Spark of Darkness

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Beauty is in the optic of the beholder.
"Spark of Darkness"
Season	2
No. in season	10
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	April 12, 2000 (Canada) October 28, 2000 (USA)
Writer	Nick Dubois
Director	Greg Donis
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

Megatron has been defeated, but strange creatures keep attacking the Maximals all over Cybertropolis.

Synopsis

It's Miller time!

The Maximals celebrate the defeat of Megatron inside the now-dormant Grand Mal. But while most of the group high-five each other, Nightscream mourns the loss of his pet, Savage/Noble. Silverbolt wonders if Megatron is truly defeated, but Primal assures his team that he knows Megatron is dead, thanks to their mutual connection to the Oracle. When Cheetor mentions there's still business to be taken care of, Botanica responds she feels there's another evil on Cybertron.

Cheetor and Nightscream are sent to find the Vehicon Generals. Silverbolt and Blackarachnia are sent to assess the dormant Transformer bodies to start the process of getting the sparks Megatron kidnapped to function again. Rattrap and Botanica are assigned to attend the techno-organic orchard. Rattrap, of course, whines about this. As he does this, he moans that he feels his talents are being wasted and he'll be stuck with embarrassing stories to tell his grandkids. Botanica argues that tending the garden is important. The debate between the two heats up, and in their rage, the two Maximals accidentally touch lips. The two quickly agree to completely disregard, forget, and ignore their contact and get to work. Optimus stays in the Grand Mal.

Supreme Class kitbashing gone horribly, horribly wrong.

At the shell yard, Blackarachnia tries to put the moves on Silverbolt, but without confirmation that Megatron is truly really dead, he's extremely hesitant to respond to her advances. At this, Blackarachnia finally loses patience, and begins berating Silverbolt for his obsessiveness. She's so focused on Silverbolt that only he notices the large, lumbering monster emerge behind her. The two Maximals run away (cowardly) from the giant, but when the monster hits Silverbolt with gunfire, Blackarachnia fights back with her electric sting. The monster knocks her over, but Silverbolt has had time to recover and attacks the monster with his throwing blades. Eventually, Blackarachnia has the idea to attack the monster using an explosive component from one of the nearby Transformer bodies. The behemoth steps out of the explosion, and the two Transformers watch a strange red spark emerge from the monster as it falls over in defeat. The red glow races away.

In the orchard, while Botanica works, Rattrap scavenges parts of a Cycle Drone to see if anything can be made into a useful tool. But suddenly, the deactivated Cycle Drone comes to life and begins to blast the orchard. Botanica, upset about the carnage, transforms and uses her bolts to bring heavy wreckage crashing down upon the possessed drone. The drone flails its body one last time before falling over, no longer inhabited by the glowing red spark.

Cheetor and Nightscream meet with Strika and Obsidian and invite the two generals to join the Maximals. As the two generals debate, Thrust stops by to make it clear that he has no interest in joining with the Maximals and that he believes that Megatron, "The Big M," will soon return. After Thrust leaves, the remaining four are attacked by a damaged but resilient Aero Drone. Nightscream sucks the energy from the drone, but the monster still tries to pull Cheetor over the edge of a nearby cliff. Cheetor is saved by Nightscream and the drone falls, but before it makes impact with the water below, the glowing red spark leaves the body.

Rattrap's audition for the new Ghostbusters movie went surprisingly well.

The group returns to meet with the other Maximals (sans Botanica) inside the Grand Mal, and Optimus welcomes Strika and Obsidian to the team. The two new recruits leave to fortify the base—just in time for Rattrap to detect the haunting red spark heading right towards them all. Inside, the spark passes by the two generals and briefly encounters Cheetor and Blackarachnia. Next, the spark uses a Tank Drone body to attack Optimus and Botanica. While Rattrap tracks the movement of the Spark, he deduces a way to neutralize its rampage.

Rattrap uses a Spark Extractor on the Tank Drone to draw out the spark. Once the red spark is contained, he "re-polarizes" his captive, but the Spark Extractor flies alive, trying to break free of Rattrap's grip. After escaping the spark extractor, the spark flies into a Diagnostic Drone and, finally coherent, exclaims "I live!" But Rattrap has the next laugh: The spark, who is clearly Megatron, is now trapped inside of the diminutive body.

