Originally aired September 23, 1996
Screenplay by Greg Johnson
When the Maximals try to set up a detection system, somehow Cheetor and Terrorsaur are transported. Dinobot plans to beam a bomb to the Predacon base. – Netflix
One week after Cheetor learned the value of teamwork under the the cruel tutelage of torture, I never would have expected to see the spotted dick on the receiving end of another “If you ever pull a stunt like that again” speech. And yet here we are.
If I was Greg Johnson, I would be upset to have this story preempted by Larry DiTillo’s “The Web,” which was produced as the sixth episode but aired just before this one. In fact, I’m not Greg Johnson and I’m upset about it. The jump in air order means we have two episodes in a row—the only two since the pilot—that revolve around Cheetor getting into trouble after bone-headedly ignoring orders. I didn’t even want this plot the first time. Maybe a suit upstairs was trying to push Cheetor into being the star of the show, who knows.
The real bugbear for me is that “The Web” had a sense of finality to it: narrowly escaping hideous murder is a good stopping point for Cheetor’s antics, and the boy seems to be scared straight. You could imagine he spends months as Rhinox’s lab assistant before working back the courage to even set foot outside the base. But here he is a week later acting like the third Duke boy again. He even sasses back at Optimus’ tough talk with a snappy “Okay okay, I’ll never do that again… until the next time!” I hope you do put his tail in a sling, Optimus! Whatever that means.
That said, I’m not sure I even understand the plot of “Equal Measures.” The Maximals plan to lay out survey posts, which are basically radar posts, and these are supposed to help them deliver a bomb to the Predacon base. They delay the plan due to a storm, but Cheetor tries it anyway, and then lightning hits a post, and Energon… does something, and it makes a warp point between the bases.
The whole idea is wacky and slapdash, but it does give us our first glimpse into the Predacon base, which is sort of a massive hangar half-filled with lava.
As gimmicky as the core concept is, it’s actually pretty fun seeing Cheetor zip around with an air-cart and dodge explosions in the enemy base. Compared to “The Web,” it’s a better showing for Cheetor overall, since he pulls off some derring-do rather than concluding in a heap of utter ignominy and shame.
On the other set, Terrorsaur pops into the Maximal base and almost immediately turns traitor to ally with Dinobot. It’s kind of a running gag of the series that the Predacons have absolutely no loyalty to their army whatsoever, and will turn on Megatron when they come upon even the most meager advantage. I mean, the best use for the warp point that I can think of is the one Dinobot comes up with: chute a bomb through the thing to blow up the other base. But Terrorsaur goes completely deep-end over it: “Think of the cosmic magnificence!”
The only thing I don’t really like about this episode, beyond being Cheetor-heavy, redundant to “The Web,” and generally crappy, is that Dinobot seems more like a schemer that his usual warrior persona. He dupes Cheetor into planting the relay posts when he could just as easily do it, and it seems like normally he would. There’s some side talk about how only Cheetor is fast enough to do the job, but the guy is a velociraptor. His name literally translates to “speedy… uh, raptor.” It’s Latin.
The best thing I can say about this episode is that it is very GIF-friendly. Take Optimus’ introduction, where he just pops up an elevator tossing a dropped bomb to himself and coolly asks his cowering squadmates “Some sort of trouble?” The way the shot lingers on his smug face for one extra glance around the room is just great. So great, in fact, that I learned how to make GIFs just to post it here:
In the process of making the above shitty GIF, I also stumbled on a tumblr full of much-better Beast Wars GIFs, and I’m going to end with the best ones from that site. I won’t make this a habit, but dear lord, there are a lot of great ones from this episode.
Side Notes:
- Okay, those survey posts are bullshit. You can’t just have a 10-foot tall antennae shrink to the size of a hockey puck and pretend that the idea of “transforming” has any integrity to it at all.
- Rattrap mentions the storm is trashing the comm-links “worse than usual,” so there’s our comm-link continuity.
- “Bugbear” would be a cool name for a Fuzor, and maybe his specialty would be creating annoying hang-ups for his teammates. But he would be gross looking.
- Who was fist-bumping in 1996? Was Dinobot in NWA?
- How fucking cool would it be if your fist-bumps caused an electrical disturbance? That would be the coolest goddamn thing.
Beast Wars in review 