Cartoon Viewing Club: Zob's Thoughts on "Forever is a Long Time Coming"

[Zobovor]

I believe this is one of the episodes we looked at during the original Cartoon Viewing Club around 2001 or thereabouts, but that was a long time ago. Nothing about the episode has changed, of course, but that's never stopped us before...

"Forever is a Long Time Coming" is episode #74 of the original Transformes series, and is only the fourth episode of season three following in the wake of the "Five Faces of Darkness" mini-series.  It first aired on October 8, 1986.  The episode was penned by the then husband-and-wife writing team of Gerry Conway and Carla Conway, who would later write "Money is Everything."  Gerry Conway gained some notoriety as a writer for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and created the characters of The Punisher and Kiler Croc.  He also rather infamously un-created the character of Gwen Stacy, scripting the story in which she was killed.

So, our episode begins with a small group of Autobots led by Perceptor, on a mission to investigate a nearby asteroid belt.  It seems Perceptor has detected some energy waves, which he calls chronal energy, emanating from a particular bowl-shaped asteroid and is concerned about the ramifications.  With him is perhaps the most preposterous, rag-tag science team ever assembled.  He's accompanied by Wreck-Gar, Blurr, and Blaster, who also has Rewind and Ramhorn inside his tape deck.  Interestingly, Rewind and Ramhorn are active and aware and are even able to contribute to the conversation as the Autobots travel.  Soundwave's tapes never got to do this!  (It's also worth mentioning that, despite the fact that season two rather firmly established that Autobots can't fly, and Galvatron even stated this rule in those exact words in "The Return of Optimus Prime," somehow the Autobots are able to fly through space in this episode with remarkable ease.)

Ramhorn asks, in an odd stutter which he thankfully abandons after this episode, why these specific Autobots were selected for such a mission.  (This is his first speaking role, performed by the late John "Bazooka" Hostetter.)  Perceptor says that Rodimus Prime sent them along for protection, though even he admits the absurdity of it all.  Part of the problem with season three is that The Transformers: the Movie dictated to a large degree which characters would be prominently featured.  Perceptor and Blaster had big movie roles, for example, so they were automatically included as part of the third-season cast.  Characters like Hoist and Smokescreen didn't appear in the movie at all, so they were completely forgotten.  Another problem is that so many characters introduced in the movie were one-note "gimmick" characters.  Transformers have always had very archetypical Smurf-like personalities—Brawn was the tough guy, Gears was the complainer, Tracks was in love with himself, etc.  The third season just takes it to the next level.  You've got Wreck-Gar, the walking TV commercial.  Blurr, who has to chatter inanely to make up for the fact that he talks too fast.  Everybody has to take turns getting a line of dialogue, but when every single character present is a gimmick character, it gets old and interferes with the storytelling.

Wreck-Gar's inclusion in the group also deserves some closer examination.  The Transformers: the Movie establishes that he's from an off-world colony, and isn't a citizen of Cybertron.  Episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness" or "The Big Broadcast of 2006" get it right, depicting him as a friend and ally who lives on Junkion, occasionally shows up to help, and then disappears.  Other episodes like "Chaos" and "The Dweller in the Depths" just treat him like he's a regular member of the Autobot team, no different than Springer or Kup.  It always seems a little strange to me.  It would be like Galvatron leading the charge into battle followed by Cyclonus, Scourge, and a Sharkticon.  

So, as the group nears the asteroid, Sharkticons appear (also flying through space) and open fire.  The battle is on; Ramhorn is suitably pleased.  (Footage of Ramhorn popping out of Blaster's chest was recycled for the historical trailer about Decepticon/Autobot cassette technology.  No footage of Eject was available, I guess because they forgot about The Transformers: the Movie and perhaps the animation for "Madman's Paradise" wasn't finished yet, so they used the footage of Ramhorn instead.  The scene cuts away just before he changes to rhinoceros mode.)  Perceptor asks Blaster to contact Optimus Prime on Moon Base One... wait, no.  He tells him to call Rodimus Prime for backup.  It hardly seems necessary, as the Autobots make quick work of the Sharkticons.  

As they arrive on the asteroid, though, the real danger becomes clear.  The Quintessons (led by a scientist named Inquirata; he's identified in the script but not named in the episode proper) are conducting some time-travel experiments.  They have built a device called a time window, which allows them to open a portal to the distant past.  For those keeping track, this is the third such time-travel technology used on the show (there was the Dragon Mound created by the wizard Beort in "A Deceptacon [sac] Raider in King Atrthur's Court" and Megatron's chronosphere from "War Dawn").  The Quintessons zero in on eleven million years into the past and find their target.  According to the show's history, the Autobot-Decepticon war started around nine million years ago (according to "War Dawn") so this is even farther back.  Indeed, it's prior to the robot revolt and the Quintesson exile from their Cybertron factory-planet, as told in "Five Faces of Darkness."  This episode is really continuity-heavy.  I love it, since I'm a huge fan of the show and its mythos, but this is definitely not an entry-level episode.  Kids watching this who were being introduced to Transformers for the first time would be totally lost.

Perceptor is gunned down by approaching Quintesson warships; the other Autobots effect an escape.  It's not really obvious from the visuals, but the Autobots are chased down and forced to fly into the time window in order to escape.  This is a Korean-animated AKOM installment, and while it's not their worst episode, it does have its share of problems.  One oddity that only the Korean episodes seem to suffer from is that some characters occasionally slip into their early, rejected animation models (the ones that were sent to Marvel Comics before Sunbow updated them).  For example, after arriving through the portal and Wreck-Gar says, "We've come a long way, baby!" (because every child watching this cartoon should get the Virginia Slims reference), he's got extra details and panels on his helmet and body.  This is closer to the original character model devised by Floro Dery before it was simplified for animation.  The 1986 Hasbro toy was based on this design, too.

Rodimus Prime and Superion (who is mistakenly drawn as Perceptor in his first appearance, oops) arrive at the time window and drive the Quintessons away.  Inquirata protests as he is dragged away, warning that the time window hasn't been closed down yet.  When Rodimus realizes his Autobots are missing, he calls out, "Ramhorn? Rewind?" because those are the only two missing Autobots he actually values.  He tends to the damaged Perceptor—explosions go off from behind his eyes and trails of smoke begin wisping from them.  Given that this was the visual language to denote Prowl's death in The Transformers: the Movie, this scene is a little disturbing.  Ever since the movie, the unwritten rules about who could get killed off, and who couldn't, had changed.  After all, Dirge and Ramjet appeared to get on-screen deaths in "Five Faces of Darkness," so at this point anything was possible.  This could easily have been Perceptor's death scene.

Superion separates, and the Aerialbots have a brief discussion.  Air Raid wants to follow the Quintessons, but Silverbolt sees no strategic reason for it.  "How come they made you Aerialbot leader?  You got no sense of adventure!" Air Raid grouses.  "Exactly," Silverbolt replies.  This actually isn't the reason Silverbolt was made Aerialbot leader at all (Optimus Prime elected him to keep his mind off his acrophobia), but it's still a fun moment.

The subject the Quintessons pulled from the time window materializes.  His name is A-3, but of course longtime viewers will recognize him as a younger version of Alpha Trion.  As one of the most venerable Autobots, it makes sense that he would have been around a very long time ago.  It makes less sense that nobody at all seems to recognize him, despite the fact that the only physical design difference is that he's missing his cape and shoulder spikes, and he's wearing a black Rhett Butler moustache.  "What in the name of Alpha Trion?!" utters Rodimus Prime as the robot appears, as if to hammer this point home.  Now, maybe Hot Rod never met Alpha Trion in person, but if nothing else, the Aerialbots should be able to recognize him.  Despite this, Slingshot takes one look at him and balks, "Where's this dinkoid come from?  A toy store?"  Given the nature of the Transformers characters as toys themselves, this is actually a pretty funny meta-commentary.  Rather than casting John Stephenson to play the young Alpha Trion (or recruiting Corey Burton for the role, as they did for "War Dawn") they recast the role yet again.  Years ago, I guessed that it was Tony Pope, and everyone since then seems to have latched onto this idea as if it were etched in stone.  I actually know it's Towsend Coleman now, since his speaking voice is close to Riot from Jem, and the way A-3 screams matches the sounds of Michaelangelo's screams.  Oh, well.  I continue to be responsible for shaping all these facts that "the fandom" has discovered.  (Watch them quietly change the wiki a couple of days after I post this review.)

Back in the past, Rewind says the scenery looks familiar but he's having trouble making a clear recollection.  Rewind is the Autobot archivist and trivia expert, according to his Hasbro toy biography, so there must be something about him that makes him different from other Transformers.  I would venture that, given his ability to read Quintesson glyphs in "Madman's Paradise," his brain stores information that extends much farther back than his own lifespan.  Like all Transformers, though, he has a great amount of difficulty remembering ancient events, probably some kind of failsafe hard-wired into their circuits by the Quintessons.  This is also Rewind's first speaking episode; he's performed, uncredited, by Townsend Coleman, who went on to play Michaelangelo in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

When someone manning a watchtower opens fire on the group, they effect an escape.  It's almost comical how long it takes all of them to get ready.  Blurr transforms to vehicle mode, but he has to wait for Rewind to jump up into the air and transform to cassette tape mode, who slips into Blaster's chest compartment before Blaster, in turn, has to jump up into the air and transform so that he can land in Blurr's waiting cockpit.  It's seriously ten seconds of robots just waiting around for other robots to get transformed and get into each other before they're finally ready to flee.

