when they walk out of the closet.)

I *think* that might have been just a perspective issue, and they were closer to Wheeljack. But on this show you never know of course.

> Megatron is still determined to hit the research laboratory again and eradicate the fighter plane blueprints

This is an easy line to miss, but there had to have been something to it. Did the humans somehow steal some Decepticon tech or something? Maybe the ultraplane had TF-grade weapons on it that could actually hurt the Decepticons, and they wanted to stop the humans from mass producing it? I don't know; I'm thinking harder about it than the show probably did.
> How did Megatron know they were weaker in robot mode? How did a simple explosion tear the Dinobots apart?

I think it's mentioned in their Universe profiles that they are more heavily armored in dinosaur modes..

> (Also, in Mirage's footage, there's an entirely green robot that transforms into an entirely purple vehicle, and the kibble on the robot's back doesn't factor into the design of his vehicle form in any way, shape, or form. It's a throwaway design, of course, but it's a decidedly odd throwaway design.)

The bot's design looked like a cross between Snarl and Hot Rod to me. With Marvel style block coloring no less. Weird little moment.
> This episode is training us to dismiss everything that happens as random and irrelevant, so this scene might slip under people's radar. "The medium is the message" flies right out the window when it comes to an episode like this. Normally, the show only includes scenes that are relevant to the plot. Not so here.

I have to admit, I didn't always catch Grapple's little mishap as a bit of foreshadowing. I caught it this time while re-watching it, but going off my memory of the last time I saw this episode (a solid decade ago, at least) I didn't. It actually is a clever little moment, but as you said it's also buried in so much randomness it's easy to miss. I don't think all this wackiness in the first act did the episode any favors.

> So, I think what's really happening here is that the Dinobots nearly died.. They were basically destroyed in the airport battle and had to be completely reconstructed. It's understandable that they wouldn't want to go through that again. Unfortunately, nothing in the episode actually hints at this. When Grimlock and Slag express their refusal, they just come off as petulant and angry, like usual. Their actions make total sense, given the circumstances, but I feel like there's an undercurrent of hesitation or trepidation that's totally missing. Obviously, I don't write cartoon scripts for a living. I'm not a professional. But I just don't think the Dinobots' intentions come across very clearly. Maybe it's their limited speech patterns.

I think you're right. They got blown up pretty good back there, and now they're feeling a touch of PTSD. Or Grimlock does at least, and the rest fall in line behind him. The fact they don't feel appreciated by the other Autobots doesn't help I'm sure.
> Megatron's vocal processor starts glitching and he can't even declare "It's the Autobots!" properly. Naturally, Starscream takes the opportunity to seize command. However, Starscream's inaugural move is to take off and promptly crash into a stack of energon cubes. It only gets worse from here. Ironhide tries to use his super-cooled liquid nitrogen, but he ends up freezing himself instead. Mirage tries to turn invisible, but the gimmick malfunctions and it only results in changing his colors slightly. He charges for Thundercracker, who of course picks him off easily, and Mirage can't quite figure out why.

I recognized a few stock sounds from various NES games in this little montage of TF's malfunctioning. A kind of static-ey explosion sound you can hear muffled in the background. Nice little touch.

> "I never miss at this range!"

I should hope not. He's only a few feet away.

> There's an comical moment where Megatron does an absurd dance trying to get into the air before finally running off on foot. This show rarely does humor well, but it's one of my favorite moments on the show just because it's so completely ridiculous.

Yeah, Megatron's little pirouette is pretty funny.

It also occurs to me that the Decepticons are the ones in the most peril here. If the Autobots can't transform, at least their base is on land. They have, at worst, a long walk to make. If the Decepticons can't transform or fly, how are they supposed to get back to their base in the middle of the ocean? What if their flight engines give out when they're a few thousand feet up? That must have been an interesting trip home for them.

> There's an element called cybertonium, which is necessary for Transformers to properly function, that's beginning to break down as a result of exposure to the Earth's atmosphere.

One thing that I've never been entirely clear on is the cybertonium. Has it been deteriorating because they've been away from Cybertron too long? Or was it exposure to Earth's atmosphere, specifically?

