Beast Machines

Episode 5: Forbidden Fruit

SPOILERS AHEAD

SYNOPSIS:

Primal traps a bat spying on the Maximals' training exercises.
RatTrap is making some headway but not quiet getting it.
The others focus on shifting between modes in various situations.

The bat screams and escapes.  The Maximals give chase.  Cheetor uses
his robot mode and captures the bat but Jetstorm and his AirRaid Drones
home in on them and attack.

It turns out that the bat is a Maximal and Jetstorm almost captures him.
Jetstorm's little flying mine backfires.

They all escape to the bat's hideout where there is an organic tree
that bears fruit that the bat eats to survive.

Cheetor declines to eat and the others seem to go into a irritable
animalistic state (similar to a BW episode).

Jetstorm returns with more drones and attack the Maximals but they are
just intent on eating more fruit (the bat doesn't understand why the
fruit is having a strange affect on the Maximals).

Cheetor quickly destroys the tree and the Maximals suddenly snap out
of their animalistic state.

The bat is hit and Primal re-formats him draining all his energy in doing so.
The bat helps turn the tables on Jetstorm and his drones.
Primal passes leadership onto Cheetor as Primal will need time to recover.


DESIGN NOTES:

Well, to start out, there was a slight change in the theme.
At the end of "Phat Planet", when the Beast Machines logo appears, their
is a voice over saying "Beast Machines".

Great "freeze-and-rotate-camera-angle" scene of Cheetor axing down the tree!
For those wondering where the drones are, they're still around.
Jetstorm is in fact leading a horde of "AirRaid Drones" all thru the show.
The first teaser for the next show (episode 6)!

Man!  How many episodes are they going to show?
I remember the old BW had about 3 or 4 shows then about two months of
re-runs, then a few more shows.  Fortunately, the shows don't seem rushed.
Go Mainframe!

Catch that G1 Soundwave?  He was apparently Nightscreams pal.
One would guess that Nightscream was RatBat but we see a robot.


IMPRESSIONS:

Great intro for a new character.  Nightscream has some interesting powers
which make him a formidable Maximal.

RatTrap is continually frustrated that he can't transform.  He's probably
getting really desperate from this.  I'm glad the writers are developing
this subplot consistantly.


QUESTIONS:

We now have an eye-witness account of the time the virus hit and when the
army of Vehicons showed up.

In fact, we have few answers and more questions from this episode:

Nightscream doesn't know how he wound up as a earth animal.

Going back to the tree, the Maximals would have to let the affects
wear off.  Perhaps the tree itself was linked to the affects of the fruit somehow.
It was an organic tree but it sure didn't break down like a typical tree?
The fruit has a very active root system!  We'll be seeing more plants in
the future.  Perhaps the vision from the Oracle (where the earth-like
planet is hit with green energy and becomes like Cybertron) is a history
of Cybertron "Before the Transformers arrived".  My first impression is that
it was a glimpse of the future destiny of earth.

Finally, as RatTrap observed in BW, "He sure get's used to a new body fast" 
(or something to that affect).  Who knows how Primal knows his abilities.
But now we know he can "reformat" Maximals too.  Evidently, he is bonded
with the Oracle/Matrix.  The symantics of this tie are cloudy.
Either "all will be revealed" by the Beast Machines writers or they don't
know what kind of hole their digging as far as the Transformers Mythos goes
(regarding the Matrix/ spark/ Oracle)

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