Suddenly, the Dark Guardians appear.  They look a lot like Omega Supreme, but in fact they're an early version of the Guardian Robots featured in "War Dawn."  The episode doesn't come right out and state this, but we can infer that the Dark Guardians, who served as enforcers for the Quintessons, must have been reprogrammed to serve the Autobots after the Quintesson exile from Cybertron.  As a visual note of interest, the Dark Guardians vacilate between firing orange-colored laser bolts from their mouths (Autobot weaponsfire is usually orange) and blue laser bolts (the color of Decepticon weaponry).  

"We tried flight; now let's fight!" proclaims Blaster, after it becomes clear the Autobots cannot escape from the Guardians.  The Guardian prepares to stomp them into tuna cans; cue the first commercial break.  As we return, a female Autobot warrior with a crossbow appears, firing a bolt that knocks the Dark Guardian over.  "Come!  The Quints have more where he came from.  Will you come?!" she beckons in a nasal voice.  Well, when Sue Blu tells you to come, you'd better come.

So, we learn that in the absence of A-3, the female warrior (whose name is Beta) has become the de facto leader of a slave robot resistance movement against the Quintessons, or the "Quints," as she calls them.  She doesn't identify herself as an Autobot; that term only came into use to describe the consumer slave robots after the Quintesson revolt, according to "Five Faces of Darkness."  Somebody really did their homework.  There's always the risk of creating huge continuity gaffes when writing a history-heavy episode like this, but they pulled it off so well.  Beta recognizes the Autobot insignia on Blurr and the others, though, and identifies it as the slave brand that denotes the Quintesson product line.  (For some reason, the Autobot symbol for A-3, Beta, and the others of this era is orange, rather than the deep red of the contemporary version.)  She says that A-3 wants the slave brand to be remembered as a symbol of freedom rather than one of shame and servitude.

Well, Rewind finally figures out what's going on and precisely where they are.  There's a fun moment where Rewind pops out of Blaster's chest in excitement, and transforms to robot mode to the astonishment of Beta and the others.  Of course they would be surprised; the Autobots don't invent transforming technology until well after the Quintesson exile.  (One wonders if the Autobots witnessing this amazing technology is what led them to developing it in the first place, in a time-paradox sort of way.)  Beta says that A-3 possesses a coda remote device that can immobilize the Dark Guardians, but since he's gone missing, she asks Blaster and the Autobots for help in their planned attack on the Quintesson city.  "Try and stop us!" is Ramhorn's response.

Back in the present-day, Pipes has been recruited to mend the damaged Perceptor, who is muttering incoherently about ripples in the time stream.  When Rodimus asks for a clarification, Pipes just shrugs.  "Beats me," he says.  "Nuts and bolts, I understand.  Theoretical physics?  Nah."  I have always loved his delivery of this line.  It's so off-handed and matter-of-fact.  Pipes is described as little more than a junk hoarder in his Hasbro biography, but he seems to have been recruited as a mechanic or a doctor for this episode.  

On board the Quintesson ship, Inquirata is trying to explain the results of the time window being left open longer than intended.  As the ripples of chonometic energy continue to leak into space, they will disrupt events all over the galaxy.  An Autobot race replays itself over and over.  (The racers include Bumblebee, Jazz, Springer, and Wheelie.  Not many people know that Swerve is present during this race, his only such appearance outside of "Five Faces of Darkness.")  Rivers flow backwards.  Marissa Faireborne, in a cameo appearance, is retro-aged to an infant.  The Quintessons in charge recognize that the time window must be destroyed to prevent further chaos, and plan an assault to demolish the asteroid.

Back on the asteroid, A-3 doesn't trust Rodimus Prime, believing him to be a Quintesson agent.  When the Quintesson assault force arrives, the Autobots defend the time window, knowing that their friends are still lost inside.  A-3 is caught in an explosion and is hurtled into space, screaming pathetically.  Superion rushes to his rescue, but he's caught in a torrent of Quintesson laser fire.  Time for another commercial break!

Superion is essentially about to give up and die, but A-3 seems cognizant of whom he is to become in the future, perhaps because of the time shenanigans.  He temporarily morphs into his future self, reminding Superion of who he is destined to become.  The Aerialbots must recognize, on some level, that Alpha Trion helped build them in "The Key to Vector Sigma," so depedning on your theory of time travel, they could cease to exist if they don't save him.  Thankfully, it becomes a moot issue when the chronal energy rings themselves intervene to save the day, creating a time-displaced duplicate of Superion.  While one remains to guard A-3, another Superion appears behind the Quintesson fleet, firing on the ships and causing them to disperse.

In the aftermath, Pipes is still working on reviving Perceptor, while A-3 begins to question not only who his enemies are, but who he is.  Back in the past, Blaster and the others are preparing to strike against the Dark Guardians protecting Hive City.  (Weirdly, Wheelie has suddenly joined the group of Autobots, probably because his model was used for the race that was repeating itself earlier in the episode.  He's colored as himself in one shot, but colored like Rewind in another.)

Inquirata contacts the Autobots and implores them to set aside their differences in order to shut down the time window and mend the damaged fabric of space-time.  The Autobots are hesitant to cooperate, knowing their missing troops will be trapped forever if they comply.  Inquirata just gets more petulant and more whiny, like a child who wants candy but has been denied.

Back in the past, the fight against the Dark Guardians is on.  Beta blasts one with her crossbow.  Ramhorn finds a tiny rhino-sized one and head-butts it.  This goes on for a while until a Quintesson Judge finally shows up in his hover-chair, describing their rebellion as amusing but warning them that it's time to be good little slaves again if they want to continue functioning.  

One fairly major plot point that's never really addressed at all: where are the Decepticons when all this is going on?  We know they were slave robots, too, who were on Cybertron at the same time as the Autobots.  They would certainly have had a vested interest in freeing themselves of the Quintesson occupation.  So where are they?  They don't even appear in this episode!  My theory is that it's possible that the Autobots and Decepticons formed a temporary alliance, and that their revolt was two-pronged.  While the Autobots were fighting off the Dark Guardians, it's possible the Decepticons were within the depths of Cybertron, securing access to the Vector Sigma chamber.  Vector Sigma is a powerful asset that the Transformers would need to propagate their species, so acquiring it would have been important.  The only problem is that this plan calls for the Autobots to be the aggressors in the war, which doesn't really make sense.  The Decepticons are the war machines.  So, some other explanation is required.  I'm just not sure what.

In the present day, Inquirata has managed to whine Rodimus into submission.  The drawings of the background Autobots are getting more and more indistinct.  Earlier, there were two totally generic robots standing behind Silverbolt who I guess were supposed to be Aerialbots.  When Rodimus agrees to Inquirata's demands, there's a Springer-colored-like-Kup and a who-the-hell-knows colored orange with black legs.  Maybe it's Sandstorm's color scheme.  Maybe it's Tantrum.  At this point, we just don't know.  

Rodimus wants to send someone through the window to recover the missing Autobots, but Inquirata insists there's no time.  A-3 volunteers to jump through and find them, much to the chagrin of the Quintessons.  A-3 reunites with Beta, just in time for the Quints of the ancient past to order the Dark Guardians to execute the rebels.  A-3 removes his Autobot symbol, which is in fact the coda remote device mentioned earlier, and light emanates from the symbol which somehow shuts down all the Guardians (well, except two, I guess, since one of them is destined to become the headless one from "War Dawn" and the other will become Omega Supreme one day).  

A-3 urges the Autobots to return to their own time.  "I guess we can trust you to win this one... after all, you already did!" quips Blaster.  Wheelie is present with the Autobots escaping through the time window again, only this time he's colored like Kup.  This is almost like "The Return of Optimus Prime" in reverse, where Wheelie is specifically mentioned as one of the Autobots present and yet he never actually shows up.

Afterwards, the Autobots finally figure out that A-3 is short for Alpha Trion, and they're all left to ponder whether he could, indeed, be the "father of the Autobots" and the creator of Optimus Prime.  As if there were any doubt.  It's like the Aerialbots were all walking around wearing blinders for the entire episode.  Sheesh.

The original broadcast version of this episode also had the historical trailer about the Predacons attached to it.  The trailers were, I think, frequently tacked onto episode with a short running time to bring them up to the correct length (at least one episode actually had TWO trailers playing after it), though it's also possible that the episodes were short on purpose in order to accommodate the trailers.  The Predacons trailer was pretty cool, using lots of footage from "Chaos" and including a gaffe where Galvatron orders the Predacons to combine into Predaking after they've already done so.  I think it's also the only such time in the show that Rampage and Tantrum are actually identified by name.  The syndicated Sci-Fi Channel version always annoyed me because they cut off the last half of the trailer, actually interrupting Victor Caroli's narration in mid-sentence ("he can lift 500 tons without even straining a circui...")

This is one of the most important episodes of the series.  It covers a major event in Transformers history, though I kind of wish Toei and AKOM had swapped animation duties for this episode and, say, "Surprise Party" so we could have gotten a crisper, cleaner look to the visuals.  Still, I've always said that the raw, rough look of the Korean animation suits the darker, grittier mood of season three.  


Zob (the month of July managed to sneak up on me just as June did)

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

I am a little surprised by how little actually happens in this episode. Quintessons open a time window, extract A3, get chased off by Autobots, A3 is put back and the window is closed.

