Dave's Rescue Bots Rant: Cartoon Sneak Peek "Family of Heroes" "Under Pressure" Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/RBcartoon There will be spoilers, so if you lack the Hub and watch its shows later online, you might want to avoid reading past the Capsules until you actually see the show. CAPSULES Family of Heroes: The animation style sometimes goes too far in the "look cheap and kiddie" direction, but the writing is very good and it's a pretty promising start. Under Pressure: Develops several of the conflicts set up in the first episode, while also cementing the rather danger-prone nature of the setting and explaining why they NEED a full time team of robot rescuers. Show Overall So Far: Really good. While a lot of the portrayals are a bit one-dimensional at the moment, there's some good economy of storytelling here, setting things up more clearly in two episodes than some series manage in an entire season. Yes, it's aimed at little kids, but it's not doing so by talking down to them, and the humor works for adults too. Strongly recommended. RANT The general premise of Rescue Bots is that it's a setting similar to the movieverse, but not the same continuity. Cybertron is no more, the main war seems to be over, and Optimus Prime is trying to find places for the survivors to live. The four main robots are the last surviving Rescue Squad, a civilian unit of a sort thought destroyed long past. Rather than integrate them into the rest of the Autobots, Optimus decided to place them with a human community, where they could do the jobs they were designed for (and catch up on the whole culture shock thing). In this version of the storyline, humanity has advanced (and possibly Cybertronian-influenced) technology, but is NOT aware of the true nature of the Autobots, outside of a few select individuals. So the Rescue Bots are pretending to be human-built robots partnered with a family of civil servants (The Burns: father is a cop, eldest son is a fireman, younger son a civil engineer, daughter a rescue pilot, kid brother angsts over not being allowed to do anything) in an island town that's kinda like a less insane version of Eureka. Only the father initially knows that the bots are Cybertronians, although naturally the youngest finds out, because it's his dramatic role to upset the applecart. Family of Heroes: The characters and premise outlined above are introduced, and everyone gets at least a single note of personality. Heatwave rankles at the idea of being under the command of humans, despite being the nominal head of the squad. Chase is officious, Blades is afraid of heights, Boulder is...well, Bulkhead. Optimus Prime only shows up in the opening scenes, then leaves. The humans get a little less development, but the writers do a good job of mixing and matching personality types, establishing some similarities and some contrasts that will presumably be mined for plot devices later on. Other than the Burns family, there's one more human, Cody's peer Francine Greene, a tech-geek girl who seems to carry most of the "not a white guy" duties on her shoulders (Dani Burns is too busy being a tomboy adrenaline junkie to cover that job). The overt plot complication is a rampage by robot dinosaurs, but the real conflict is "Why should we even stay on this mudball?" And in the absence of Decepticons, that seems to be set up as the main source of "man vs. man" conflict. Eventually, the whole family learns the secret of the Cybertronians...a good thing, since trying to keep their identity secret from their partners was already getting tiresome. :) Under Pressure: This ep is all about getting along with Kade, Dani and Graham. Chase and the chief have no problems, but at one point Heatwave transforms with Kade inside him, smooshing him into the chest windows. Hee. And Dani is just too damned manly for Flutterblades. This ep also seems to set up Optimus Prime as a sort of "Dear Princess Celestia" figure. The overt pressure in this episode is from an artificial volcano built in the town decades ago...did I say LESS insane than Eureka? (Doc Greene, voiced by LeVar Burton, would be right at home at Global Dynamics.) The underlying pressure being the interpersonal stuff, of course. While a lot of that gets resolved this issue, I hope they don't abandon it entirely. If nothing else, Kade and Heatwave will likely continue to butt heads, both being buttheads to some extent. No Bumblebee yet, but since he has a toy, he'll be along at some point. Overall: The humor works very well in this show, even if it sometimes depends on Acting Appropriately Stupid. The community of Griffon Rock also seems to be as prone to disaster as Ponyville, as seen in this exchange from Under Pressure: "We have a situation on Main and Park. Sewer's overflowing." "So call a plumber." "With lava." You may have noticed my references to the new My Little Pony show, and that's more than just because I watched the two shows back to back. They're definitely shooting for the same sort of "kid friendly, but adults will like it too" writing style that's been working for the ponies. It's too bad that like MLP, the toys are kinda disappointing. Maybe we'll get lucky and a later wave will have the rest of the Burns family, instead of the not-appearing-in-this-show humans like Walker Cleveland. Dave Van Domelen, "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you...and you will NOT be compensated for any damages." - Chase to rogue landscaper bot