If it's the former, it gives us an idea of how long these guys can be away from home. Season 3 hints that a lot of Autobots were scattered throughout the galaxy. If that's the case than a guy like Kup must've had a lot of his weird adventures he always rambles about more recently than when the Ark disappeared 4 million years ago, or cybertonium deficiency would've affected him too. (Or he just checked in back home for a booster now and then.)

If it's the latter, you could tie it into Beast Wars a bit and extrapolate that Earth in the TF universe is not quite normal; it's a suspiciously weird planet that Cybertronians aren't supposed to go to or spend that much time on. In fairness, no one planned to be on it for 4 million years.

Also note that several characters HAVE been back to Cybertron, multiple times for some. Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Ironhide, Soundwave, Megatron himself...they've been back home at some point. So I guess once the cybertonium starts to deteriorate, just being back on Cybertron or away from Earth isn't enough. They have to actually take some in to their systems. Like a Vitamin D supplement.

> This really bothers me for a number of reasons. It's a natural assumption that the 1985 characters were reinforcements from Cybertron. I mean, that's the whole reason the space bridge was introduced on the show, wasn't it? To serve as an easy way to bring new characters from Cybertron as the show requires?

They really wasted the premise of the spacebridge. It seemed almost tailor made for that exact scenario...new characters arriving from Cybertron. You can't even say the writers just forgot about the spacebridge either, because it features prominently IN this very episode.

The 1985 toy commercial that introduces Hoist and Grapple and friends even states plainly that "new Autobots have joined Optimus Prime." To claim that Perceptor and friends have been on Earth for millions of years is, to put it bluntly, a lie. The show is lying to us. It's demonstrably false.

Well, the commercials don't have to be beholden to the cartoon specifically.. They were also there to advertise the comics, and the toy brand in general.

If you roll with the popular fan theory that they were in a different part of the Ark and still buried or in stasis for another year, then they can still be "new" Autobots. Just as in "newly dug up" or "newly reactivated", not "newly arrived". Mind you you would think that an event as big as the cast doubling in size overnight might've been addressed at some point.

But I think there actually is one minor hint what happened. In Dinobot Island part 1 Powerglide says something about never seeing a place or creatures (I forget the exact line) like this before, and Bumblebee says that he has, when the Dinobots were being created. So that's one minor hint that at least one of the '85 bots wasn't always around just out of camera range, not in an activated state anyway.

On Monday, May 24, 2021 at 1:28:09 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> You think? It's the opposite for me (going from memory anyway). The Cybertron scenes in part two are kind of interesting.

I mean, it's a great spotlight moment for Swoop. It's the only time in history we get to see him operating on his own, away from the other Dinobots. But, I'm just not a huge fan of the Dinobots as characters. Their stupidity and speech patterns really grate on me. (Even Sesame Street only had one Cookie Monster.)

The Cybertron scenes have such slow pacing, and basically none of it has any direct connection to the main story. You could cut most of it, turn both episodes back into a 22-minute story, and lose nothing important. (I've been working on an edit, but I lost interest in it. Real-life stuff has really been getting me down.)

> This is part of why I like part 2 better, all this meandering around has nothing to do with anything. Why are the Decepticons so interested in this ultraplane? The episode never tells us.

It makes sense for Megatron to always be plotting and scheming about *something.* And, really, it's totally in character for him to start obsessing about some random piece of Earth technology.

> If the Decepticons can't transform or fly, how are they supposed to get back to their base in the middle of the ocean?

Now I'm imagining Starscream and the others with a Cliffjumper-style water-ski mode!

> One thing that I've never been entirely clear on is the cybertonium. Has it been deteriorating because they've been away from Cybertron too long? Or was it exposure to Earth's atmosphere, specifically?

Well, Perceptor is a smart guy, and he mentions Earth's atmosphere as the culprit. Cybertonium deterioration doesn't seem to be a common affliction that the Transformers themselves are aware of. Nobody seems to quite know what's going on until Perceptor eventually figures it out. (I'm surprised Chip Chase didn't show up and solve the mystery for everybody.)
> So I guess once the cybertonium starts to deteriorate, just being back on Cybertron or away from Earth isn't enough.