We start with flying Autobots, and a view of Cybertron that presents it as tiny, assuming that is Cybertron.

We all know that Autobots don't fly, except when they do -- it's apparently a cultural thing, rather than a physical limitation, and we just don't understand the rules. Some friends and I play bridge regularly, and while the game itself is straightforward enough, we use two decks to minimize time spent shuffling, and the rules on who is shuffling when, who cuts, and where the other deck is at any moment confuses all of us, despite it apparently being a simple, deterministic pattern based on the lunar calendar or something. I assume similar rules apply to when Autobots can/will fly.

We have Blaster, Wreck-Gar, Blurr (ick) and Perceptor are off to explore chronal energy readings on a bowl shaped asteroid. Wreck-Gar and Blurr speak enough to make sure we hate them, and Blaster has his tapes chattering away. I don't think Soundwave's tapes ever talk while still inside him.

Sharkticons attack, and are slaughtered by the dozen.

With coordinates of 11M years ago, the Quintessons open the time window, and pull A3 out. Quintesson reinforcements arrive, along with Autobot reinforcements. Hilarity ensues. Or fighting. Quintessons flee over the objections of their scientist, and Blaster, Blurr, Wreck-Gar, Ramhorn and Rewind are in the past.

Rewind finds the entire thing familiar, but cannot quite place it. The guardian robots end up being a tipoff. The stranded Autobots flee, than turn a fight. They are rescued by a chickbot.

The Chickbot meantions that she is taking a risk bringing the Autobots to the warrens, but with the final assault on Hive City being in the morning, what the hell. She then says they don't look like slaves.

After the Chickbot explains that the Quintessions rule Cybertron and have made slaves of all the Transformers, Rewind repeats it. It takes a man repeating the words of a woman to get anyone to believe it.

Rewind ejects, and then transfoms in front of the slave bots -- they don't know about transforming yet, do they? He then explains the Quintessions are trying to change the past so they will still have Autobot slaves in the future/present.

The slaves will attack at dawn, with or without A3 and his McGuffin.

Time ripples, etc. Rodimus doesn't know if they are dangerous. We see the rings affecting the universe, but only as a visualization of the Quintesson scientist's speech. Capt. Faireborne is a babe, and gets naked, etc.

Meanwhile Rodimus makes small talk with A3, who is unwilling to tell Rodimus anything about the rebellion -- an entirely different stance than what Beta had with the stranded Autobots. And the slave brand is brought up again.

Quintessons attack again, desperate to destroy the time window and not destroy the universe. Kup uses a fallen Rodimus as cover. A3 drifts through space and meets up with Superion. A3 morphs into Alpha Trion and back.

And, we get the Quintessons giving the exact same exposition they had just given, about the time window and doom.

11M years ago, the slaves attack with the help of the stranded Autobots.

In the present, Rodimus notes that the stars are flickering and that even the Quintessons don't have that kind of power. In an effort to prove him wrong, a Quintesson scientist appears on a hologram, and explains that the time window must be closed.

In the past, the fight continues. It is very dramatic. And it goes poorly.

The Quintesson scientist is giving instructions for how to close a time window, but the Autobots are reluctant to leave their friends behind, so they throw A3 in. A3 then uses his slave brand to destroy the Dark Guardian robots by shining at them.

Blaster and them go back to the future, and Rodimus blows up with window. Perceptor wakes up, and for the fortieth time in the episode someone mentions that the window needs to be closed. And the Autobots realize A3 was Alpha Trion.

And we get a very long entry from Teletraan One to use up more time -- Predacons and Sky-Lynx.

This is a really, really lightweight episode. The battle against the Quintessons in the past ended anticlimactically as soon as it started, and we learned nothing new about the Transformers, since all of this came up in FFoD. Also, someone needs to close the window.

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 9:00:08 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> I believe this is one of the episodes we looked at during the original Cartoon Viewing Club around 2001 or thereabouts, but that was a long time ago. Nothing about the episode has changed, of course, but that's never stopped us before...

But we have changed. Perhaps another 15 years of life experiences have changed how we view this... Now I want to hunt it down and look.

> "Forever is a Long Time Coming" is episode #74 of the original Transformes series, and is only the fourth episode of season three following in the wake of the "Five Faces of Darkness" mini-series.  It first aired on October 8, 1986.  The episode was penned by the then husband-and-wife writing team of Gerry Conway and Carla Conway, who would later write "Money is Everything."  

I really mostly like "Money is Everything".

> So, our episode begins with a small group of Autobots led by Perceptor, on a mission to investigate a nearby asteroid belt.  It seems Perceptor has detected some energy waves, which he calls chronal energy, emanating from a particular bowl-shaped asteroid and is concerned about the ramifications.  With him is perhaps the most preposterous, rag-tag science team ever assembled.  

They all have weird speech patterns, don't they? Ok, Rewind is normal enough.

> (It's also worth mentioning that, despite the fact that season two rather firmly established that Autobots can't fly, and Galvatron even stated this rule in those exact words in "The Return of Optimus Prime," somehow the Autobots are able to fly through space in this episode with remarkable ease.)

I am convinced it is a refusal to fly -- a cultural taboo against flight while the third moon of Cybertron is not visible or something.

> Another problem is that so many characters introduced in the movie were one-note "gimmick" characters.  Transformers have always had very archetypical Smurf-like personalities—Brawn was the tough guy, Gears was the complainer, Tracks was in love with himself, etc.  The third season just takes it to the next level.  You've got Wreck-Gar, the walking TV commercial.  Blurr, who has to chatter inanely to make up for the fact that he talks too fast.  Everybody has to take turns getting a line of dialogue, but when every single character present is a gimmick character, it gets old and interferes with the storytelling.

They needed Wheelie. His absence is just absurd at this point, with everyone having a speech issue.

> Wreck-Gar's inclusion in the group also deserves some closer examination.  The Transformers: the Movie establishes that he's from an off-world colony, and isn't a citizen of Cybertron.  Episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness" or "The Big Broadcast of 2006" get it right, depicting him as a friend and ally who lives on Junkion, occasionally shows up to help, and then disappears.  Other episodes like "Chaos" and "The Dweller in the Depths" just treat him like he's a regular member of the Autobot team, no different than Springer or Kup.  It always seems a little strange to me.  It would be like Galvatron leading the charge into battle followed by Cyclonus, Scourge, and a Sharkticon.  

I assume that Wreck-Gar visits Cybertron often, and that when he is there, he likes to go on missions.

> As they arrive on the asteroid, though, the real danger becomes clear.  The Quintessons (led by a scientist named Inquirata; he's identified in the script but not named in the episode proper) are conducting some time-travel experiments.  They have built a device called a time window, which allows them to open a portal to the distant past.  For those keeping track, this is the third such time-travel technology used on the show (there was the Dragon Mound created by the wizard Beort in "A Deceptacon [sac] Raider in King Atrthur's Court" and Megatron's chronosphere from "War Dawn").  The Quintessons zero in on eleven million years into the past and find their target.  According to the show's history, the Autobot-Decepticon war started around nine million years ago (according to "War Dawn") so this is even farther back.  Indeed, it's prior to the robot revolt and the Quintesson exile from their Cybertron factory-planet, as told in "Five Faces of Darkness."  This episode is really continuity-heavy.  I love it, since I'm a huge fan of the show and its mythos, but this is definitely not an entry-level episode.  Kids watching this who were being introduced to Transformers for the first time would be totally lost.

It's continuity heavy, but I don't think it adds anything -- we knew about the robot revolution from FFoD, and here we are seeing the beginning.

I also don't think anyone would get lost with this as a first episode, since the plot is so simple.

One thing of note -- the Quintessons are willing to wipe away 11M years of their history to get Cybertron back. I assume this means that Quintessons live for more than 11M years, since I wouldn't want to change history at WWII and discover that I no longer exist.

Also, those 11M years must have sucked. Was Inquirata just dumped by someone he met 10M years ago? Is this his way of wiping that relationship out of existence?

> Superion separates, and the Aerialbots have a brief discussion.  Air Raid wants to follow the Quintessons, but Silverbolt sees no strategic reason for it.  "How come they made you Aerialbot leader?  You got no sense of adventure!" Air Raid grouses.  "Exactly," Silverbolt replies.  This actually isn't the reason Silverbolt was made Aerialbot leader at all (Optimus Prime elected him to keep his mind off his acrophobia), but it's still a fun moment.

The Aerialbots seem to have two personalities among the five of them. Silverbolt the stick in the mud, and the rest of them as reckless and naive. It's a problem with the combiner teams in general, actually, that they rarely get to shine individually.

> Back in the past, Rewind says the scenery looks familiar but he's having trouble making a clear recollection.  Rewind is the Autobot archivist and trivia expert, according to his Hasbro toy biography, so there must be something about him that makes him different from other Transformers.  I would venture that, given his ability to read Quintesson glyphs in "Madman's Paradise," his brain stores information that extends much farther back than his own lifespan.  Like all Transformers, though, he has a great amount of difficulty remembering ancient events, probably some kind of failsafe hard-wired into their circuits by the Quintessons.

Given how little the Transformers remember about their past, I think the Quintessons wiped their minds in an effort to get Cybertron back. And then didn't get Cybertron back.

As far as Rewind goes -- he may have found old records in the archives, or just paid attention of Rodimus' stories about FFoD. Or he's known for all this time and never mentioned it.

