OK, OK, I get the message.  Jeez, when I write articles, I get nasty hate mail telling me I suck and I should be banned from writing.  When I don't write articles... well, I get the same emails but there's a few asking me where I went and when will I update again.  So here I am, back for more.  I was out of town two weeks ago and just plain felt like taking last week off so I could devote my time to more pressing matters of urgency (read: porn-a-thon).  But I'm back, and what better way to come back than with a review of The Transformers?  I certainly can't think of a better way.

The Decepticons discover new allies in the form of ancient robots that can transform into insects.  And that pretty much covers everything that happens in the episode.  Remember kids, Insecticons are cool and on sale in major department stores everywhere!

"I knew we should have sprayed the crops!" - some guy when the Insecticons attack his farm.

• In order to find the Insecticons, Megatron, Soundwave, and Thundercracker all trudge through a murky swamp.  They must have forgotten they can fly.
• Supposedly, the Insecticons landed on Earth even before the Autobots and Decepticons (more than four million years ago), yet they took on the form of life that didn't even exist then.
• The Insecticons are on an island called Bali.  In order to fight them, the Autobots drive to the island.  Huh?
• At the end, Shrapnel summons the power of lightning to fight the Autobots.  They discover they can combat this weapon just by transforming since rubber tires insulate them from the electricity.  That's all well and good and teaches fun filled science facts and all, but it was the force of the lightning hitting them that was doing the actual damage, not the current.
• Twice in the episode, Autobots plunge to the Earth and at the last second another Autobots races in, allowing the falling Autobot to land on them.  For the life of me, I can't understand how this would do any less damage than simply landing on the ground.

CHANGED PREMISES

• Thundercracker says the the Insecticons' "idento-computers" helped them take on the form of local insect life.  Idento-computers?  At what point did anyone have that device?
• Sideswipe talks like Prowl throughout this episode.
• Sunstreaker talks with a seemingly different voice with each line, none of them anything like how he talked before.
• At the end of "More Than Meets the Eye," the big cliffhanger involved Optimus's inability to lift a piece of an oil rig.  He must have decided to lift weights or something since then, because in this episode he can hoist and hurl an entire oil tanker.

ANIMATION FLUBS

• When running away from the Insecticons at their first encounter, all of the Autobots mouth Bumblebee's line about radioing Prime for help.  All of them except Bumblebee, that is.
• As the Insecticons run toward the Autobots, Bombshell's symbol sporadically vanishes.
• After digging under the parade above, Sideswipe is colored like Sunstreaker.
• When the Decepticons take off for the oil refinery, Skyfire's right there with them.
• Every time Optimus transforms in this episode it's from that one earlier episode that I can never remember what the hell it is.
• Shrapnel says Bombshell's line "Bite down, it's our only chance to hang on!"
• When the Autobots arrive at the oil refinery, Shrapnel's right next to Megatron.  Then when Skyfire attacks he's back to eating on the oil tanker.
• When the Autobots transform at the refinery, Sunstreaker is colored like Sideswipe.
• After they jump into the water to avoid Shrapnel's grenades, Brawn and Wheeljack keep switching sides on Optimus Prime.
• When Wheeljack jumps onto Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to lamely counter affect the lighting blasts, Sideswipe is colored like Sunstreaker.

DVD DIFFERENCES

• When the Autobots get on Skyfire, his doors only open halfway.  Then, they close behind Spike and Bumblebee, leaving them both sort of floating in midair.
• When both Brawn and Skyfire get blasted into the lake, their big splashes of water suddenly disappear.
• When Optimus saves a plummeting Wheeljack, Wheeljack says thanks but his ears don't glow.
• Shrapnel disappears when he uses his control beam on Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.
• In this same scene, Sunstreaker is recolored black for no good reason.
• Also in this same scene, Prime's transformation is reversed, making for a really odd continuity jump (he starts as a truck, he suddenly jumps to a robot turning into a truck, then he's suddenly a robot).
• Shrapnel's power up during the lightning storm is totally re-edited, again making for some odd continuity jumps as he continues to mouth "now" well after he's done talking, the storm clouds are suddenly gone, then instantly reappear, and the lightning never actually strikes him, he just suddenly has power for no reason.
• In fact, throughout most of this scene the storm clouds seem to come and go.

- Danimal