It always comes back to the Quintessons. With that in mind, this is clearly a case of planned obsolescence. They made their products and designed them to break down so consumers would be forced to replace them eventually.

> Well, the commercials don't have to be beholden to the cartoon specifically.

That's just supporting evidence. Even without taking the toy commercial into account, the idea that Perceptor and the rest have been exposed to Earth's atmosphere for millions of years is an absurd retcon. We have to accept it, but I hate accepting it.
> But I think there actually is one minor hint what happened. In Dinobot Island part 1 Powerglide says something about never seeing a place or creatures (I forget the exact line) like this before, and Bumblebee says that he has, when the Dinobots were being created.

Yes, that's a very important line. Bumblebee has to explain to Powerglide about the time when the Dinobots were being constructed, because Powerglide wasn't around for that.

> I like the cartoon Dinobots.

I like them in season two a lot more than I like them in The Transformers: the Movie. They all swallowed a huge bottle of stupid pills right before the film, didn't they?

Zob (I will still buy all the Studio Series versions of them, of course)

Enjoying this thread a lot. Thanks a lot to Zob and Sky Raider for the exchange!

(FWIW, I found the Cybertron scenes in this episode pretty evocative).

JB

On Monday, May 24, 2021 at 7:44:28 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Monday, May 24, 2021 at 1:28:09 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> > You think? It's the opposite for me (going from memory anyway). The Cybertron scenes in part two are kind of interesting.
> I mean, it's a great spotlight moment for Swoop. It's the only time in history we get to see him operating on his own, away from the other Dinobots. But, I'm just not a huge fan of the Dinobots as characters. Their stupidity and speech patterns really grate on me. (Even Sesame Street only had one Cookie Monster.)
>
> The Cybertron scenes have such slow pacing, and basically none of it has any direct connection to the main story. You could cut most of it, turn both episodes back into a 22-minute story, and lose nothing important. (I've been working on an edit, but I lost interest in it. Real-life stuff has really been getting me down.)
> > This is part of why I like part 2 better, all this meandering around has nothing to do with anything. Why are the Decepticons so interested in this ultraplane? The episode never tells us.
> It makes sense for Megatron to always be plotting and scheming about *something.* And, really, it's totally in character for him to start obsessing about some random piece of Earth technology.
> > If the Decepticons can't transform or fly, how are they supposed to get back to their base in the middle of the ocean?
> Now I'm imagining Starscream and the others with a Cliffjumper-style water-ski mode!
> > One thing that I've never been entirely clear on is the cybertonium. Has it been deteriorating because they've been away from Cybertron too long? Or was it exposure to Earth's atmosphere, specifically?
> Well, Perceptor is a smart guy, and he mentions Earth's atmosphere as the culprit. Cybertonium deterioration doesn't seem to be a common affliction that the Transformers themselves are aware of. Nobody seems to quite know what's going on until Perceptor eventually figures it out. (I'm surprised Chip Chase didn't show up and solve the mystery for everybody.)
> > So I guess once the cybertonium starts to deteriorate, just being back on Cybertron or away from Earth isn't enough.
> It always comes back to the Quintessons. With that in mind, this is clearly a case of planned obsolescence. They made their products and designed them to break down so consumers would be forced to replace them eventually.
> > Well, the commercials don't have to be beholden to the cartoon specifically.
> That's just supporting evidence. Even without taking the toy commercial into account, the idea that Perceptor and the rest have been exposed to Earth's atmosphere for millions of years is an absurd retcon. We have to accept it, but I hate accepting it.
> > But I think there actually is one minor hint what happened. In Dinobot Island part 1 Powerglide says something about never seeing a place or creatures (I forget the exact line) like this before, and Bumblebee says that he has, when the Dinobots were being created.
> Yes, that's a very important line. Bumblebee has to explain to Powerglide about the time when the Dinobots were being constructed, because Powerglide wasn't around for that.
> > I like the cartoon Dinobots.
> I like them in season two a lot more than I like them in The Transformers: the Movie. They all swallowed a huge bottle of stupid pills right before the film, didn't they?
>
>
> Zob (I will still buy all the Studio Series versions of them, of course)

