Equal Measures

 

 

Season 1

 

Episode written by: Greg Johnson

 

Reviewed by Nurannoniel T.I.M.E.

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This episode starts off with a nice view of a very stormy sky with lots of lightning and thunder. The camera comes down to circle around a mountain, with a brief shot of Optimus in beast mode squinting before the shot switches back to lightning striking the mountain. The rock crumbles to reveal a ton of energon, which Op, from his point of view, zooms in on. He tries to call in to the base to tell them to "scrub the mission", but the interference from the storm is too bad.

 

Back at the Axalon, Rhinox is putting some finishing touches on the new survey posts. Rattrap comments that the storm is trashing the comm.-links worse than usual. Dinobot's messing with a bomb, and growls in Rattrap's general direction that the mission is too critical to be interrupted by some bad weather. He then yells "Who took the synchro-laser?!" Cheetor replies "allow me!", pulls out the missing tool, and proceeds to put his own finishing touches on the device. He drops the bomb, however, and as Dinobot tries to strangle the cheetah-'bot for his mistake, the bomb rolls towards the edge of the lift and falls over. Optimus catches it. Dinobot drops Cheetor, and Cheetor tells Optimus that the bomb's ready to blow the Predacon's ship "back into orbit as space debris." Optimus tells his crew that the mission's stalled due to the storm. Cheetor insists that he can beat the storm, but Optimus tells him that "as much as you prefer to think so Cheetor, this isn't about you". Frustrated, Cheetor tosses the bomb to Dinobot and leaves. DB and OP argue a bit, and then Dinobot transforms and leaves.

 

 The scene switches to Cheetor sulking in his quarters. Dinobot comes in and tells Cheetor that he thinks the cat can beat the storm and plant the survey posts. The raptor messes with Cheetor's ego for a bit, and finally convinces him to take on the mission without permission from Optimus. Cheetor runs out of the base just as the storm starts to get worse.

 

He runs for a bit, transforms, plants the first post, transforms back to beast mode and just barley misses being struck by lightning. He yells up at the sky "was that supposed to scare me?", and in response, another bolt of lightning strikes beside him. With a gulp and an acknowledging "yep!", Cheetor jumps up and runs off to plant the next post.

 

Cheetor is about to plunge the next post into the ground when more electricity strikes the raised makeshift lightning rod and sends both the post and Cheetor flying. The post lodges itself into the ground and starts splitting the earth to reveal a vein of energon.

 

Next we see Cheetor trying to pull the super-charged rod out off the ground without much luck. We switch to the Darkside, where Terrorsaur is staring at a monitor. The radar picks up a maximal signature, but then the screen turns to static, and Terrorsaur grumbles about it just being "storm interference" and "no Maximal would be stupid enough to try anything on a day like this." The camera switches back to Cheetor taunting the electrified survey post about wanting to "play rough". He grabs the post, and with another bolt of lightning Cheetor is zapped to the Predacon base, right under Terrorsaur's nose!

 

A battle scene follows, in which Cheetor eventually knocks Terrorsaur onto the "Transporter" console. Terrorsaur is zapped away, and Cheetor flies off on a hover-pad just as Scorponok and Waspinator arrive. The transformed Predacons chase Cheetor around the command center for a bit before a missile blasts open a hole in a vent shaft. Cheetor escapes through the vents while Scorponok and Waspy argue about who'll report the incident to Megatron.

 

With a fancy light show and some awesome sound effects, we return to the Axalon just as Terrorsaur materializes on the Maximals' communications console. Dinobot appears in Terrorsaur's view of the room and sarcastically welcomes the pterodactyl. As the two former comrades prepare to fight, Dinobot notices the electrically supercharged console and reflects on the possibility of "technology and nature" accidentally creating a "transporter".  Dinobot proposes a truce, and Terrorsaur comments on how the transporter must be how Cheetor got in to the Pred base. The two start scheming and agree to an alliance.