> So, we learn that in the absence of A-3, the female warrior (whose name is Beta) has become the de facto leader of a slave robot resistance movement against the Quintessons, or the "Quints," as she calls them.  She doesn't identify herself as an Autobot; that term only came into use to describe the consumer slave robots after the Quintesson revolt, according to "Five Faces of Darkness."  Somebody really did their homework.  There's always the risk of creating huge continuity gaffes when writing a history-heavy episode like this, but they pulled it off so well.  Beta recognizes the Autobot insignia on Blurr and the others, though, and identifies it as the slave brand that denotes the Quintesson product line.  (For some reason, the Autobot symbol for A-3, Beta, and the others of this era is orange, rather than the deep red of the contemporary version.)  She says that A-3 wants the slave brand to be remembered as a symbol of freedom rather than one of shame and servitude.

This begs the question of whether the Decepticon symbol is another slave brand, and why the military hardware wasn't involved in this rebellion.

> Well, Rewind finally figures out what's going on and precisely where they are.  

He was just told, he didn't figure it out. Beta didn't say "Oh, you must be from the future", but she did explain the Quintessons having control of Cybertron...

> Back in the present-day, Pipes has been recruited to mend the damaged Perceptor, who is muttering incoherently about ripples in the time stream.  When Rodimus asks for a clarification, Pipes just shrugs.  "Beats me," he says.  "Nuts and bolts, I understand.  Theoretical physics?  Nah."  I have always loved his delivery of this line.  It's so off-handed and matter-of-fact.  Pipes is described as little more than a junk hoarder in his Hasbro biography, but he seems to have been recruited as a mechanic or a doctor for this episode.

Pipes stands out in this episode. He is probably the most complex character in the episode too. 

> In the aftermath, Pipes is still working on reviving Perceptor, while A-3 begins to question not only who his enemies are, but who he is.  Back in the past, Blaster and the others are preparing to strike against the Dark Guardians protecting Hive City.  (Weirdly, Wheelie has suddenly joined the group of Autobots, probably because his model was used for the race that was repeating itself earlier in the episode.  He's colored as himself in one shot, but colored like Rewind in another.)

See? Wheelie was needed. Pity he didn't speak.

> Inquirata contacts the Autobots and implores them to set aside their differences in order to shut down the time window and mend the damaged fabric of space-time.  The Autobots are hesitant to cooperate, knowing their missing troops will be trapped forever if they comply.  Inquirata just gets more petulant and more whiny, like a child who wants candy but has been denied.

I really dislike how many times they explain the time window in this episode. The scene on the Quintesson ship could have been completely dropped, since they are doing it again here.

> One fairly major plot point that's never really addressed at all: where are the Decepticons when all this is going on?  We know they were slave robots, too, who were on Cybertron at the same time as the Autobots.  They would certainly have had a vested interest in freeing themselves of the Quintesson occupation.  So where are they?  They don't even appear in this episode!  My theory is that it's possible that the Autobots and Decepticons formed a temporary alliance, and that their revolt was two-pronged.  While the Autobots were fighting off the Dark Guardians, it's possible the Decepticons were within the depths of Cybertron, securing access to the Vector Sigma chamber.  Vector Sigma is a powerful asset that the Transformers would need to propagate their species, so acquiring it would have been important.  The only problem is that this plan calls for the Autobots to be the aggressors in the war, which doesn't really make sense.  The Decepticons are the war machines.  So, some other explanation is required.  I'm just not sure what.

I would have like to see them fighting on the side of the Quintessons, like good little slaves... Since this is the beginning of the revolution, maybe the Quintessons built the Decepticons later?

> Rodimus wants to send someone through the window to recover the missing Autobots, but Inquirata insists there's no time.  A-3 volunteers to jump through and find them, much to the chagrin of the Quintessons.

Inquirata shouts "Nooooo!" and then disappears. Did A3 change history so Inquirata no longer existed?

> A-3 reunites with Beta, just in time for the Quints of the ancient past to order the Dark Guardians to execute the rebels.  A-3 removes his Autobot symbol, which is in fact the coda remote device mentioned earlier, and light emanates from the symbol which somehow shuts down all the Guardians (well, except two, I guess, since one of them is destined to become the headless one from "War Dawn" and the other will become Omega Supreme one day).  

I'm sure those ones were somewhere else.

> A-3 urges the Autobots to return to their own time.  "I guess we can trust you to win this one... after all, you already did!" quips Blaster.  Wheelie is present with the Autobots escaping through the time window again, only this time he's colored like Kup.  This is almost like "The Return of Optimus Prime" in reverse, where Wheelie is specifically mentioned as one of the Autobots present and yet he never actually shows up.

I assume Wheelie colored as Kup, Kuppie, is one of your background characters -- a time lost minstrel, speaking only in iambic pentameter.

> Afterwards, the Autobots finally figure out that A-3 is short for Alpha Trion, and they're all left to ponder whether he could, indeed, be the "father of the Autobots" and the creator of Optimus Prime.  As if there were any doubt.  It's like the Aerialbots were all walking around wearing blinders for the entire episode.  Sheesh.
>
>

> This is one of the most important episodes of the series.  It covers a major event in Transformers history, though I kind of wish Toei and AKOM had swapped animation duties for this episode and, say, "Surprise Party" so we could have gotten a crisper, cleaner look to the visuals.  Still, I've always said that the raw, rough look of the Korean animation suits the darker, grittier mood of season three.  

It has so much padding and repeated exposition that I'm not sure it is that important -- what do we learn that wasn't in FFoD? It seems more like a squandered opportunity than anything...

I would have like to know how the idea of Freedom got introduced on Cybertron, or I would have liked the stranded Autobots to have been instrumental in the battle, so the Quintessons sending them back created this timeline (a cliche, but a decent enough one).

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 3:33:04 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

>> Gerry Conway and Carla Conway, who would later write "Money is Everything."  
>
> I really mostly like "Money is Everything".

It's a really good episode for a lot of reasons. We should totally look at that one in August. (It's either that, or I was going to suggest "City of Steel"...)

> I am convinced it is a refusal to fly -- a cultural taboo against flight
> while the third moon of Cybertron is not visible or something.

Oh, so it's "Autobots can't fly" in the same sense as "Catholics can't eat meat during Lent"? Interesting. I tend to think they have really low-powered boosters. In space, they can fly because all it takes is a little push to get them going. On a planet, in an atmosphere, they can make little leaps but can't do all the aerial acrobatics that the Decepticons do.

If it's a refusal to fly, though, then that definitely explains the instances where they totally break the "Autobots can't fly" rule, like in the pilot episode. So why was it okay in "More Than Meets the Eye" but not later? Stakes were too high? New planet, new rules?

> They needed Wheelie. His absence is just absurd at this point, with everyone
> having a speech issue.

Don't make me cough up an edited version of this episode with Wheelie scenes interspersed throughout.

> It's continuity heavy, but I don't think it adds anything -- we knew about
> the robot revolution from FFoD, and here we are seeing the beginning.

All we really learned from "Five Faces of Darkness" was that the robots spontaneously developed emotions and that they didn't like being slaves. The Quintesson exile is a major event that was alluded to, but in this episode we actually got to see it. I think it adds to the story of Alpha Trion and the Guardian Robots, if nothing else.

> I also don't think anyone would get lost with this as a first episode, since
> the plot is so simple.

The episode requires you to know who Alpha Trion is in order for it to make sense. Also, the Quints from the past (the five-faced Judge) don't look like the present-day Quintessons (the Scientist and the Leader) so it's not patently obvious they're from the same group. The plot is pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of details that would go over the head of a first-time viewer.

> One thing of note -- the Quintessons are willing to wipe away 11M years of
> their history to get Cybertron back. I assume this means that Quintessons
> live for more than 11M years, since I wouldn't want to change history at WWII
> and discover that I no longer exist.

Beta says of the slave brand that "for a million years it has been our symbol of shame," so I infer from this that Cybertron, and the Quintessons, are at least 12 million years old.

> Also, those 11M years must have sucked. Was Inquirata just dumped by someone
> he met 10M years ago? Is this his way of wiping that relationship out of
> existence?

Maybe this episode should have been called "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Metaprocessor."

> The Aerialbots seem to have two personalities among the five of them.
> Silverbolt the stick in the mud, and the rest of them as reckless and naive.
> It's a problem with the combiner teams in general, actually, that they rarely
> get to shine individually.

If you read the Hasbro toy biography for every character and allow that to inform their roles in the show, certain details will pop out at you. But, yes, the characterization of the combiner teams was especially bad. I think the Combaticons are probably the most fleshed-out and distinct of the group. You get a real feel for every one of them even from just a few lines of dialogue.

> Given how little the Transformers remember about their past, I think the
> Quintessons wiped their minds in an effort to get Cybertron back. And then
> didn't get Cybertron back.

That's an interesting idea. And then the Transformers, who evidently won that fight, are doomed to wander around for their rest of their lives, with no recollection of the distant past but no idea why they can't remember it.

> This begs the question of whether the Decepticon symbol is another slave
> brand, and why the military hardware wasn't involved in this rebellion.

The Decepticons' absence is really glaring. I refuse to believe that they had absolutely no role in the rebellion against the Quintessons.

> Pipes stands out in this episode.

I don't think he made an appearance after this. Sad!

