For those of you keeping track... yes, I was already corrected on one
erroneous part of my analysis below. Apparently, the Autobots are flying
around space in the toy spaceship from 'Child's Play,' having recently
escaped the world of the Biggs. This isn't made very clear in the
episode, but I should have picked up on it. I've erased that part of the
review, but the rest of it should be intact still. -KKC

From kendrick@io.com Tue Oct 10 12:48:58 CDT 1995
Article: 24258 of alt.toys.transformers
Path: news.io.com!io.com!not-for-mail
From: kendrick@io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: TF Weekday 10/9 - The Gambler
Date: 10 Oct 1995 12:46:28 -0500
Organization: Illuminati Online
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Status: RO
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TF Weekday Oct 9 1995 - The Gambler

The EI/AD: Control Chambers aboard the mercenary Bosch's ship, which can
render an Autobot as mindless and suggestible as your average American
child consumer...

The plot: The Autobots are flying around space when they're captured by
Bosch, a rogue trader who wants to sell them into slavery. His machine
doesn't have enough Energon to render Smokescreen helpless though... But
the two of them become fast friends after Bosch sees Smokey's gambling
tricks, and they make a deal;  Smokescreen will help Bosch get energy to
fuel his ship and he'll get the Autobots back. They go to Monacus, a
gambling world where they use the Autobots as collateral to get a loan
from an Arena boss, a big fat squishie thing named Gyconi with a tiny
reptilian sidekick. Smokey bets it all and loses... Astrotrain, Ramjet,
and Dirge touch down to deliver a warning to that same dirty Arena boss,
and a bounty-hunter Autobot appears, name of Defcon. To make a long story
short, Smokescreen saves the hypnotized Autobots from wrestling with giant
Animaliens, is saved by Defcon when attacked by the two coneheads, and
wins a really big fight at the end where the Arena boss is betrayed by his
reptilian alien flunky who has sworn alliegiance to Defcon for saving his
life. The Autobots get enough energon to revive them, but they have to go
back into the casinos to get enough to fly home in Bosch's ship.

The characters: Smokescreen is slightly misused in this episode... He's
supposd to be a man of mystery, and Prime's confidant and ear-among-the-
troops, a bit like Henry IV and Henry IV's alter ego in a big black
cloak. :) He turns into a slick, suave street-smart guy, a role much
better suited to Jazz... or even Streetwise. Defcon and Bosch are typcial
science fiction characters, the former being your rogue bounty hunter,
and the latter being your space pirate with the heart of gold. Not
boring, but definitely not creative. :) Gyconi and the rest of the
Sheolians are a lot of fun but are even worse cookie-cutter characters
than Defcon and Bosch. None of this detracts from the fact that this
episode is a hell of a lot of fun, even despite the holes. Oh yeah, and
the conehead guys get a few more levels of depth... Dirge shows his
paranoid side, and Ramjet shows off his arrogant, 'can't-stop-me'
attitude about a lot of things.

The plot holes: Why are the Autobots flying around in space for no good
reason? (Answer: They're just now escaping from that planet full of huge
organi beings in 'Child's Play'.) For that matter, why are Transformers
flying around in space at all if there's an energy crisis on Cybertron? It
seems like a breach of faith in the original story for Transformers to
become intergalactic heroes in this manner... As much fun as the episode
is, it seems more logical for it to have happened after the movie, rather
than before.  Prime is frozen in zombie-ness for the whole episode, and he
could easily be replaced be Rodimus.
   Another thing... The coneheads threaten Gyconi's life because Megatron
thinks the poor slug is skimming off the top. Are we to assume that the
Decepticons are running the show here? The suggestion that Megatron has a
galactic network of crime bosses and energy scouts is at once believable
and preposterous. Yes, we don't know the whole story of Megatron's reach,
but from a story-telling standpoint this plot detail is abrupt and not
well explained at all.

Moving pictures: Poor animation, but who cares? You see lots of action
scenes, lots of guns and bombs and stuff. Too bad some of the errors are
so glaring... They can't seem to make uptheir mind what colors Smokescreen
is, or what colors your random thug robot guys are. Too bad the transform
sequences are so shoddy... The only good one is Smokescreen's, and they
reuse it three times, each time showing Bosch opening his right door and
climbing in, as if a 25-foot tall alien could fit into the passenger seat
of a Dodge Shelby without a problem. On that note, has anybody been
throroughly confused yet as to what kind of car Smokey is? Sometimes he
has round headlights, sometimes he has square ones. Sometimes his corners
are rounded off, sometimes they're not. Sometimes he's long and
sleek-looking like a Datsun, sometimes he's short and powerful-looking
like the Dodge.

The cuts: A bit from the beginning, as usual. Thankfully they don't leave
out any of the funny bits, although the conehead one-liners would have
been nice to leave in as well.

Toys they should reissue: Smokescreen was probably one of the toys that
stretched the recolor problem a bit, seeing as how they already had Prowl
and Bluestreak. At least they had the good sense to give him a recolor job
that was distinctive and meaningful (bonus points for anybody who can name
what number racer Smokescreen is without having to go look at a picture or
the toy first. :) Ramjet has already been reissued, and it's surprising
that they didn't use this episode as a G2 vehicle to sell ol' Ramboy. And
I wouldn't mind having a Defcon toy, or retooling a 5-inch X-men figure
into a Bosch, if I can ever figure out this damn sculpy stuff...

Quotables:
"If only I hadn't made that last bet."
"If I had an energon chip for every time *I've* said that..."

KKC, I'm afraid your rule Brittania Mania doesn't ring so true...
--
kendrick@io.com - Kendrick Kerwin Chua - WTB: 80s Transformers and GIJoe toys
"What would you have me do with Washington,Destro? Pepper it with spitballs?"
Necronomcon FAQ home page at http://www.io.com/~kendrick/necronomicon or anon
FTP at io.com:/pub/usr/kendrick -Personal home at http://www.io.com/~kendrick