Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the next episode’s recap? Wait for the recap.
Sideswipe’s irresponsible ways jeopardise the safety of the Autobot team, even as they go on the prowl for a legendary creature named the “Kospego” – who sounds suspiciously like a Decepticon! Their actual confrontation puts Sideswipe to the test as a black hole threatens to tear apart everything in sight! Can the Autobots defeat Thunderhoof?
“As the Kospego Commands!” is the sixth episode of the first season of Transformers: Robots in Disguise. It’s the sequel series to Transformers: Prime, and revolves around Bumblebee and his group of cadets on Earth, with a subplot involving Optimus Prime pursuing a mystical mission in the afterlife. This episode sees the Autobots going after Thunderhoof, and features the (very short) return of Steeljaw.
“As the Kospego Commands!” quite honestly fills like filler, since it doesn’t advance the plot much, and neither does it give a lot of character development to the protagonists. Actually, it just rehashes the same character beats that have been established since Day 1 – and given that this is episode 6, that’s not a good thing. There aren’t a good deal of funnies in this episode either. It tries too hard to be a serious parody, but it doesn’t go down far enough either road (humour or mimicry) to successfully do either.
Highlights
Decepticon Hunter weapon
At last, some hope for the Autobots! Well it’s my personal wish that all the Autobots get some sort of Decepticon Hunter to allow them to power up, and having a magnificent melee weapon like that is the equivalent of giving mini-Star Sabers to all. OK, maybe Grimlock doesn’t need one, but if the other three all have Decepticon Hunters, that’d be awesome. Hopefully there’s some lore squelched away for each of those weapons… but also, let’s avoid that silly scavenger hunt type of plot that plagued Transformers: Prime so.
Return of Steeljaw
Yay! For the series’ Big Bad, he sure doesn’t appear much. It’s fun to see Thunderhoof being indoctrinated as his first member, especially since he has knowledge of how to build a space bridge (or a black hole, depending on how you look at it). His appearance could have been longer, but then it wouldn’t have been such a tease, would it?
Letdowns
Sideswipe’s rampant irresponsibility
I guess they had to Flanderise his character flaw here, but really, it’s an overdone beat. We’re barely past the one quarter mark for the season, and Sideswipe doesn’t seem to have any other character traits. What gives? I mean, Sideswipe genuinely means well, and it’s not like he’s had hero training or anything. How come he gets so much more flak than say, Grimlock, for the chaotic things that he does? Not that I like Sideswipe that much, but this whole ragging on his irresponsibility beat really irks me.
Bumblebee seems too harsh and inflexible
And then on the flipside you have Bumblebee coming off like he’s got something stuck deep up his tailpipe. It’s not like Bumblebee was especially rule abiding in the previous series, but suddenly he’s got it in for Sideswipe? I understand it’s for the safety of the team, but surely Bumblebee has enough EQ to see that this is just counter-productive to what he hopes to achieve? If you keep ragging on someone to stop being irresponsible, chances are they are going to just be a self-fulfilling prophecy and end up irresponsible anyway.
“As the Kospego Commands!” is not a good episode to have so early on in the series – why do we have filler episodes so quickly? It bodes ill for the series arc as a whole, since it implies that there’s not enough story to last all 26 episodes, and they have to resort to ridiculous filler for that reason. The only god thing to come out of this is the Decepticon Hunter and Steeljaw, but even those two aren’t enough to save this episode.
i’ll have to deeply disagree that Bumblebee ragged on Sideswipe, Bee in the beginning gave him a small pap on the back for abusing Fix-It’s trustworthiness, that was far from ragging. He only got truly cross with him when he flat out bailed from guard duty to the point where it got a teammate hurt. That’s completely understandable specially for Bee who has never been a leader before and thus would be prone to a more emotional outburst at a hurt friend.
Though I do agree that Sideswipe lack of responsibility felt too much in this episode, I recall him disobeying orders before but disobeying orders to dance feels too much.