> I really dislike how many times they explain the time window in this episode.
> The scene on the Quintesson ship could have been completely dropped, since
> they are doing it again here.

Time travel is kind of a sticky concept, since everybody does it differently. You almost have to spell out the rules every time you do a time travel story, because you have to establish what is and isn't possible. If the Autobots aren't successful in helping A-3, are they going to slowly fade out of existence like Marty McFly? Is the timeline set in stone, or can it be altered? Can you go back in time and kill yourself as a baby, or does it create a time paradox that destroys the Universe?

I don't really understand why the time window does what it does. It seems like it's so powerful that it just rips holes in space-time when it's left open too long. Compare this to, say, Megatron's chronosphere from "War Dawn." It doesn't have these kinds of deleterious effects on reality. Neither does the Dragon Mound from "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court."

One interesting thing about all these Transformers time travel stories is that in every single one of them, they play out as though the interlopers who are messing with history were always "supposed" to be there, as if this were the way events were always intended to play out. You would think that saving the past would end up having a disastrous effect on the future, "City on the Edge of Forever" style.

> I would have like to see them fighting on the side of the Quintessons, like
> good little slaves... Since this is the beginning of the revolution, maybe
> the Quintessons built the Decepticons later?

Everything from "Five Faces of Darkness" suggests that the two Quintesson product lines (consumer goods and military hardware) were produced concurrently. Unless you're suggesting that the Quintessons actually devised the Decepticons in response to the Autobot revolt. That's kind of interesting, too. It would explain why they made the switch from household robots to warlike ones. It might also explain why Decepticons have superior flight technology... it was an innovation that came later.

> Inquirata shouts "Nooooo!" and then disappears. Did A3 change history so
> Inquirata no longer existed?

Vindicator once wrote this amazing essay about Alpha Trion and how he basically manipulated the flow of time to achieve his own ends. The essay mentions something about how as soon as A-3 returned to the past, he made sure Inquirata would never mess with time travel again. This has some chilling ramifications.

> I assume Wheelie colored as Kup, Kuppie, is one of your background characters
> -- a time lost minstrel, speaking only in iambic pentameter.

I haven't developed a name or back story for him yet. Since there are two of them (Rewind-colored one and a Kup-colored one), I almost want all three of them to have names with the same rhythm or cadence. Wheelie, Stoppie, and Burnout?

> It has so much padding and repeated exposition that I'm not sure it is that
> important -- what do we learn that wasn't in FFoD? It seems more like a
> squandered opportunity than anything...

You didn't feel like there was padding in "Dinobot Island," but you feel like this episode is padded? I just don't get you sometimes.

> I would have liked the stranded Autobots to have been instrumental in the
> battle, so the Quintessons sending them back created this timeline (a cliche,
> but a decent enough one).

Yeah, Blaster and co. didn't really do anything that Beta and her soldiers couldn't have achieved on their own. Leaving right before the battle was resolved seems like a bit of a cop-out.

Realistically, A-3 should have remembered Blaster when he helped build the Aerialbots in "The Key to Vector Sigma." Of course, as soon as he finished building the Aerialbots, he should have instantly recognized them, too. (Vindicator's essay also said something about how Alpha Trion must have absolutely insisted on the Superion configuration, knowing that Superion would one day be required to save A-3's life.)


Zob (time travel gives me headaches)

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 2:52:10 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> I am a little surprised by how little actually happens in this episode.
> Quintessons open a time window, extract A3, get chased off by Autobots, A3 is
> put back and the window is closed.

I've watched this episode so many times that it's hard for me to look at it with fresh eyes. I remember that it bothered me a little when I first saw it, though. Maybe this is why.

> We all know that Autobots don't fly, except when they do -- it's apparently a
> cultural thing, rather than a physical limitation, and we just don't
> understand the rules.

Maybe the Autobots signed a treaty with the Decepticons at some point. Sort of like in Star Trek when the Federation promised not to develop cloaking technology for their ships (but did it anyway).

> Blaster has his tapes chattering away. I don't think Soundwave's tapes ever
> talk while still inside him.

That's because Soundwave's kids actually know how to behave, unlike Blaster's obnoxious little miscreants.

> The Chickbot meantions that she is taking a risk bringing the Autobots to the
> warrens, but with the final assault on Hive City being in the morning, what
> the hell. She then says they don't look like slaves.

It's actually kind of interesting how Beta and A-3 react to the modern-day Autobots. Beta immediately assumes the Autobots are rebels like herself, even though they're built a lot differently. Meanwhile, A-3 is instantly on the defensive, figuring Rodimus Prime must be a Quintesson agent. Why in the world would he think that? Were there robots wearing the slave brand who were actually loyal to the Quintessons?

> Also, someone needs to close the window.

This whole episode probably owes its origins to Gerry and Carla at home. Carla yells at Gerry, "How many times have I told you?! Close that window!" and Gerry gets an idea for a new cartoon script...


Zob (my brain generates lots of writing ideas when I'm at work and my higher brain functions are no longer required)

[Gustavo Wombat]

Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 3:33:04 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>>> Gerry Conway and Carla Conway, who would later write "Money is Everything."  
>>
>> I really mostly like "Money is Everything".
>
> It's a really good episode for a lot of reasons. We should totally look
> at that one in August. (It's either that, or I was going to suggest "City of Steel"...)

>> They needed Wheelie. His absence is just absurd at this point, with everyone
>> having a speech issue.
>
> Don't make me cough up an edited version of this episode with Wheelie
> scenes interspersed throughout.

Has Wheelie ever appeared without Daniel? I don't want to have to drag
Daniel into this too...

>> It's continuity heavy, but I don't think it adds anything -- we knew about
>> the robot revolution from FFoD, and here we are seeing the beginning.
>
> All we really learned from "Five Faces of Darkness" was that the robots
> spontaneously developed emotions and that they didn't like being slaves.
> The Quintesson exile is a major event that was alluded to, but in this
> episode we actually got to see it. I think it adds to the story of Alpha
> Trion and the Guardian Robots, if nothing else.

We didn't get to see the Quintesson exile, or any significant battles. We
had A3 shine a light from his slave brand, but had no explanation for why
his did that, or whether this battle was even particularly significant. We
know A3 was significant, but we don't know that the Quintessons pulled him
out from a significant moment.

>> I also don't think anyone would get lost with this as a first episode, since
>> the plot is so simple.
>
> The episode requires you to know who Alpha Trion is in order for it to
> make sense. Also, the Quints from the past (the five-faced Judge) don't
> look like the present-day Quintessons (the Scientist and the Leader) so
> it's not patently obvious they're from the same group. The plot is
> pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of details that would go over
> the head of a first-time viewer.

The design of the Quintessons uses a lot of similar aspects -- they are
clearly related. It's just like how you can tell your Transformers apart
from the other species.

And I don't think there are details that would be needed by a first time
viewer that they would miss. The story is fine just knowing that somehow A3
was important.

>> One thing of note -- the Quintessons are willing to wipe away 11M years of
>> their history to get Cybertron back. I assume this means that Quintessons
>> live for more than 11M years, since I wouldn't want to change history at WWII
>> and discover that I no longer exist.
>
> Beta says of the slave brand that "for a million years it has been our
> symbol of shame," so I infer from this that Cybertron, and the
> Quintessons, are at least 12 million years old.

None of the Transformers from that time are still alive in the present day,
to the best of our knowledge. Alpha Trion died a few years before this, and
Kup might not be that old.

The individual Quintessons, however, would seem to be that old, because
they seem to think that they will personally be fine if they change history
that far back. Maybe the Quintessons don't have such a strong sense of
self, which is why we never really learn their names.

>> Also, those 11M years must have sucked. Was Inquirata just dumped by someone
>> he met 10M years ago? Is this his way of wiping that relationship out of
>> existence?
>
> Maybe this episode should have been called "Eternal Sunshine of the
> Spotless Metaprocessor."

The Richard Donner cut of Superman II has the original ending intended for
Superman II -- turning the Earth backwards (they were shooting the two
movies at the same time, and needed to release the first one so they used
that ending, and then Donner was fired... only to come back years later and
recut the movie into a masterpiece of spite). When watched after the first
movie, you discover that he always turns back time to solve every problem.

Also, he gets beat up in a bar when powerless, turns back time, and then
beats up those bullies -- who now had never done anything! I mean, they
were bad people who deserved it, but they were being punished for something
they never did.

When I started this, it seemed connected... oh well.

>> The Aerialbots seem to have two personalities among the five of them.
>> Silverbolt the stick in the mud, and the rest of them as reckless and naive.
>> It's a problem with the combiner teams in general, actually, that they rarely
>> get to shine individually.
>
> If you read the Hasbro toy biography for every character and allow that
> to inform their roles in the show, certain details will pop out at you.
> But, yes, the characterization of the combiner teams was especially bad.
> I think the Combaticons are probably the most fleshed-out and distinct of
> the group. You get a real feel for every one of them even from just a
> few lines of dialogue.

The Stunticons have distinct personalities too. Even the Protectobots.

The fact that all the Aerialbots look alike doesn't help. (And don't try to
quiz me on the specific character traits of Constructicons)

>> Given how little the Transformers remember about their past, I think the
>> Quintessons wiped their minds in an effort to get Cybertron back. And then
>> didn't get Cybertron back.
>
> That's an interesting idea. And then the Transformers, who evidently won
> that fight, are doomed to wander around for their rest of their lives,
> with no recollection of the distant past but no idea why they can't remember it.
>
>> This begs the question of whether the Decepticon symbol is another slave
>> brand, and why the military hardware wasn't involved in this rebellion.
>
> The Decepticons' absence is really glaring. I refuse to believe that
> they had absolutely no role in the rebellion against the Quintessons.

