Hey there trail hands, welcome back to Lost in Transmission! If you have no idea what the hell I am talking about, the rest of this ongoing series of reviews can be found here. Today we're looking back at the Ultimate Doom, a three part story wherein the Decepticons manage to bring Cybertron into Earth's orbit, which turns out to be a bad thing for every living thing on the planet. Naturally, the Autobots get involved. Without further ado, let's jump right into it.
Slave Labour
This trilogy of episodes starts when the Decepticons attack a solar power plant in India to lure the Autobots away from their base. Their mission? To capture Sparkplug, and it works! The poor dupe is then taken to the Decepticon's headquarters where their newest ally -- the mad scientist known as Doctor Arkeville -- plants Sparky with a Hypno-Chip. More on that in a minute, because I really need to talk about that scene in India. What is going on here? I'm all for diversity and all, but last I checked there has never been a Maharajah in India who was a red haired Caucasian with a weird accent. Is he Irish? Scotish? British? All-of-the-Above-ish?
The Maharajah of Scotland.
Whatever the case may be, perhaps the Transformers live in a universe where Britain never relinquished rule of India in 1947 and they really got into the culture? Either that, or the animators and writers had no clue what they were doing.
"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad.
Anyway, back to Sparkplug, Doctor Arkeville enslaves him with a Hypno-Chip to demonstrate that even the most loyal human could be bent to the Decepticon's will. The Decepticons are impressed with this and proceed with the production of more Hypno-Chips to build an army of slaves. This, to me, seems like a lot of effort in more ways than one. First of all, why did they need Sparkplug specifically? An easier target would have been Chip Chase, considering he isn't free loading off the Autobots like Sparkplug and his son Spike. Second of all, why even need Hypno-Chips? Being massive sentient war machines that could decimate entire cities would be reason enough for all us filthy flesh-creatures to start bowing to our new alien overlords. Lastly, it's kind of hard not to notice the Hypno-Chips, as they are massive and placed at the back of the ear, like the world's stupidest bling.
Unaware of what happened, the Autobots attack the Decepticon base and rescue their friend. The find out quick enough when Sparkplug sabotages their base for the Decepticons to counter attack.
The Autobots should have been tipped off, considering Arkeville's Hypno-Chip makes Sparky talk like an emotionless drone. Not only that, he needs to be controlled by Arkeville remotely, and the scientist has to be incredibly specific with his commands, as demonstrated when Sparkplug -- who has been trained to repair Transformers -- begins trying to fix Autobots who weren't injured.
The red flag should have been when he started trying to repair the doctor robot.
The Autobots are spared when Spike sets off the fire alarm, spraying the base with fire-retardant foam that is harmful to the Decepticons circuits. Wouldn't this also be harmful to the Autobots? Putting out a fire is kind of pointless if the foam shorts you out. Anyway, Sparkplug leaves with the Decepticons, asking his son to join them. Spike declines, and still hasn't figured out what happened to his father, because he's apparently an idiot.
Pimp My Space Bridge
Who wouldn't want to do this?
With the Hypno-Chip a success, the Decepticons start kidnapping similarly dressed blue collar workers from all over to be their army of slaves. Their task? To build a massive Space Bridge to bring Cybertron into Earth's orbit. When the good Doctor learns this he warns of the planet wide chaos that would be caused by Cybertron's close proximity to Earth. This is exactly as Megatron planned, as he wants to collect all the energy created by the extinction level event he is planning. The Autobots try to stop the Decepticons, but the bad guys use their slaves to keep our heroes at bay. Ultimately, Optimus Prime tries to stop Megatron from activating the device but stops when Megatron points out that if they don't do anything, Cybertron will be destroyed. Totally buying this, Prime unquestioningly activates the Space Bridge, to save the friends he still has on Cybertron, even if it means dooming planet Earth.
Seriously Though, the Autobots Suck
Prime: "As they say on Earth: Fat chance, fat head!"
Megatron: "No they don't."
So the Autobots have been fighting the Decepticons on Earth for about 11 episodes at this point and this is the fourth (potentially) extinction level event that has been caused while on their watch. They're really, really bad at their jobs. The second episode is all filler. The Autobots are trying to contain all the ecological disasters caused by Cybertron's proximity to Earth. That I get, but the Decepticons are equally as clueless as to how to deal with the situation. Which, considering this was all their idea, they would have studied up on what would happen.
I guess they were too busy planning their intervention of Megatron's domestic abuse....
If things weren't dire already, the Autobots let the Dinobots out of their pantry to help deal with the disasters. Surprisingly, these idiots prove competent enough to stop a tsunami. Meanwhile, instead of solving the problem at hand, the Autobots spend their time tracking Sparkplug, learning that he went to Cybertron. Spike gives a passionate plea to go on a rescue mission, and Prime concedes. Spike then picks some of the most useless Autobots and has Skyfire fly them to Cybertron. Although they finally learn about the Hypno-Chips, they are totally narked out by Sparkplug, who sounds the alarm when he catches them.
By this point, Sparkplug was getting into some very specific fetishes.
Guns Solve Everything!
Even though the world might end, the Autobots still need to hit those gnarly waves!
Eventually, Wheeljack builds a device that will counteract the Hypno-Chips, they save Sparkplug and come to the rescue of the other Autobots, who have been failing miserably with the whole "saving the Earth from ultimate destruction" thing. They arrive just as the Autobots are struggling to stop the Decepticons from making off with a ship filled with Energon Cubes. With the slaves now free from Megatron's control, the Autobots are free to attack the Decepticons. This is where everything falls apart, however, not because of Autobot intervention, but the increasingly unstable planet Earth. Seeing that his gig is falling apart, Megatron hightails it off the planet, leaving the Autobots to deal with a massive tsunami that will, apparently, wipe everything off the face of the Earth.
It's just as well, the calibre of slaves they were getting at this point was getting kind of pathetic.
It's at this point that the super-smart space robots are resigned to their utter annihilation. However, Spike refuses to give up and begins shooting at the planet Cybertron with Optimus Prime's gun. The Autobots point out how useless that effort is, but it inspires them to blow Megatron's ship out of the sky. It just so happens there is enough Energon Cubes in that ship to blow Cybertron out of Earth's orbit. Now, I don't profess to be a scientist or anything, but those are some huge odds. Also, the fact that it is an explosion that is strong enough Cybertron out of orbit and not affect the Earth seems really impossible, but hey, this is a half hour toy commercial and the writers needed a deux ex machina to wrap things up.
I AM THE NRA!
Next Time on Lost in Transmission....
We wrap up the first season of the Transformers with a football themed extinction level event, robot insects with speech impediments, and some Decepticons that are sure to upset some construction unions. Also, stick around to the end where I crown the worst characters of the season!