On Saturday, May 15, 2021 at 11:38:53 AM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> I did not post a reminder this month, because I am horrible. And also because I woke up this morning and it was somehow already the 15th of the month. I suspect time travel may have been involved.
>
> Well, even if you don't have a review ready, you can still follow along if you want. I won't judge.
>
> "Desertion of the Dinobots" is episode #37 of the original Transformers series. It first aired on October 21, 1985. Written by Earl Kress, it's notable as a Dinobot spotlight episode brought to us by somebody other than Don F. Glut. It's the first of a two-part story, and I have a real love-hate relationship with this particular pair of episodes. Part one is great, and has some really amazing moments, but part two drags so hard and I kind of hate it.
>

I've always felt the opposite, really.

Part 1 is a scattered collection of interesting vignettes that seem barely interconnected, but are still interesting in and of themselves.

Part 2 features some of my favorite scenes from the second season - that is, the entire Cybertron sojourn with Spike and Carly. Human characters are supposed to be the viewer's entry point into a world, but with Transformers, they've usually seemed superfluous, as the Autobots were so human-like that we identify more readily with them. Here though, the humans actually serve a purpose, as explorers picking their way through a strange and unknown world, and allowing us to view that world through their eyes. The scale and scope of this hostile, alien, and largely deserted world are magnified, and there's a sense of wonder and foreboding that pervades their travels.

Plus we get more Swoop. More Swoop is always a good thing.

>
> What does this have to do with the plot? Um, basically nothing. As a two-part episode, this installment really takes its sweet time getting to the point. I really think this might be another instance of a staff writer submitting an episode and Hasbro, loving the concept, asking for it to be extended into a two-part story. So, we get a really slow build in these first few minutes, mostly a showcase for the Transformers doing a lot of Transformer stuff without having a direct bearing on the main story.

I used to find this somewhat boring and pointless, but in hindsight, knowing that no more G1 episodes will ever be created, I find it an enjoyable diversion and a pleasant way to spend more time with our favorite robots in disguise (TM).

>
>
> A bit later, Spike and Carly and Bumblebee are picking up Sparkplug from the EJK Airport. No, I didn't say JFK. It's clearly the EJK. No idea what that stands for, but Earl J. Kress probably does. Anyway, why is Sparkplug at the airport? The guy is a mechanic. Or a ruby crystal miner. Or an oil rig worker. But he's definitely not a businessman who travels for work. He's even in a suit and necktie, for crying out loud. This is weird. As a widower, maybe he's settling something legal related to Mrs. Witwicky, like a property sale or an estate in escrow or something. No idea. The episode does not explain it. There are so many potential plot points that get introduced just to be totally forgotten about in ten seconds. This episode is like a Transformers fever dream.

It's interesting that Carly calls him "Mr. Witwicky" then later lapses into "Sparkplug." From a formal mode of address to a nickname, all in one two-part episode...one wonders how many more episodes it would have taken before she started calling him "Dad."

>
> However, Spike happens to notice a couple of F-15 jets, which seem out of place to him at a commercial airport. The fact that they're colored like Thrust and Thundercracker and have Decepticon symbols on the wings doesn't dawn on him—just the fact that they're military-style aircraft and not passenger planes. Not surprisingly, this is where Megatron has temporarily taken refuge. Bumblebee calls for back-up, but Prime's team is still repairing the research lab and Wheeljack doesn't have enough Autobots at the volcano to send. So, the Dinobots are summoned from their storage closet.
>

Are the Dinobots truly alive? They certainly seem to be both sapient and sentient, despite the lack of Vector Sigma's involvement. So how does Optimus Prime, the great guarantor of freedom, justify keeping them in solitary confinement? Also, how did Rodimus Prime manage to lobotomize Grimlock and turn him from menacing would-be usurper in the Optimus Era to dim-witted comedy relief sidekick in Season 3?