This is very early in the rebellion. I think that shining a light on the
Sentinels and destroying them inspired the other slaves to fight back. This
may have caused the Quintessons to build guard robots to put down the
rebellion, until they rebelled and became the Decepticons.

But, none of that is shown or even hinted at. And that's why I think the
episode is very content free -- there's a lot of exposition, but a lot of
it is exposition we've already gotten a moment before in the episode, so
there's very little added to the universe. Fine, Beta exists and A3 is
really old, that's new.

>> Pipes stands out in this episode.
>
> I don't think he made an appearance after this. Sad!
>
>> I really dislike how many times they explain the time window in this episode.
>> The scene on the Quintesson ship could have been completely dropped, since
>> they are doing it again here.
>
> Time travel is kind of a sticky concept, since everybody does it
> differently. You almost have to spell out the rules every time you do a
> time travel story, because you have to establish what is and isn't possible.

This episode has:
- Quintessons explaining to Quintessons how the window must be closed
- Perceptor explaining it
- Quintessons explaining it to Autobots
- A3 explaining it to Blaster

That's a lot. And it's really repetitive.

A decent script editor could chop out a lot of scenes (the Quintessons
discussing it amongst themselves, and just get rid of Perceptor
completely), and free up 5-10 minutes for expand the story in the past,
which is the interesting story.

Autobots drive away Quintessons, Quintessons try to destroy the window,
then the Quintessons explain the disasterous consequences to the Autobots
-- we would learn some motivations after the events they motivated, and
things would become clear.

>If the Autobots aren't successful in helping A-3, are they going to slowly
> fade out of existence like Marty McFly? Is the timeline set in stone, or
> can it be altered? Can you go back in time and kill yourself as a baby,
> or does it create a time paradox that destroys the Universe?

The entire point of the time window is that you can alter the past. I
assume the Quintessons have been using something like this forever, and
that for all their efforts of changing their history, this is the best they
were able to do.

> I don't really understand why the time window does what it does. It
> seems like it's so powerful that it just rips holes in space-time when
> it's left open too long. Compare this to, say, Megatron's chronosphere
> from "War Dawn." It doesn't have these kinds of deleterious effects on
> reality. Neither does the Dragon Mound from "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court."

Neither of those stay open, they activate briefly. It might not be the best
answer, but it's something.

> One interesting thing about all these Transformers time travel stories is
> that in every single one of them, they play out as though the interlopers
> who are messing with history were always "supposed" to be there, as if
> this were the way events were always intended to play out. You would
> think that saving the past would end up having a disastrous effect on the
> future, "City on the Edge of Forever" style.

We have no idea whether Blaster and the gang were supposed to be there or
not -- they barely did anything.

>> I would have like to see them fighting on the side of the Quintessons, like
>> good little slaves... Since this is the beginning of the revolution, maybe
>> the Quintessons built the Decepticons later?

> Everything from "Five Faces of Darkness" suggests that the two Quintesson
> product lines (consumer goods and military hardware) were produced
> concurrently. Unless you're suggesting that the Quintessons actually
> devised the Decepticons in response to the Autobot revolt. That's kind
> of interesting, too. It would explain why they made the switch from
> household robots to warlike ones. It might also explain why Decepticons
> have superior flight technology... it was an innovation that came later.
>
>> Inquirata shouts "Nooooo!" and then disappears. Did A3 change history so
>> Inquirata no longer existed?
>
> Vindicator once wrote this amazing essay about Alpha Trion and how he
> basically manipulated the flow of time to achieve his own ends. The
> essay mentions something about how as soon as A-3 returned to the past,
> he made sure Inquirata would never mess with time travel again. This has
> some chilling ramifications.

I like the idea that Inquirata was erased from history after being killed
in the past because he was meddling with time travel.

>> I assume Wheelie colored as Kup, Kuppie, is one of your background characters
>> -- a time lost minstrel, speaking only in iambic pentameter.
>
> I haven't developed a name or back story for him yet. Since there are
> two of them (Rewind-colored one and a Kup-colored one), I almost want all
> three of them to have names with the same rhythm or cadence. Wheelie,
> Stoppie, and Burnout?

I have no idea. Wheelie is such a bad name for Wheelie.

>> It has so much padding and repeated exposition that I'm not sure it is that
>> important -- what do we learn that wasn't in FFoD? It seems more like a
>> squandered opportunity than anything...
>
> You didn't feel like there was padding in "Dinobot Island," but you feel
> like this episode is padded? I just don't get you sometimes.

Dinobot Island had padding, but it was mostly different padding. Yes, the
boat scenes and the Wild West scenes were basically interchangeable and you
didn't need both, but they were at least different. Here, we have the same
exposition being repeated over and over.

And, I would have rather seen either the cowboys or the pirates in full,
and a montage of a larger number of incursions in Dinobot Island, to speed
it up.

>> I would have liked the stranded Autobots to have been instrumental in the
>> battle, so the Quintessons sending them back created this timeline (a cliche,
>> but a decent enough one).
>
> Yeah, Blaster and co. didn't really do anything that Beta and her
> soldiers couldn't have achieved on their own. Leaving right before the
> battle was resolved seems like a bit of a cop-out.

The entire trip to the past felt like filler since nothing really happened
there.

> Realistically, A-3 should have remembered Blaster when he helped build
> the Aerialbots in "The Key to Vector Sigma." Of course, as soon as he
> finished building the Aerialbots, he should have instantly recognized
> them, too. (Vindicator's essay also said something about how Alpha Trion
> must have absolutely insisted on the Superion configuration, knowing that
> Superion would one day be required to save A-3's life.)
>
>
> Zob (time travel gives me headaches)
>

A3 probably just pretended he didn't recognize them, to preserve the
timeline.


--
I wish I was a mole in the ground.

[Gustavo Wombat]

Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, July 16, 2017 at 2:52:10 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the

> Seattle Wombats hat's because Soundwave's kids actually know how to

> behave, unlike Blaster's obnoxious little miscreants.
>
>> The Chickbot meantions that she is taking a risk bringing the Autobots to the
>> warrens, but with the final assault on Hive City being in the morning, what
>> the hell. She then says they don't look like slaves.
>
> It's actually kind of interesting how Beta and A-3 react to the
> modern-day Autobots. Beta immediately assumes the Autobots are rebels
> like herself, even though they're built a lot differently. Meanwhile,
> A-3 is instantly on the defensive, figuring Rodimus Prime must be a
> Quintesson agent. Why in the world would he think that? Were there
> robots wearing the slave brand who were actually loyal to the Quintessons?

If this was early, and only a few of the Autobot line were rebelling, than
maybe. Did they all learn about freedom at the same instant? Probably not.

I like to think that the notion of freedom was brought back to Cybertron by
leased servant robots that went back to the factory after the lease was up,
and then brought dangerous ideas with them.

Elsewhere, some planets the Quintessons sold robots to had robot
uprisings... oops, but no big deal for the Quintessons. Bring a rebellious
robot back, and let him mention freedom and self-determination to the
others, though, and now you have a problem for the Quintessons.

>> Also, someone needs to close the window.
>
> This whole episode probably owes its origins to Gerry and Carla at home.
> Carla yells at Gerry, "How many times have I told you?! Close that
> window!" and Gerry gets an idea for a new cartoon script...
>
>
> Zob (my brain generates lots of writing ideas when I'm at work and my
> higher brain functions are no longer required)
>

[Rodimus_2316]

Sorry for the last response...

On Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 9:00:08 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> I believe this is one of the episodes we looked at during the original Cartoon Viewing Club around 2001 or thereabouts, but that was a long time ago. Nothing about the episode has changed, of course, but that's never stopped us before...
>

> "Forever is a Long Time Coming" is episode #74 of the original Transformers series, and is only the fourth episode of season three following in the wake of the "Five Faces of Darkness" mini-series.  It first aired on October 8, 1986.  The episode was penned by the then husband-and-wife writing team of Gerry Conway and Carla Conway, who would later write "Money is Everything."  Gerry Conway gained some notoriety as a writer for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and created the characters of The Punisher and Kiler Croc.  He also rather infamously un-created the character of Gwen Stacy, scripting the story in which she was killed.

Wow, I honestly didn't know all that about the guy. I don't usually look up that stuff that stuff as much as I should.

> So, our episode begins with a small group of Autobots led by Perceptor, on a mission to investigate a nearby asteroid belt.  It seems Perceptor has detected some energy waves, which he calls chronal energy, emanating from a particular bowl-shaped asteroid and is concerned about the ramifications.  With him is perhaps the most preposterous, rag-tag science team ever assembled.  He's accompanied by Wreck-Gar, Blurr, and Blaster, who also has Rewind and Ramhorn inside his tape deck.  Interestingly, Rewind and Ramhorn are active and aware and are even able to contribute to the conversation as the Autobots travel.  Soundwave's tapes never got to do this!  (It's also worth mentioning that, despite the fact that season two rather firmly established that Autobots can't fly, and Galvatron even stated this rule in those exact words in "The Return of Optimus Prime," somehow the Autobots are able to fly through space in this episode with remarkable ease.)

