B.O.T.
Title card via TFWiki, fan-archive fair use
Bumbling humans build a robot of their own as the Combaticons and Protectobots clash over a stolen device.
The Combaticons enter an unidentified city for no discernible reason, then all transform to vehicle mode for no discernible reason. While transforming, Swindle knocks over Brawl for no discernible reason. Brawl expresses his displeasure for an obvious reason. They then drive (yes, even the flyers drive) about ten feet down the street and form Bruticus for no discernible reason. He is immediately destroyed with a single shot by Defensor (who's there for no discernible reason). Defensor just leaves the pile of parts alone and unsupervised, apparently not bothering to alert the other Autobots or anything. This enables Swindle—who has somehow survived without a scratch the explosion that reduced all the other Combaticons to a pile of parts — to gather up the bits. No human authorities are involved either.
Swindle then visits the generically evil foreign guy "El Presidente" on his ship filled with weapons in order to buy parts to repair the Combaticons.
Meanwhile, Megatron is running a simulation of his new orbit disruptor cannon. After Starscream whines, Megatron explains that once the Moon is knocked from orbit, they will use Soundwave's new device to control the tides. They will then use this colossal power to flood a single canyon, creating "a limitless source of power". What?
At the Combaticons' headquarters, El Presidente's men load up the weapons and more advanced computer systems from the wrecked robots, as apparently Swindle forgot about that whole "repair" thing. Swindle then leaves to take the remaining parts to a dump. Shortly after they all leave, Skywarp arrives, noting no one seems to be home. He discovers a piece of one of the Combaticons, then notices there's a trail of them. Confused, he asks Megatron what to do. Megatron calmly replies that he should perchance follow the trail of wreckage to discover where it may lead.
Swindle arrives in a junkyard, where he threatens a junkyard worker before he starts to dump the leftovers. Starscream and Skywarp discover him in the act and capture him as he tries to escape. Back at the Decepticon base, Soundwave installs a bomb in Swindle's head; he has 15 hours to reassemble the Combaticons before it goes off. Swindle takes the parts back from various mid-'80s evil foreign stereotypes and reassembles the team. However, they are unable to combine into Bruticus because Brawl's personality component is missing. Swindle is charged with getting the component back or the bomb will still go off.
Meanwhile, at Benjamin Franklin Pierce High School, Mr. Robbins's demonstration of a laser is sabotaged by two sociopathic students, Martin and Roland, who boost the laser's power output so high that it instantly burns a hole through steel. Rather than involve the authorities, Mr. Robbins threatens them with an "F" in his class if they don't win a blue ribbon at the science fair, and assigns Elise Presser to assist them for no discernible reason.
Outside, the two assholes meet the meek and spineless Elise. They realize a high-rise is on fire across the street, and witness the Protectobots coming to the rescue (well, three of them; Blades blows two window-washers off their dangling rig with his downdraft, the bastard, and First Aid does literally nothing). This inspires them to build a robot for their project. The three rummage for parts in the same junkyard where Swindle dumped the Combaticons' leftover remains, and Elise discovers a random piece of machinery. They spend the night in the school's lab assembling their machine, and Martin dubs it "B.O.T.". After several failures, Elise installs the random piece of machinery, which turns out to be Brawl's personality component. Naturally, Brawl-B.O.T. goes postal and starts trashing the place.
Martin grabs the laser and fires, and B.O.T. runs off. The kids run to the school's preposterously advanced computer lab and use it to call the Protectobots. Teletraan I gets the SOS, and Optimus Prime sends Gears, Ironhide and Bumblebee to investigate.
—Defensor, leaving his mess for the humans to clean up. He's humanity's defender, not their maid.
—Swindle's high opinion of his teammate.
—Ironhide just before spraying something that's not lead at B.O.T.
—Gears on being beaten by Brawl-B.O.T. Or he was talking about the episode itself?
—Martin, not knowing that if they did, we probably would have been spared this horrendous episode.
- This episode introduces the most loathsome Transformers characters ever, Roland and Martin. Boosting a laser to a level that could grievously injure or kill someone as a prank, the misogynistic duct-taping of Elise's mouth and constantly dragging her places against her will, and a general smarmy smugness level that makes Starscream seem humble.
- This episode was lampooned at the BotCon 2006 MSTF presentation, and as far as the writers are concerned, it is the single dumbest episode in the entirety of Transformers animation.
- It is also possibly the worst advertisement for the combiner teams possible. Bruticus is destroyed with a single shot from Defensor, and later stumbles around like a concussed baby as the Autobots shoot at him. Defensor's force field is rendered utterly pointless as the Decepticons just wait for it to run out (no more than 20 seconds), then he too is blasted to bits with ease. That being said, the early part of the episode is a great advertisement for Swindle individually and features some excellent character moments for him (including his rather humorous line about Brawl's missing personality component). Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?
- This is one of the most device-laden episodes, featuring no less than the orbit disruptor cannon, "Soundwave's new device", the school's overpowered laser, a brain-bomb, Brawl's personality doohickey, the eponymous human-built robot, the kids' locator device, and the speech synthesizer.
- Production-wise, it seems a bit odd to have three Season One Autobots respond to the kids' SOS, rather than showcasing the brand-new combiner team who would otherwise seem to be the spotlight buy-my-toy characters of the episode (this is even flagged up in the episode itself, when the kids try to CALL the Protectobots for help!) The cause is presumably the same last-minute shoehorning that got the Protectobots into "The Revenge of Bruticus".
- The original script's cast list for the episode notes that the "junkyard operator" is a spy, and that the only other thing we learn about him is that he gets taken away by the "Federal Authorities". Oh, and he has no lines. This bizarre plot twist obviously didn't make it into the final draft, but really, what's one more wad of nonsense at this point?
Screencaps via TFWiki (Teletraan I), used under fan-archive fair use.