S02E10 Armada

[Skyquake87]

Animated gets another homage as Starscream clones himself ...to no avail, but hopefully he'll think to restore his T-Cog from one of his clones. Mirroring his actions, Arachnid makes her play and has her storyline ended...at the hands of Arcee, whom seems to not be able to 'let go' of her pursuit of Arachnid. The Insecticons, despite their ovewhelming numbers soon swear feilty in the face of overwhelming firepower to Megatron, whom also demonstrates a casual disregard for his Vehicon troops. Aside: doesn't Megatron's craft have any weaponry that could have dealt more swiftly with the Insecticon hoard?

Overall, a nice action packed episode, but not big on story or characterisation or originality. Just serves to wrap up Arachnid'd story in a perfunctory manner.
 

[Knightdramon]

I was under the impression that Airrachnid's telepathic control of the swarm ended when she was put in stasis by accident, so their number one leader by default reverted to Megatron.

Didn't really like this episode. Too much happens but also nothing happens. Perhaps I was too hyped about the next episode's description [the nemesis becomes self aware] and combined the armada attack to the ship's systems waking up in the sight of overwhelming danger. Instead we got rip offs from Animated.

Lastly, if -one- Insecticon is enough to give Megatron a run for his money [without his cannon, sure], how come it's so easy for Prime and Bumblebee to take down 4-5 of them?
 

[relak]

aww. When i saw the episode title "Armada" i thought this was going to be a parody of Transformers Armada with minicons introduced, Ratchet claiming they were the single worst idea in Transformers weapons history and then promptly the minicons are all destroyed by the episode end.
 

[Skyquake87]

Originally Posted by Knightdramon

I was under the impression that Airrachnid's telepathic control of the swarm ended when she was put in stasis by accident, so their number one leader by default reverted to Megatron.

Didn't really like this episode. Too much happens but also nothing happens. Perhaps I was too hyped about the next episode's description [the nemesis becomes self aware] and combined the armada attack to the ship's systems waking up in the sight of overwhelming danger. Instead we got rip offs from Animated.

Lastly, if -one- Insecticon is enough to give Megatron a run for his money [without his cannon, sure], how come it's so easy for Prime and Bumblebee to take down 4-5 of them?

I must have missed Arachnid's telepathic control. When did that happen?

I will put the Autobot's superiority down to something common in all forms of Transformers - the Autobots are more tooled up and have 'more gun' than their Decepticons enemies.

It did seem to be an episode that was dashed off to make last orders, didn't it?
 

[Knightdramon]

I chalk Airrachnid's control over the insects to her own words in Crossfire and that weird buzzing\screeching sound that goes on whenever she's addressing one of them.

That, and the fact that when the insecticons gathered around Megatron in the finale, he was [seen as] the only Decepticon standing. Judging from his performance in Crossfire, I'm not sure if he could win this one.

I'm also disappointed in the fact that the Starscream clones do die, but it's never explicitly shown or mentioned on-screen. I suppose it is a children's show, or at least broadcasted in a channel with children as the primary viewers.
 

[Jaynz]

Originally Posted by Knightdramon

I chalk Airrachnid's control over the insects to her own words in Crossfire and that weird buzzing\screeching sound that goes on whenever she's addressing one of them.

It was the power of handwavium! Actually, I wondered if Airachnid was an 'evolved' Insecticon, the way that Knock Out, etc., are implied to be evolved ground Vehicons.

That, and the fact that when the insecticons gathered around Megatron in the finale, he was [seen as] the only Decepticon standing. Judging from his performance in Crossfire, I'm not sure if he could win this one.

Well, the Autobots were teaming up and fighting with group tactics against their set of Insecticons - though I wouldn't say it was the usual Vehicon cake-walk. Plus, there was only about eight of them, with no element of surprise, and a 'command-and-control' far more focued at first on attacking Megatron and then fighting for her spark.

Aside, the Insecticons don't seem to have ambitions of their own (just like most Vehicons) so when whatever Airachnid's command-and-control ability was failed, they reverted to their regular nature - another legion of drones (ahem) under Megatron's command.

So, yes, Arcee accidentally saved Megatron's tokus there.

I'm also disappointed in the fact that the Starscream clones do die, but it's never explicitly shown or mentioned on-screen. I suppose it is a children's show, or at least broadcasted in a channel with children as the primary viewers.

Erm, Megatron blasted the shit out of most of them, and Bulkhead rather brutally put one down. All of the poor sods we see in pieces... so excatly what else did you need to see at that point? The last poor sod we can pretty much write off as Starscreams new T-Cog donor...

But, yes, a 'fun and wild' episode that seemed to be an 'under the wire' push to wrap up loose ends for the mid-season before the final arc... which apparently won't be Airachnid. Not great, and some story-arcs deserved more time than "Megatron has a day", but maybe the writers figured out they had too much going on in one season and took the power-mower to it?
 

[Knightdramon]

Originally Posted by TFVanguard

Erm, Megatron blasted the shit out of most of them, and Bulkhead rather brutally put one down. All of the poor sods we see in pieces... so excatly what else did you need to see at that point? The last poor sod we can pretty much write off as Starscreams new T-Cog donor...

Well, my point is that we're told what happened, but honestly, the beating Starscream got from Bulkhead was far from that brutal compared to what we've seen in the series so far [Prime was stabbed in Nemesis Prime, Megatron got his face wheeled over in S1 finale, Breakdown was butchered up] and the shootings Megatron did on the others did not seem different enough from any shooting he has done in the series.

A lacking episode, sadly. Too much hype and not much return.
 

[Cliffjumper]

Interesting start, meh episode. Did that really say "24 hours earlier", when all Bulkhead did was drive to a hole and fall down it? So much potential in that cold opening missed. I mean, we all knew he hadn't killed Starscream for some reason or another, but the rest of it could have been so much more interesting.

At least the protoforms weren't used either for more Seekers or for comedy 'aspects' clones, I feared we'd have a Good Starscream, a Cowboy Starscream, a Doctor Starscream, a Hermaphrodite Starscream and a Cheerleader Starscream or whatever that shit from Animated was.

The Insecticons suffered from pretty obvious villain decay, just like the Stunticons and the Combaticons (another tedious use of the protoforms deftly avoided there) did all that time ago. Hard to be that pissed off as it always happens in any series with a half-decent villain (remember that first ancient vampire thing in the last series of Buffy that she just about beat one-on-one, and then five or ten episodes later Xander and Anya are killing them with swords?).

Airachnid put on ice is something, anyway, though obviously she'll be back. Hope they don't lock her up in the same room as all those mad Cybertronian weapons Ratchet's got hoarded away.

Good fight scenes as per usual. It wasn't a diabolical episode, it was just a bit of a shame for the Starscream plot to disintegrate into a silly caper almost immediately, and for Airachnid's plan to be foiled in about nine seconds.

Anyone else really missing the fleshbags? MOAR JOON K PLS THNX.