Well, Ravage did kinda talk once in Soundwave's chest in one of the MTMTE eps from S1: "(Something) due west of the Autobot camp." And the Autobots also flew in a MTMTE ep to a power plant to take on the Decepticons there, and such. I agree they should have made more sense than that. With Autobots flying in space, you might be able to justify it as that as there's no gravity, perhaps they're able to propel themselves though it?

> Ramhorn asks, in an odd stutter which he thankfully abandons after this episode, why these specific Autobots were selected for such a mission.  (This is his first speaking role, performed by the late John "Bazooka" Hostetter.)  Perceptor says that Rodimus Prime sent them along for protection, though even he admits the absurdity of it all.  Part of the problem with season three is that The Transformers: the Movie dictated to a large degree which characters would be prominently featured.  Perceptor and Blaster had big movie roles, for example, so they were automatically included as part of the third-season cast.  Characters like Hoist and Smokescreen didn't appear in the movie at all, so they were completely forgotten.  Another problem is that so many characters introduced in the movie were one-note "gimmick" characters.  Transformers have always had very archetypical Smurf-like personalities—Brawn was the tough guy, Gears was the complainer, Tracks was in love with himself, etc.  The third season just takes it to the next level.  You've got Wreck-Gar, the walking TV commercial.  Blurr, who has to chatter inanely to make up for the fact that he talks too fast.  Everybody has to take turns getting a line of dialogue, but when every single character present is a gimmick character, it gets old and interferes with the storytelling.
>
> Wreck-Gar's inclusion in the group also deserves some closer examination.  The Transformers: the Movie establishes that he's from an off-world colony, and isn't a citizen of Cybertron.  Episodes like "Five Faces of Darkness" or "The Big Broadcast of 2006" get it right, depicting him as a friend and ally who lives on Junkion, occasionally shows up to help, and then disappears.  Other episodes like "Chaos" and "The Dweller in the Depths" just treat him like he's a regular member of the Autobot team, no different than Springer or Kup.  It always seems a little strange to me.  It would be like Galvatron leading the charge into battle followed by Cyclonus, Scourge, and a Sharkticon.  

Yeah, it's strange to me too. And are the Junkions some splinter-faction of Autobots that left Cybertron long ago, and somehow became the way they are? I think that needs a backstory too.

> So, as the group nears the asteroid, Sharkticons appear (also flying through space) and open fire.  The battle is on; Ramhorn is suitably pleased.  (Footage of Ramhorn popping out of Blaster's chest was recycled for the historical trailer about Decepticon/Autobot cassette technology.  No footage of Eject was available, I guess because they forgot about The Transformers: the Movie and perhaps the animation for "Madman's Paradise" wasn't finished yet, so they used the footage of Ramhorn instead.  The scene cuts away just before he changes to rhinoceros mode.)  Perceptor asks Blaster to contact Optimus Prime on Moon Base One... wait, no.  He tells him to call Rodimus Prime for backup.  It hardly seems necessary, as the Autobots make quick work of the Sharkticons.  

I guess maybe they couldn't use the TFTM footage of Eject as the animation was much better than S3's by comparison, and perhaps the film featured him, Rewind, Steeljaw and Ramhorn altogether at once and for a short period? Eject should have gotten more use in S3, as his techspecs say he quotes sports cliches, which would have been interesting to explore.

> As they arrive on the asteroid, though, the real danger becomes clear.  The Quintessons (led by a scientist named Inquirata; he's identified in the script but not named in the episode proper) are conducting some time-travel experiments.  They have built a device called a time window, which allows them to open a portal to the distant past.  For those keeping track, this is the third such time-travel technology used on the show (there was the Dragon Mound created by the wizard Beort in "A Decepticon [sac] Raider in King Atrthur's Court" and Megatron's chronosphere from "War Dawn").  The Quintessons zero in on eleven million years into the past and find their target.  According to the show's history, the Autobot-Decepticon war started around nine million years ago (according to "War Dawn") so this is even farther back.  Indeed, it's prior to the robot revolt and the Quintesson exile from their Cybertron factory-planet, as told in "Five Faces of Darkness."  This episode is really continuity-heavy.  I love it, since I'm a huge fan of the show and its mythos, but this is definitely not an entry-level episode.  Kids watching this who were being introduced to Transformers for the first time would be totally lost.

So would the theory fit that the Quints made Cybertron and its robots 11 miilion years ago, then at some point they were driven off-world by their constructs, only to lead into a long civil war between the two sides for 2 million years (first two great wars), then they made peace, then Megatron was made, and started the third war which either ended at the end of TFTM or was still active at the time of S3? That last part was never clear.

> Perceptor is gunned down by approaching Quintesson warships; the other Autobots effect an escape.  It's not really obvious from the visuals, but the Autobots are chased down and forced to fly into the time window in order to escape.  This is a Korean-animated AKOM installment, and while it's not their worst episode, it does have its share of problems.  One oddity that only the Korean episodes seem to suffer from is that some characters occasionally slip into their early, rejected animation models (the ones that were sent to Marvel Comics before Sunbow updated them).  For example, after arriving through the portal and Wreck-Gar says, "We've come a long way, baby!" (because every child watching this cartoon should get the Virginia Slims reference), he's got extra details and panels on his helmet and body.  This is closer to the original character model devised by Floro Dery before it was simplified for animation.  The 1986 Hasbro toy was based on this design, too.
>
> Rodimus Prime and Superion (who is mistakenly drawn as Perceptor in his first appearance, oops) arrive at the time window and drive the Quintessons away.  Inquirata protests as he is dragged away, warning that the time window hasn't been closed down yet.  When Rodimus realizes his Autobots are missing, he calls out, "Ramhorn? Rewind?" because those are the only two missing Autobots he actually values.  He tends to the damaged Perceptor—explosions go off from behind his eyes and trails of smoke begin wisping from them.  Given that this was the visual language to denote Prowl's death in The Transformers: the Movie, this scene is a little disturbing.  Ever since the movie, the unwritten rules about who could get killed off, and who couldn't, had changed.  After all, Dirge and Ramjet appeared to get on-screen deaths in "Five Faces of Darkness," so at this point anything was possible.  This could easily have been Perceptor's death scene.

And Dirge and Thrust appear in Ghost In The Machine.

> Superion separates, and the Aerialbots have a brief discussion.  Air Raid wants to follow the Quintessons, but Silverbolt sees no strategic reason for it.  "How come they made you Aerialbot leader?  You got no sense of adventure!" Air Raid grouses.  "Exactly," Silverbolt replies.  This actually isn't the reason Silverbolt was made Aerialbot leader at all (Optimus Prime elected him to keep his mind off his acrophobia), but it's still a fun moment.

I agree.

> The subject the Quintessons pulled from the time window materializes.  His name is A-3, but of course longtime viewers will recognize him as a younger version of Alpha Trion.  As one of the most venerable Autobots, it makes sense that he would have been around a very long time ago.  It makes less sense that nobody at all seems to recognize him, despite the fact that the only physical design difference is that he's missing his cape and shoulder spikes, and he's wearing a black Rhett Butler moustache.  "What in the name of Alpha Trion?!" utters Rodimus Prime as the robot appears, as if to hammer this point home.  Now, maybe Hot Rod never met Alpha Trion in person, but if nothing else, the Aerialbots should be able to recognize him.  Despite this, Slingshot takes one look at him and balks, "Where's this dinkoid come from?  A toy store?"  Given the nature of the Transformers characters as toys themselves, this is actually a pretty funny meta-commentary.  Rather than casting John Stephenson to play the young Alpha Trion (or recruiting Corey Burton for the role, as they did for "War Dawn") they recast the role yet again.  Years ago, I guessed that it was Tony Pope, and everyone since then seems to have latched onto this idea as if it were etched in stone.  I actually know it's Towsend Coleman now, since his speaking voice is close to Riot from Jem, and the way A-3 screams matches the sounds of Michaelangelo's screams.  Oh, well.  I continue to be responsible for shaping all these facts that "the fandom" has discovered.  (Watch them quietly change the wiki a couple of days after I post this review.)

Why did A3 just materailize there like that?

