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Season Three, Episode 4: Cutting Edge
Reviewed by Blackjack

Episode Review

The protohuman kids are irritating and uninteresting, and Cheetor being tired of treated like a kid is one of the character threads that's been trite since Season one. The cyber-raptors are rubbish as well, reeking of G1's "weapon of the week" and Tarantulas' unexplained inclusion among the Predacon ranks is uncharacteristically bad continuity among the writers. Also, Cheetor's puppy love at Blackarachnia is laughable in execution. Quickstrike's dialogue this episode is hilarious, though.

There are some good bits of storytelling here, though. Cheetor's upcoming upgrade and whatever it is that Blackarachnia and Megatron are up to respectively in future episodes are foreshadowed upon, while Silverbolt being overprotective to the point of naïveness is believable. Rattrap being suspicious is true to character as well. But the foreshadowings hardly make this episode as good as the others... the bits with the protohuman kids drag on the episode for far too long.

Notes

The first appearance of recurring characters Chak and Una, the closest Beast Wars would have to children sidekicks. The protohuman with Dinobot's hammer (I'm going to call him 'Hammer' for review purposes) also reappears. Also, this is the first (and only) appearance of the Cyber-raptors, which are of course modified CG models of Dinobot's beast mode.

This episode foreshadows the chain of events that would lead to the "Feral Scream" two-parter. Cheetor being insecure and being tired of treated like a kid, as well as Megatron creating Cyber-raptors, and Rampage's spark. Blackarachnia's pilfering of resources would be explored upon in later episodes as well.

Megatron quotes Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in his line "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".

This is the second time Megatron had attempted to clone Dinobot. It would not be the last. Megatron's little obsession with creating a loyal and competent Dinobot is... disturbing, to say the least.

Goofs

The big one is, of course, the fact that Tarantulas is somehow working under Megatron's command. Before and after this episode Tarantulas has always worked on his own after being revealed to be Ravage's agent.

The first Cyber-raptor that Blackarachnia and Cheetor fight wanders off and doesn't turn up in the final battle (only the three raptors dispatched from the Predacon base appear), and where it runs off to is not made clear.