The Maximals meet Megatron, but he laughs at them. Even in his tiny form, he's able to reactivate the Grand Mal's internal defenses to evict the Maximals. As the Maximals struggle against the tentacles that have begun to bind them, Primal has an Oracle moment, but the Maximals are all captured anyway. Megatron starts to reformat Primal's spark, but Rattrap gets Botanica to destroy the control panel, freeing the team from Megatron's grip.

Obsidian arrives at the fight scene and is forced to choose: Be loyal to Primal's or Megatron's side. The two generals grab Megatron and fall out of sight. Out of immediate danger, Optimus explains that Nightscream didn't kill Megatron, but only turned Megatron into the monster that he was but no longer is.

Away from the battle, Strika, Obsidian and Megatron meet up with Thrust. Enraged that he was pulled out of battle and refusing to accept a withdrawal was sensible, Megatron growls that at least Obsidian and Strika weren't "useless" like Thrust; Obsidian admits that it was Thrust who reminded them that their true loyalties lay with Megatron. No longer in control of the Sparks, Megatron declares, "The time for action is now."

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"So, eh, whatcha got for me and Miss Twiggy? A "teak and destroy" mission? Or maybe some "oak and dagger" work?"

—Rattrap comes up with some evil puns.

Little girl voice: And what'd you do in the war, Daddy?
Rattrap voice: Well, honey, I made gardening equipment to help the troops plant petunias!
Little girl voice: Really, Daddy?!

—Rattrap expresses how much he hates his job and Scott McNeil gets to talk to himself. Uh... Some more.

"What would you rather be doing, sticking your tail into a computer circuit?"
"Heh, beats the heck outta plowing your little field of dreams."

—"Innuendo 101" with Botanica and Rattrap

"You shall not pass!"
[Red spark passes without pause]

—Strika makes a very poor Gandalf.

"Aw man, I can't believe I'm stuck here while a really honked-off ball of electrons is making mince-meat outta my buddies."

—Rattrap complaining again.

"I live! I live! I—...what kind of puny body is this?!"

—Megatron discovers he's in a diagnostic drone. Now that's karma.

Notes

Animation and technical errors

• In the overhead shot of the Maximals in the beginning, Optimus is floating, as evidenced by his shadow not touching his feet.
• The Cycle Drone parts in the orchid are rendered in a lower resolution in certain shots. Granted, they're scrap, but it's noticeable and inconsistent with the pieces that do remain smooth.
• When Cheetor and Nightscream approach Obsidian and Strika, an Artillery Drone in the background floats into view over the waterfall.
• Strika's CG model also turns low-res in certain shots, like when looking over the ledge when Megatron tries to pull Cheetor down with him, or just before meeting Megatron's Spark in the hallway.
• As Primal is welcoming Obsidian and Strika to the team, Obsidian is rendered with flat colors instead of textures.

Continuity errors

• Not an error, per se, but the Maximals are rather quick to heroically eulogize Noble when they've treated him as nothing but a nuisance!
• If Cheetor and Nightscream are trying to sneak up on Obsidian and Strika, shouldn't they be in their beast modes?
• Rattrap gets from the Oracle chamber to the Grand Mal in a surprisingly short amount of time, when previous episodes have highlighted the lengthy trip to and from the surface.

Continuity notes

• "So many times we thought we were rid of him, and yet he reappears", muses Silverbolt as the Maximals ponder Megatron's "death". Silverbolt seems to be referencing numerous near-victories for the Maximals—Ravage's bungled arrest in "The Agenda (Part 2)" springs to mind, as does his escape from the Autobot shuttle in the interim period between Beast Wars and Machines. There's also the time Megatron faked his own death, but Silverbolt wasn't around for that.
• Blackarachnia notes that she first realized Jetstorm was Silverbolt in one of the Maximal shell yards, referring to the events of "The Catalyst".
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Rattrap's face mask doubles as a sort of holo-projector phone.
  • Blackarachnia can shoot electricity through the air, as opposed to her usual ground-based attack.