> Back in the past, Rewind says the scenery looks familiar but he's having trouble making a clear recollection.  Rewind is the Autobot archivist and trivia expert, according to his Hasbro toy biography, so there must be something about him that makes him different from other Transformers.  I would venture that, given his ability to read Quintesson glyphs in "Madman's Paradise," his brain stores information that extends much farther back than his own lifespan.  Like all Transformers, though, he has a great amount of difficulty remembering ancient events, probably some kind of failsafe hard-wired into their circuits by the Quintessons.  This is also Rewind's first speaking episode; he's performed, uncredited, by Townsend Coleman, who went on to play Michaelangelo in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
>
> When someone manning a watchtower opens fire on the group, they effect an escape.  It's almost comical how long it takes all of them to get ready.  Blurr transforms to vehicle mode, but he has to wait for Rewind to jump up into the air and transform to cassette tape mode, who slips into Blaster's chest compartment before Blaster, in turn, has to jump up into the air and transform so that he can land in Blurr's waiting cockpit.  It's seriously ten seconds of robots just waiting around for other robots to get transformed and get into each other before they're finally ready to flee.
>
> Suddenly, the Dark Guardians appear.  They look a lot like Omega Supreme, but in fact they're an early version of the Guardian Robots featured in "War Dawn."  The episode doesn't come right out and state this, but we can infer that the Dark Guardians, who served as enforcers for the Quintessons, must have been reprogrammed to serve the Autobots after the Quintesson exile from Cybertron.  As a visual note of interest, the Dark Guardians vacilate between firing orange-colored laser bolts from their mouths (Autobot weaponsfire is usually orange) and blue laser bolts (the color of Decepticon weaponry).  
>
> "We tried flight; now let's fight!" proclaims Blaster, after it becomes clear the Autobots cannot escape from the Guardians.  The Guardian prepares to stomp them into tuna cans; cue the first commercial break.  As we return, a female Autobot warrior with a crossbow appears, firing a bolt that knocks the Dark Guardian over.  "Come!  The Quints have more where he came from.  Will you come?!" she beckons in a nasal voice.  Well, when Sue Blu tells you to come, you'd better come.
>
> So, we learn that in the absence of A-3, the female warrior (whose name is Beta) has become the de facto leader of a slave robot resistance movement against the Quintessons, or the "Quints," as she calls them.  She doesn't identify herself as an Autobot; that term only came into use to describe the consumer slave robots after the Quintesson revolt, according to "Five Faces of Darkness."  Somebody really did their homework.  There's always the risk of creating huge continuity gaffes when writing a history-heavy episode like this, but they pulled it off so well.  Beta recognizes the Autobot insignia on Blurr and the others, though, and identifies it as the slave brand that denotes the Quintesson product line.  (For some reason, the Autobot symbol for A-3, Beta, and the others of this era is orange, rather than the deep red of the contemporary version.)  She says that A-3 wants the slave brand to be remembered as a symbol of freedom rather than one of shame and servitude.
>
> Well, Rewind finally figures out what's going on and precisely where they are.  There's a fun moment where Rewind pops out of Blaster's chest in excitement, and transforms to robot mode to the astonishment of Beta and the others.  Of course they would be surprised; the Autobots don't invent transforming technology until well after the Quintesson exile.  (One wonders if the Autobots witnessing this amazing technology is what led them to developing it in the first place, in a time-paradox sort of way.)  Beta says that A-3 possesses a coda remote device that can immobilize the Dark Guardians, but since he's gone missing, she asks Blaster and the Autobots for help in their planned attack on the Quintesson city.  "Try and stop us!" is Ramhorn's response.
>
> Back in the present-day, Pipes has been recruited to mend the damaged Perceptor, who is muttering incoherently about ripples in the time stream.  When Rodimus asks for a clarification, Pipes just shrugs.  "Beats me," he says.  "Nuts and bolts, I understand.  Theoretical physics?  Nah."  I have always loved his delivery of this line.  It's so off-handed and matter-of-fact.  Pipes is described as little more than a junk hoarder in his Hasbro biography, but he seems to have been recruited as a mechanic or a doctor for this episode.  
>
> On board the Quintesson ship, Inquirata is trying to explain the results of the time window being left open longer than intended.  As the ripples of chonometic energy continue to leak into space, they will disrupt events all over the galaxy.  An Autobot race replays itself over and over.  (The racers include Bumblebee, Jazz, Springer, and Wheelie.  Not many people know that Swerve is present during this race, his only such appearance outside of "Five Faces of Darkness.")  Rivers flow backwards.  Marissa Faireborne, in a cameo appearance, is retro-aged to an infant.  The Quintessons in charge recognize that the time window must be destroyed to prevent further chaos, and plan an assault to demolish the asteroid.
>
> Back on the asteroid, A-3 doesn't trust Rodimus Prime, believing him to be a Quintesson agent.  When the Quintesson assault force arrives, the Autobots defend the time window, knowing that their friends are still lost inside.  A-3 is caught in an explosion and is hurtled into space, screaming pathetically.  Superion rushes to his rescue, but he's caught in a torrent of Quintesson laser fire.  Time for another commercial break!
>
> Superion is essentially about to give up and die, but A-3 seems cognizant of whom he is to become in the future, perhaps because of the time shenanigans.  He temporarily morphs into his future self, reminding Superion of who he is destined to become.  The Aerialbots must recognize, on some level, that Alpha Trion helped build them in "The Key to Vector Sigma," so depedning on your theory of time travel, they could cease to exist if they don't save him.  Thankfully, it becomes a moot issue when the chronal energy rings themselves intervene to save the day, creating a time-displaced duplicate of Superion.  While one remains to guard A-3, another Superion appears behind the Quintesson fleet, firing on the ships and causing them to disperse.
>
> In the aftermath, Pipes is still working on reviving Perceptor, while A-3 begins to question not only who his enemies are, but who he is.  Back in the past, Blaster and the others are preparing to strike against the Dark Guardians protecting Hive City.  (Weirdly, Wheelie has suddenly joined the group of Autobots, probably because his model was used for the race that was repeating itself earlier in the episode.  He's colored as himself in one shot, but colored like Rewind in another.)
>
> Inquirata contacts the Autobots and implores them to set aside their differences in order to shut down the time window and mend the damaged fabric of space-time.  The Autobots are hesitant to cooperate, knowing their missing troops will be trapped forever if they comply.  Inquirata just gets more petulant and more whiny, like a child who wants candy but has been denied.
>
> Back in the past, the fight against the Dark Guardians is on.  Beta blasts one with her crossbow.  Ramhorn finds a tiny rhino-sized one and head-butts it.  This goes on for a while until a Quintesson Judge finally shows up in his hover-chair, describing their rebellion as amusing but warning them that it's time to be good little slaves again if they want to continue functioning.  
>
> One fairly major plot point that's never really addressed at all: where are the Decepticons when all this is going on?  We know they were slave robots, too, who were on Cybertron at the same time as the Autobots.  They would certainly have had a vested interest in freeing themselves of the Quintesson occupation.  So where are they?  They don't even appear in this episode!  My theory is that it's possible that the Autobots and Decepticons formed a temporary alliance, and that their revolt was two-pronged.  While the Autobots were fighting off the Dark Guardians, it's possible the Decepticons were within the depths of Cybertron, securing access to the Vector Sigma chamber.  Vector Sigma is a powerful asset that the Transformers would need to propagate their species, so acquiring it would have been important.  The only problem is that this plan calls for the Autobots to be the aggressors in the war, which doesn't really make sense.  The Decepticons are the war machines.  So, some other explanation is required.  I'm just not sure what.

Couldn't the Consumer Goods and Miltary Hardware have been fighting the Dark Guardians here together, and otherwise? They fought together to drive off the Quints, then split, rejecting the Autobot symbol? Just a theory.

> In the present day, Inquirata has managed to whine Rodimus into submission.  The drawings of the background Autobots are getting more and more indistinct.  Earlier, there were two totally generic robots standing behind Silverbolt who I guess were supposed to be Aerialbots.  When Rodimus agrees to Inquirata's demands, there's a Springer-colored-like-Kup and a who-the-hell-knows colored orange with black legs.  Maybe it's Sandstorm's color scheme.  Maybe it's Tantrum.  At this point, we just don't know.  
>
> Rodimus wants to send someone through the window to recover the missing Autobots, but Inquirata insists there's no time.  A-3 volunteers to jump through and find them, much to the chagrin of the Quintessons.  A-3 reunites with Beta, just in time for the Quints of the ancient past to order the Dark Guardians to execute the rebels.  A-3 removes his Autobot symbol, which is in fact the coda remote device mentioned earlier, and light emanates from the symbol which somehow shuts down all the Guardians (well, except two, I guess, since one of them is destined to become the headless one from "War Dawn" and the other will become Omega Supreme one day).  
>
> A-3 urges the Autobots to return to their own time.  "I guess we can trust you to win this one... after all, you already did!" quips Blaster.  Wheelie is present with the Autobots escaping through the time window again, only this time he's colored like Kup.  This is almost like "The Return of Optimus Prime" in reverse, where Wheelie is specifically mentioned as one of the Autobots present and yet he never actually shows up.
>
> Afterwards, the Autobots finally figure out that A-3 is short for Alpha Trion, and they're all left to ponder whether he could, indeed, be the "father of the Autobots" and the creator of Optimus Prime.  As if there were any doubt.  It's like the Aerialbots were all walking around wearing blinders for the entire episode.  Sheesh.
>
> The original broadcast version of this episode also had the historical trailer about the Predacons attached to it.  The trailers were, I think, frequently tacked onto episode with a short running time to bring them up to the correct length (at least one episode actually had TWO trailers playing after it), though it's also possible that the episodes were short on purpose in order to accommodate the trailers.  The Predacons trailer was pretty cool, using lots of footage from "Chaos" and including a gaffe where Galvatron orders the Predacons to combine into Predaking after they've already done so.  I think it's also the only such time in the show that Rampage and Tantrum are actually identified by name.  The syndicated Sci-Fi Channel version always annoyed me because they cut off the last half of the trailer, actually interrupting Victor Caroli's narration in mid-sentence ("he can lift 500 tons without even straining a circui...")

I remember that! Hated it too.

> This is one of the most important episodes of the series.  It covers a major event in Transformers history, though I kind of wish Toei and AKOM had swapped animation duties for this episode and, say, "Surprise Party" so we could have gotten a crisper, cleaner look to the visuals.  Still, I've always said that the raw, rough look of the Korean animation suits the darker, grittier mood of season three.  
>
>
> Zob (the month of July managed to sneak up on me just as June did)

- Rodimus_2316