Well, it's been a long 42 days, but as promised, Transformers: Cyberworld is back with an Energon Surge!
(Yeah, I figured I should probably fit that in there somewhere. None of the branding on the YouTube video did.)
The season is starting off strong, not only bringing us two episodes for the premiere (which hopefully bodes well for my Cybertronic Spree and AEW All In plans next weekend), but there's also no string of backwards-ordered episodes hanging off the end!
Here's the gist of this 10-minute double-stack, right from the YouTube description (for posterity, if nothing else):
And for your viewing pleasure (maybe; more on that in a moment), here are the episodes ("Next Level" and "Magnetic Revulsion") themselves:
As usual, here's my recap/review, complete with spoilers! I can guess where the episodes split, but I'm just going to treat it as one big thing here:
It's game time!
Yep, we're picking up from where we left off not with Maximal stasis pods or the ruins of Galvatron's siphon-base, but in what I have to admit is a rather interesting looking Cyberworld game where, near as I can tell, one player mans a turret to blast away a colored layer of a falling cube, and other players have to gather ammunition of the matching color in order for the shots to be able to blast the blocks forming the layers away, one by one.
It's a neat take on the falling-block style of puzzle game, and I'm genuinely curious if a real game like this exists. If not, maybe someone can be the first with the Transformers: Cyberworld game this show is so desperately begging for? Just saying.
It's a simple concept with simple rules, which really does not speak well of Bumblebee here. He's running around carelessly, grabbing the wrong colors of ammo and slamming into things with his new $54.99 body, causing Wheeljack to miss/waste shots from all the vibrations and tremors.
Poor Elita-1 and Wheeljack, having to try to talk sense into -- and just deal with -- that. If you thought Bumblebee was insufferable before the end of last season, trust me, that Energon surge did him -- or rather, us -- no favors. He's way more impetuous and petulant than before.
Makes me wonder what the kids think of the kid-appeal character now.
Wheeljack notes his levels haven't come down since the fight with Galvatron, and Elita says he mentioned there could be side-effects, and Bumblebee keeps insisting he's fine. Dude. No, you're not.
And that's without taking the Energon surge into account, but I digress.
That said, for all his bellyaching, "Opti-sus Prime" was pretty good, even if I hate where it came from.
Wheeljack tries to speak good sense, saying they don't know why Prime did what he did, but Bumblebee figures they know enough, and "they don't need to worry about... him." Said looming large over Wheeljack, with glowing purple eyes and all. Yeah, he's fine, he's in a goooooooood place.
Bumblebee's eyes then go back to blue and he shrinks down, and seems more like himself again. The less-annoying version of himself, I mean.
Speaking of OP, we cut back over to him with Grimlock and Snark. I mean, Snarl.
Grimlock is trying to be helpful, while Snarl offers some fortune cookie insight that probably doesn't help, and Grimlock just gives him this hilarious "Seriously?!" gesture.
Hey, confirmation the Matrix of Leadership is a thing here, and is apparently in OP's chest. So, that much is normal.
A new beacon appears, and Grimlock thinks that a good fight will help raise Little Prime's spirits, and so they head towards it.
Meanwhile, back with Bee, Wheeljack is having a hard time with all the tremors due to Bumblebutt bursting through every wall underneath them. Bee sasses him about a time limit, shoves ALL the differently-colored ammo into the turret, and tries to take over. Apparently shooting the layers with the wrong color brings the cube down further and you lose time.
Elita gets on him, rightfully, about how he's supposed to be helping, and Bumblebrat decides to help in his own way -- by leaping up at the cube and punching through the whole thing until it's gone.
Hey, guess what? That's not how the game works! So the program is failed and they all lose Energon levels -- well, except for Bee, who declares the whole thing was a waste of time. Since they lost Energon, he shrugs it off and says he'll find another program so they can get it back, and goes tearing off through the forest -- literally, as trees and such fall in his wake.
Meanwhile, Optimus, Grimlock, and Snarl arrive at the new program they spotted earlier. Snarl and Grimlock seem to get through to Prime, and so they venture off into the new game.
Elsewhere, Bee finds a new program for Elita and Wheeljack to get their groove back, and waits for them, then insists he's fine again as they try to tell him not to go in. He ignores it, of course.
