 After updating the X-E Multimedia Section last night, I've been on a media kick. So I went out and found yet another Transformers episode. The TF episodes that came after the movie were pretty strange. It was coming closer to the end of the Transformers reign on top of toydom, so the show was shifted to early weekday mornings, and a lot of us missed out on it. Not me though, I was smart enough to spend my teen year Friday nights viciously stalking people on the newsgroups to send me the tapes. So while all of you were at your Korovas telling your friends to hook you up, I was completing my Transformers video collection. I win. Anyway, the post-movie eps, as we like to call them, didn't really mesh to well with the original season, but not just because of the different characters. Truly, at times it seems they gave the writing job to a person who had no idea what Transformers were about, and some of the episodes we got seemed more like poorly drawn Japanese sci-fi anime than anything else. Popular theory is that Transformers truly met it's demise when the original characters were phased out to make more toys, and the new bots they dreamt up had less personality than a dead Wheeljack. Course, there was a few silver linings in the episodes that came after the movie, but let's be honest...they lacked the charm of the original shows. And that brings me to Call of the Primitives. This one really captures the essense of a post-movie episode...epic villain and epic storyline. Does it work? I'll let you be the judge.  Plot: The Autobots and Decepticons are engaged in battle on a barren planet, but during the fight, all of the 'animal' Transformers mysteriously stop fighting and leave together. It seemed like they all realized they were missing The Sopranos for this, but in truth, they've been summoned by an unknown caller for a more important task... Meanwhile, a cloud of living energy is traveling from planet to planet, draining the energy dry from stars, planets, and their unfortunate inhabitants. Named Tornitron, it attacks the barren planet and drains the Autobots and Decepticons of their life energy. A similiar situation occurs whenever a sitcom chooses to add an original cast member from Happy Days as a guest star. The 'primitive' Transformers are drawn towards the center of the galaxy, finally coming to a truly ancient world. Sky Lynx believes he should command the group, but this meets with some resistance from the Predacons and Terrorcons. Leaving Trypticon outside, the primitives enter a cavern to find the caller, in the form of a glowing portal. The caller explains that he was the assistant of an inventor, Primacron. Primacron built many robotic creations, which became progressively larger, until he created Unicron from Transformers: The Movie. Unicron had rebelled and attacked Primacron, then went off on his own. Injured but alive, Primacron was determined to make an even more powerful creation, but this time, it would be composed not of matter, but of energy--Tornitron. It is the hope of Primacron's assistant that the pure, simple animal instincts of the primitives can defeat the 'infinite complexities' of Primacron's plans. Just then Tornitron itself arrives on the ancient world and drains Trypticon. The primitives flee, but Grimlock lags behind and Trypticon falls on him. Once Sky Lynx is drained as well, the terrified Transformers run, but Tornitron hunts down the primitives. Even when they split up in four different directions, they cannot escape; Tornitron simply splits into pieces and catches each group individually. Not before long, Tornitron's mission is complete and it returns to Primacron. Grimlock, however, has survived Trypticon's fall. Primacron's assistant urges him to press on, and he follows Tornitron straight to Primacron's outer space lair. Meanwhile, Tornitron--like Unicron--decides to rule himself, despite Primacron's best efforts to control it. Primacron tries everything he can think of to deactivate the creature, but once Grimlock arrives, he simply presses the "reverse" switch on Tornitron's controls. With its energy dissipated and the galaxy restored, Grimlock performs a victory dance--inadvertently ruining a very angry Primacron's lab in the process. What he does when he's there? Well, you'll have to watch the episode to find out.  I wouldn't rate this episode too high on my Transformometer. Firstly, it kinda rewrites TF history, but does it in a such a ridiculous way than even the most casual fan could find reason to protest. I've uploaded the episode to let you be the judge. Feel free to not get too critical and just watch it as another fun Transformers episode. Either way, it'll successfully kill 25 minutes of your weekend, and that's what we're aiming for. :) It's split into three sections, you'll need Realplayer to watch them. Downloading the most recent edition of Realplayer is reccomended strongly.. Call of the Primitives Part 1 (1.2 MB) Enjoy!  - Matt
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