> And so begins an Autobot marathon session to try to restore the Dinobots and bring them back up to fighting form. Ratchet complains that the tools they have available to work with are primitive, and Hoist (who is using a hammer to bang Grimlock's wing back into shape) concurs that the tools on Cybertron were much better. So, is THAT what this episode is about? The Autobots have to go to Cybertron to find the necessary tools to fix the Dinobots? Oh, forget it. I give up. This episode is about whatever it wants to be about, at least for the next twenty seconds.
>

I always clung to the belief that the episode was going to be about the desertion of the Dinobots. Through all the fake-outs and dropped plot points, I clung to that faint hope. Any second now...

>
> When the walls are built, Grapple picks up the roof and attempts to deposit the roof in place. He miscalculates, though, and the entire structure collapses. Prime is quick to downplay the failure, but Grapple is an architect. He's supposed to know how to do this stuff. He's absolutely in shock.
>
> It reads like just another random "slice of life" moment that won't have any bearing on the rest of the episode, but this is actually an important moment. It's just that it's been buried so deeply in a pile of random scenes that it's easy to dismiss it. I mean, was the ultraplane important? Was the Fun-A-Rama part important? Was Sparkplug's maybe business trip important? This episode is training us to dismiss everything that happens as random and irrelevant, so this scene might slip under people's radar. "The medium is the message" flies right out the window when it comes to an episode like this. Normally, the show only includes scenes that are relevant to the plot.. Not so here.

It's a nice bit of character work for Grapple, who made such an impression in "The Master Builders" then never really got a chance to shine again, unlike his best mate Hoist.

>
> Megatron thinks that maybe a bad batch of energon has been causing the malfunctions, so he orders the Decepticons to refuel in the hopes that it solves the problem. The Autobots show up in response, but when they transform to robot mode, Jazz can't quite get it together. It takes a good kick in the fender from Ironhide before he can make the switch. "Thanks! ...I think," Jazz responds in what is probably the funniest line in the episode.

Scatman Crothers was a national treasure.

> The only theory I have that can reconcile the content of this episode with the characters' sudden introduction is that maybe, MAYBE, Perceptor and friends were in another section of the Ark when it crashed. Like, maybe they were the engineering crew, who were in an inaccessible section of the Ark and couldn't be immediately revived the way the bridge crew was. There's an untold story about the Autobots digging through the volcano and finally unearthing all the other Transformers still buried inside the Ark—Blaster, Hoist, Inferno, and the rest of the new Autobots as well as the new 1985 Decepticons. (The original plan for the Beast Wars episode "The Nemesis" involved Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge being revived, which would have firmly established that they were also aboard the Ark.)

I think that's the theory that makes the most sense. They were always onboard, but perhaps in suspended animation to conserve energon. The Autobots of Season 1 seemed to be the most warlike, and therefore those most necessary for the voyage to find a new source of energy. The Autobots of Season 2 are the civilians who are necessary to extract and refine that energy, and to settle or colonize whatever planet they find. You need warriors like Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, a medic like Ratchet, and the top echelon of your military structure like Jazz and Ironhide. A scout like Bumblebee. A spy like Mirage.

But once you've settled in on your new home planet, you need architects and designers (Grapple and Hoist), internal security services (Red Alert), firefighters (Inferno), internal affairs (Smokescreen), scientists (Perceptor), geologists (Beachcomber), and human liaisons (Tracks).

> So the space bridge has opened, and the Constructicons have arrived to transport the green crystalline material. Wait, so the Constructicons can function as well? We're about ten episodes away from "The Secret of Omega Supreme," so at this point in the show, the only origin we have for the Constructicons is Megatron's line from "Heavy Metal War" about how "they were worth the time we spent building them in these caverns." So, this episode takes that origin and rolls with it. The Constructicons aren't malfunctioning because they were built on Earth. (It's lucky that "The Secret of Omega Supreme" doesn't try to pretend that the Constructicons have "really" been on Earth for millions of years.)

Million-year old robot personalities in newly-constructed Earth bodies, a la the Combaticons?