TF Views

So I bought "Darkness Rising" on DVD today and watched the whole thing in a few sittings. I haven't really seen any Prime episodes, apart from some YouTube clips when the show first premiered. Apart from the incredibly annoying Miko, I liked just about everything about the show. It's clearly influenced heavily by the live action movies, even lifting a line or three almost directly from the first one. And of course, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are taken from the movies, while we have Bulkhead and to some extent Ratchet from Animated, while Arcee seems unique to Prime.

There's a cue taken from the Beast Machine Vehicon drones with all the generic Decepticons who exist to be cannon fodder, though thankfully they're tougher than the drones ever were.

The story gives us a new macguffin in the form of "dark energon", which can turn dead Transformers into mindless zombies, controlled by Megatron. Poor (stupid) Cliffjumper (voiced by the Rock) demonstrates just how this works. And I notice that Jeffrey Combs, who I enjoyed watching in Deep Space Nine, is Ratchet this time around. And it's great to hear Cullen and Welker voicing Prime and Megatron again, even if Welker isn't quite doing the old Megatron voice. The one he's using works very well.

I really enjoyed the story. I'll be looking to buy the series on DVD when it comes out.

Jack: "Man, I can't hang around with you guys and help fight the Decepticons. I could get killed!"

Arcee: "Jack, listen: I had a friend who got killed by the Decepticons."

Jack: "I WILL HELP YOU FIGHT THE DECEPTICONS!!"

Man, I *wanted* to like this series, but right about there is where everything started to go south for me. Everything else is a blurred memory of plot holes, contrived story conveniences, and the most annoying trio of kids since Armada (You think Dark Energon's the new plot device? I'm pretty sure that's actually Raph's role. He just types on his computer for a few seconds and whatever they need to happen at that point happens). It's been months since I watched an episode, the last one I saw being that painfully shallow riff of Animated's "Thrill of the Hunt" which substituted actual character development for more spine-tingling sexual tension between Jack and Arcee. I've kinda been wanting to maybe give the series another chance lately, but man, it didn't do a lot to earn my trust before.

That said, I didn't *totally* hate it. I love pretty much everything about this version of Starscream. And Jeffrey Combs as Ratchet is frelling boss. And with the series' apparent willingness to just off characters, there's a chance even Miko may die! Now that's something to look forward to!