And you'll never guess what happens next!
Yep! Both teams have entered the same program, and now have to face each other.
This one has a sort of soccer-like field (or your field game of choice, really), and the goal seems to be fighting against magnetic pushes to reach the goal on the other side first. Along the way, they can get various power-ups, like turbo or sticky feet, to help them progress.
Bumblebee, of course, isn't affected as much as the others. And he shows it by punching Prime clear back to his side's goal.
He starts to taunt, and Snarl becomes the audience surrogate as he starts swinging away at Bee with his sword. Sadly, he doesn't get to strike any sort of blow, as Elita uses her sickles to block the attack. Snarl knocks them away, but the magetism stops him from following up, allowing her to deliver a kick that sends him flying back into his side of the field, activating a chain link bond to Grimlock in the process.
Bumblebum shoves Elita aside/onto the ground, and she reminds him that they all have to reach the other side, so he just kicks her away and tells her to keep up. This sends her flying pretty much all the way back to their side's goal.
You know, Bumblebee might not be so insufferable if he wasn't being so stupid about everything.
Grimlock gets a "headstrong" power-up and rams Bee, then the two lock hands when he transforms to robot mode. But even Big Grim is no match for Titan Temper Tantrum. Fortunately -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- he has smarts, which allow him to outmaneuver Bee, sending Snarl flying towards the goal and then smacking Bee with a tree for good measure. Good on him! MVP of the game, right there.
This just pisses Bee off, who Psycho Crushers Grimlock back a good ways. He steps on Grim's chest and is about to do what Grim did to him in kind, but Optimus begs him off, and the magnetic pull allows Grimlock to slide away.
Then Bee grabs Optimus, and... well, he does this to him:
Yeah, in case you hadn't picked up on it yet with the smashing through walls, punching everything, and growing bigger the angrier he gets, Bumblebee just became Cyberworld's version of the Hulk (only somehow dumber).
We go back to the "It's all your fault we're stuck here, even though we don't know why or anything, stop apologizing, you suck" stuff before Elita tells Bee to get himself in gear and get to the goal already, as she and Wheeljack are already there.
"This isn't over," Bee tells Prime. Great, so we get to endure more of this. Can't wait.
Bumblebee makes it to the goal, and his team get their Energon back, while the other team lose some of theirs. Bet Prime is feeling like he shouldn't have listened to Grimlock and Snarl right about now.
Grimlock and Snarl help pull Prime out of the hole in the ground Bee left him in, and Elita asks if he's okay, and Bumblebaby is all "Don't talk to him! Wah!"
Okay, he didn't say "Wah!", but I'm pretty sure he was thinking it.
Wheeljack scans Prime, and Bee tries to start fighting him again as Elita tries to hold him back, and OP says it's fine, they're leaving, as he starts limping away with the Dinobots. Bee taunts him after that, and Grimlock gets in one more jab at Bee's tiny brain -- no, still feels weird typing that.
Anyway, with them gone, Bee's body gets smaller again, but the chip on his shoulder doesn't. They argue about whether he went too far or not, and Bee says Elita was always soft on Prime, and tells them that if they're so willing to forgive, then they're traitors, too.
When they don't immediately reply when he asks if they're a team or not (after all his belittling, no less), he decides he's better off without them and takes off (yay!). Elita says what we're all thinking, and they're worried something is really wrong with him, but don't get a chance to ponder on it before something emerges from deep beneath the murky depths of a nearby body of water...
It's Soundwave! And he has little teeth carved into his faceplate!
And that's where the episode ends.
----
Megatron. Galvatron. Unicron. Scourge. Quintessons. Jhiaxus. The Fallen. Whoever came up with the IDW unified Hasbro universe.
This franchise has seen many villains come and go, but I don't think any will ever be as reviled as Cyberworld Bumblebee. Yeah, there's clearly something wrong with him, and we're obviously meant to sympathize, but don't forget -- he was like this before the Energon surge. This has just made him worse, and turned the dial on his insufferability up to 12. Might've broken the knob, too.
At some point, Bumblebee is going to feel so bad for everything, and I'm not sure it's going to be enough for the audience. I have little doubt that most of the cast will forgive him, but will we?
Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I've had enough of him for a while. I hope his noping out takes him out of the next several episodes, Big Toy To Sell be damned.
Y'know, Galvatron was used pretty sparingly last season, up until the end. I hope they do that with Bee here. Otherwise, it's going to be a long season...
Yep, we're picking up from where we left off not with Maximal stasis pods or the ruins of Galvatron's siphon-base, but in what I have to admit is a rather interesting looking Cyberworld game where, near as I can tell, one player mans a turret to blast away a colored layer of a falling cube, and other players have to gather ammunition of the matching color in order for the shots to be able to blast the blocks forming the layers away, one by one.
It's a neat take on the falling-block style of puzzle game, and I'm genuinely curious if a real game like this exists. If not, maybe someone can be the first with the Transformers: Cyberworld game this show is so desperately begging for? Just saying.
It's a simple concept with simple rules, which really does not speak well of Bumblebee here. He's running around carelessly, grabbing the wrong colors of ammo and slamming into things with his new $54.99 body, causing Wheeljack to miss/waste shots from all the vibrations and tremors.
Poor Elita-1 and Wheeljack, having to try to talk sense into -- and just deal with -- that. If you thought Bumblebee was insufferable before the end of last season, trust me, that Energon surge did him -- or rather, us -- no favors. He's way more impetuous and petulant than before.
Makes me wonder what the kids think of the kid-appeal character now.
Wheeljack notes his levels haven't come down since the fight with Galvatron, and Elita says he mentioned there could be side-effects, and Bumblebee keeps insisting he's fine. Dude. No, you're not.
And that's without taking the Energon surge into account, but I digress.
That said, for all his bellyaching, "Opti-sus Prime" was pretty good, even if I hate where it came from.
Wheeljack tries to speak good sense, saying they don't know why Prime did what he did, but Bumblebee figures they know enough, and "they don't need to worry about... him." Said looming large over Wheeljack, with glowing purple eyes and all. Yeah, he's fine, he's in a goooooooood place.
Bumblebee's eyes then go back to blue and he shrinks down, and seems more like himself again. The less-annoying version of himself, I mean.
Speaking of OP, we cut back over to him with Grimlock and Snark. I mean, Snarl.
Grimlock is trying to be helpful, while Snarl offers some fortune cookie insight that probably doesn't help, and Grimlock just gives him this hilarious "Seriously?!" gesture.
Hey, confirmation the Matrix of Leadership is a thing here, and is apparently in OP's chest. So, that much is normal.
A new beacon appears, and Grimlock thinks that a good fight will help raise Little Prime's spirits, and so they head towards it.
Meanwhile, back with Bee, Wheeljack is having a hard time with all the tremors due to Bumblebutt bursting through every wall underneath them. Bee sasses him about a time limit, shoves ALL the differently-colored ammo into the turret, and tries to take over. Apparently shooting the layers with the wrong color brings the cube down further and you lose time.
Elita gets on him, rightfully, about how he's supposed to be helping, and Bumblebrat decides to help in his own way -- by leaping up at the cube and punching through the whole thing until it's gone.
Hey, guess what? That's not how the game works! So the program is failed and they all lose Energon levels -- well, except for Bee, who declares the whole thing was a waste of time. Since they lost Energon, he shrugs it off and says he'll find another program so they can get it back, and goes tearing off through the forest -- literally, as trees and such fall in his wake.
Meanwhile, Optimus, Grimlock, and Snarl arrive at the new program they spotted earlier. Snarl and Grimlock seem to get through to Prime, and so they venture off into the new game.
Elsewhere, Bee finds a new program for Elita and Wheeljack to get their groove back, and waits for them, then insists he's fine again as they try to tell him not to go in. He ignores it, of course.
And you'll never guess what happens next!
Yep! Both teams have entered the same program, and now have to face each other.
This one has a sort of soccer-like field (or your field game of choice, really), and the goal seems to be fighting against magnetic pushes to reach the goal on the other side first. Along the way, they can get various power-ups, like turbo or sticky feet, to help them progress.
Bumblebee, of course, isn't affected as much as the others. And he shows it by punching Prime clear back to his side's goal.