Transformers references

• When Silverbolt trips over battling the mutant, Blackarachnia proceeds to rip out the power core from what appears to be Ratchet's body.

Real-world references

• This episode's title is a play on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness.
• Rattrap nicknames Botanica "Miss Twiggy".
• When Cheetor asks Thrust what he's rebelling against now that Megatron is gone, Thrust replies "What've you got?", the reply given by Marlon Brando's character in The Wild One. Fitting.
• The sequence where Optimus Primal and Botanica are first ambushed is also a visual quote from the original Alien.
• Similarly, the scene where Blackarachnia and Silverbolt draw together in the foreground for a moment of intimacy after they think they have destroyed the junkyard mutant, only for it to emerge from the wall of fire in the background is an homage to the penultimate sequence from The Terminator.
• When Obsidian and Strika attempt to intercept the red spark, Strika exclaims "You shall not pass!", a possible reference to Gandalf's words in The Lord of the Rings.
• Botanica refers to the technorganic orchard as her "Field of Dreams".
• A young child asking dad what he did in the war was the subject of an iconic British propaganda poster, while the specific wording Rattrap uses is the title for a 1966 Blake Edwards film.

Trivia

• The shell that attacks Silverbolt and Blackarachnia is composed of parts from Beast Wars combatants. The feet, torso, and right arm belong to the Transmetal Tarantulas while the helmet resembles a modified version of Dinobot's helmet in Transmetal 2 Dinobot's colors, along with Tigerhawk's face.
• Precisely 5 minutes and 3 seconds into the episode, immediately after Blackarachnia says, "Whoever you are, THAT was a big mistake!", one can see the severed head of Depth Charge lying behind her.
• The short story "Singularity Ablyss" by Bob Skir, published in the Transformers Legends anthology, is set between-the-scenes of this episode. It doesn't change the events of the episode, but it does illuminate what Megatron may have been thinking in the midst of all that body-jumping; also, he kills Rhinox.
• Once Megatron's spark enters the Diagnostic Drone body, the optics resemble that of his Grand Mal vessel.
• "I will brook no failure—not from anyone, not for any reason" appears to be a motto of Megatron's.
• The events of this episode are strongly reminiscent of "Savage Noble" and "Prometheus Unbound". In both cases, Megatron has apparently been defeated, the Maximals go recruiting among the Vehicons, a strange beastie starts attacking all and sundry, and—surprise—it turns out to be Megatron in a new body. (The similarity is even commented upon by Thrust.) It's especially annoying that "Prometheus Unbound" was only seven episodes before this one.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Obscurité" ("Obscurity")

German

• Title: "Fluch der Dunkelheit" ("Curse of Darkness")
• Original airdate: December 24, 2000

Italian

• Title: "Una scintilla nell'oscurità" ("A spark in the darkness")

• Rattrap's line: «Well, how about I make like a tree and leave!» becomes: «Try to make like one of your trees and close your mouth!», a sentence which seemingly makes no sense, although a possible explanation is that he meant to stay silent like trees do.
• Instead of saying that he has been "trapped like a rat by a rat", Megatron says that he was "trapped like a mouse by a mouse". Well, Rattrap is actually a rat, you know.
• Thrust's line: «Listen up! Here is how it works» at the end of the episode oddly becomes: «Listen up! From now on, I'm in charge!». So... when Megatron was believed to be dead, you still wanted him as your leader, but now that he's clerly alive, you want to betray him? What?!

Japanese

• Title: "Kyōfu no Akai Tama" (恐怖の赤い玉, "The Terrifying Red Sphere")
• Original airdate: January 22, 2005

Mandarin

• Title: "Hēi'àn de Huǒzhǒng " (黑暗的火种, "The Dark Spark")

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Chama das Trevas" ("Spark of Darkness")

Spanish

• Title: "Chispa de Oscuridad" ("Spark of Darkness")

Home video releases

DVD

2005 — Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars Returns — Volume 6 (Geneon Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Beast Machines: Transformers — The Complete Series (Rhinomation)
2014 — Transformers: Beast Machines — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Season Two: Volume One (Sony)
2007 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Complete Season Two (Sony)
2009 — Transformers: Beast Machines — Intégrale Saison 2 (Sony) — French audio only.