[7.3/10] I feel like I say this every time a new character arrives, but I was wondering when Inferno was going to show up! I don’t think I processed as a kid how freaky and grotesque he looks in both his beast and robot forms. There’s something about his presence as a giant fire ant, scurrying about, that’s a little creepy on its own. But his rictus grin and bug eyes in robot mode are unnerving as well. It’s a cool villain design and the show (and/or the toymakers) deserve credit for that.
They also deserve credit for creating some interesting and conflicting motivations here. Usually, the goals and alliances are pretty simple, good guy vs. bad guy stuff with the occasional coup attempt on the Predacon side. But in this one, you actually have some solid layer and intersection plots.
Black Arachnia knows that Tarantulas is up to something and wants to manipulate him so that she can either hitch her wagon to the right train or swoop in and beat both him and Megatron. (That said, why does every female baddie on a kids show have to try to use her feminine wiles to persuade her fellow villains?) There’s even a good fake out there, where she thinks that Tarantulas’s primary objective is to reprogram the latest Maximal protoform as a Predacon and make it loyal to him, where in truth, his bigger goal is to turn the stasis pod into an escape vessel since he has reason to believe the planet is doomed. That’s some larger plotting and layers which livens the proceedings -- it’s not much, but it’s something!
At the same time, you have Megatron suspecting the treachery and wanting to stamp it out, the Maximals investigating on their own, and the Spiders as wildcards in the middle with their own agenda. That’s coupled with the interesting gimmick for Inferno, where he’s clouded by his ant-brain into protecting the colony and the royalty at all costs, and takes members of both sides of the Beast Wars as invaders.
Of course, there’s not much to the fights that ensue, but there’s at least some wrinkles to them, like the Predacons pointing to the Maximals as the ones trying to invade “the colony” and escalating skirmishes with Tigatron and Airrazor. Speaking of which, I like the show planting the seeds for a romantic concordance between them. It’s subtle, but it works and adds greater depth to their shared adventures.
Overall, this one works as a tangled introduction for Inferno, with enough twists and turns in the narrative and interesting layers to the characters’ motivations to put it a notch above the average episode.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-06-09T18:01:48Z
[7.3/10] I feel like I say this every time a new character arrives, but I was wondering when Inferno was going to show up! I don’t think I processed as a kid how freaky and grotesque he looks in both his beast and robot forms. There’s something about his presence as a giant fire ant, scurrying about, that’s a little creepy on its own. But his rictus grin and bug eyes in robot mode are unnerving as well. It’s a cool villain design and the show (and/or the toymakers) deserve credit for that.
They also deserve credit for creating some interesting and conflicting motivations here. Usually, the goals and alliances are pretty simple, good guy vs. bad guy stuff with the occasional coup attempt on the Predacon side. But in this one, you actually have some solid layer and intersection plots.
Black Arachnia knows that Tarantulas is up to something and wants to manipulate him so that she can either hitch her wagon to the right train or swoop in and beat both him and Megatron. (That said, why does every female baddie on a kids show have to try to use her feminine wiles to persuade her fellow villains?) There’s even a good fake out there, where she thinks that Tarantulas’s primary objective is to reprogram the latest Maximal protoform as a Predacon and make it loyal to him, where in truth, his bigger goal is to turn the stasis pod into an escape vessel since he has reason to believe the planet is doomed. That’s some larger plotting and layers which livens the proceedings -- it’s not much, but it’s something!
At the same time, you have Megatron suspecting the treachery and wanting to stamp it out, the Maximals investigating on their own, and the Spiders as wildcards in the middle with their own agenda. That’s coupled with the interesting gimmick for Inferno, where he’s clouded by his ant-brain into protecting the colony and the royalty at all costs, and takes members of both sides of the Beast Wars as invaders.
Of course, there’s not much to the fights that ensue, but there’s at least some wrinkles to them, like the Predacons pointing to the Maximals as the ones trying to invade “the colony” and escalating skirmishes with Tigatron and Airrazor. Speaking of which, I like the show planting the seeds for a romantic concordance between them. It’s subtle, but it works and adds greater depth to their shared adventures.
Overall, this one works as a tangled introduction for Inferno, with enough twists and turns in the narrative and interesting layers to the characters’ motivations to put it a notch above the average episode.