He starts to taunt, and Snarl becomes the audience surrogate as he starts swinging away at Bee with his sword. Sadly, he doesn't get to strike any sort of blow, as Elita uses her sickles to block the attack. Snarl knocks them away, but the magetism stops him from following up, allowing her to deliver a kick that sends him flying back into his side of the field, activating a chain link bond to Grimlock in the process.
Bumblebum shoves Elita aside/onto the ground, and she reminds him that they all have to reach the other side, so he just kicks her away and tells her to keep up. This sends her flying pretty much all the way back to their side's goal.
You know, Bumblebee might not be so insufferable if he wasn't being so stupid about everything.
Grimlock gets a "headstrong" power-up and rams Bee, then the two lock hands when he transforms to robot mode. But even Big Grim is no match for Titan Temper Tantrum. Fortunately -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- he has smarts, which allow him to outmaneuver Bee, sending Snarl flying towards the goal and then smacking Bee with a tree for good measure. Good on him! MVP of the game, right there.
This just pisses Bee off, who Psycho Crushers Grimlock back a good ways. He steps on Grim's chest and is about to do what Grim did to him in kind, but Optimus begs him off, and the magnetic pull allows Grimlock to slide away.
Then Bee grabs Optimus, and... well, he does this to him:
Yeah, in case you hadn't picked up on it yet with the smashing through walls, punching everything, and growing bigger the angrier he gets, Bumblebee just became Cyberworld's version of the Hulk (only somehow dumber).
We go back to the "It's all your fault we're stuck here, even though we don't know why or anything, stop apologizing, you suck" stuff before Elita tells Bee to get himself in gear and get to the goal already, as she and Wheeljack are already there.
"This isn't over," Bee tells Prime. Great, so we get to endure more of this. Can't wait.
Bumblebee makes it to the goal, and his team get their Energon back, while the other team lose some of theirs. Bet Prime is feeling like he shouldn't have listened to Grimlock and Snarl right about now.
Grimlock and Snarl help pull Prime out of the hole in the ground Bee left him in, and Elita asks if he's okay, and Bumblebaby is all "Don't talk to him! Wah!"
Okay, he didn't say "Wah!", but I'm pretty sure he was thinking it.
Wheeljack scans Prime, and Bee tries to start fighting him again as Elita tries to hold him back, and OP says it's fine, they're leaving, as he starts limping away with the Dinobots. Bee taunts him after that, and Grimlock gets in one more jab at Bee's tiny brain -- no, still feels weird typing that.
Anyway, with them gone, Bee's body gets smaller again, but the chip on his shoulder doesn't. They argue about whether he went too far or not, and Bee says Elita was always soft on Prime, and tells them that if they're so willing to forgive, then they're traitors, too.
When they don't immediately reply when he asks if they're a team or not (after all his belittling, no less), he decides he's better off without them and takes off (yay!). Elita says what we're all thinking, and they're worried something is really wrong with him, but don't get a chance to ponder on it before something emerges from deep beneath the murky depths of a nearby body of water...
It's Soundwave! And he has little teeth carved into his faceplate!
And that's where the episode ends.
----
Megatron. Galvatron. Unicron. Scourge. Quintessons. Jhiaxus. The Fallen. Whoever came up with the IDW unified Hasbro universe.
This franchise has seen many villains come and go, but I don't think any will ever be as reviled as Cyberworld Bumblebee. Yeah, there's clearly something wrong with him, and we're obviously meant to sympathize, but don't forget -- he was like this before the Energon surge. This has just made him worse, and turned the dial on his insufferability up to 12. Might've broken the knob, too.
At some point, Bumblebee is going to feel so bad for everything, and I'm not sure it's going to be enough for the audience. I have little doubt that most of the cast will forgive him, but will we?
Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I've had enough of him for a while. I hope his noping out takes him out of the next several episodes, Big Toy To Sell be damned.
Y'know, Galvatron was used pretty sparingly last season, up until the end. I hope they do that with Bee here. Otherwise, it's going to be a long season...
But what did you think? Catch anything I didn't? Feel free to talk about this episode here, or the series as a whole over in the "Transformers CyberWorld: Energon Brouhaha" thread in our forums!