 

 Back at the Darkside, Cheetor is dashing through the vents as Waspinator shoots missiles after him from outside the vent. Scorponok scans the vent and sees Cheetor, shooting his own homing missile into the shaft. Cheetor slides to a halt and considers his options: "Shredded or sizzled; what a choice!"

 

Cheetor pulls a fast 180^o and jumps over Waspinator's shot with Scorponok's missile right on his tail. Scorponok's and Waspinator's missiles collide and create a fireball, which explodes through the vent shaft after Cheetor, also blowing the two Predacons away. Cheetor manages to just escape the blast and is knocked against a wall, momentarily stunned.

 

Returning to Dinobot and Terrorsaur now, we see the two "allies" walking through the halls of the Maximal base. Terrorsaur is telling Dinobot how the Transporter supposedly works, and then they stop in front of the garbage disposal chutes. Satisfied that he has learned enough to "duplicate the procedure" without "Needle-nose's" help, Dinobot stuffs the Predacon into the chute and ejects him from the base.

 

Optimus arrives and questions Dinobot about the missing survey posts and cat-'bot. Dinobot plays innocent and tells Optimus that he overheard a Predacon communication and that a lightning strike hit the posts and accidentally transported Cheetor to the Darkside.  "Regrettable, yes," the raptor says, "he has surely been destroyed by Megatron." Dinobot goes on to insist that Cheetor's sacrifice has given the Maximals a way to defeat the Predacons. Optimus, believing the raptor, agrees to Dinobot's plan of teleporting the bomb into the "heart of Megatron's lair".

 

Cheetor is hiding from Scorponok and Waspy when he decides to take advantage of an unguarded console. He scans through the Predacon's data, and finds a map showing a large energon vein running under both bases. He notes that an explosion at either base would destroy everyone, and decides to copy the information to disk and send it back to the Maximals. The two Preds spot Cheetor and Scorponok fires another homing missile. Cheetor manages to outrun the missile, flip over Waspinator and Scorponok, and escapes as the missile crashes into the Predacons instead.

 

 Dinobot is about to transport the bomb when Optimus asks him if he's sure the countdown's long enough for the Predacons to escape the base. Dinobot replies if it were any longer, they might disable the bomb. Optimus gives Dinobot the O.K., and the bomb is teleported to the Darkside just as Cheetor tosses the floppy disk onto the Predacon communications console. The bomb appears in the Darkside and the Disk at the Axalon. Optimus tells to computer to play what's on the disk. Cheetor is trying to think of how to get the bomb out of the base when Terrorsaur returns.

 

Megatron tells Terrorsaur to disarm the bomb, but as Terrorsaur is about to do just that, he realizes the bomb's anchored down and will blow in twenty seconds. Cheetor tells the Predacons that he can release the anchors. Megatron agrees to let him try, and as the counter reaches the last five seconds, Cheetor releases the anchors and tosses the bomb to Terrorsaur, who flies it far enough away to prevent both bases from being fried by the explosion.

 

Cheetor transforms and jumps onto the console just as Megatron turns to shoot him, and disappears just as Megatron's laser blast scraps the "transporter". As the cat-'bot gets zapped back through the sensor posts, the posts shatter, destroying the "transporter" system. Cheetor lands grinning like a maniac on the Maximal communications console just as Dinobot and Optimus start reviewing the data on the floppy disk.

 

It's later, and all of the Maximals are gathered in the command center. Rhinox tells Cheetor that they got the disk, and that Cheetor had saved them from themselves. Dinobot gets fed up with the joking around and leaves. Cheetor starts to apologise to Optimus, who in turn lectures him for disobeying orders. Cheetor agrees to "never do that again… until the next time" and runs off as Rattrap and Rhinox burst into laughter. Optimus, seemingly deciding if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, also starts laughing. The episode ends with a view of a sunny day in the mountains surrounding the Maximal base.

 

Notes: Despite the faint toilet sound effect sound when Terrorsaur is "flushed", it supposedly really is just a garbage chute. According to the guys that translated the text on the lid, anyways… Really though, who knows?

 

Reviewed by: Nurannoniel