Survival of the Fittest
From MediaWiki
Sari is kidnapped and the evidence points to the Dinobots. So Prowl and Bulkhead head to a mysterious island to investigate—with a highly suspicious Captain Fanzone on their tail.
Synopsis
Stats
- Written by: Steven Granat
- Directed by: Irineo Maramba & Makoto Fuchigami
- Original airdate: March 8, 2008
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Humans |
|---|---|
|
|
Quotes
"Dibs on lefty, I hate lawyers."
- —Captain Fanzone, naming something else he hates when he and Prowl are about to fight Black's mutant freaks.
Fanzone: "What the?!"
Sari: "Whoa..."
Bulkhead: "Uh, they couldn't do that before. Right?"
- —The gang learns that the Dinobots are more than meets the eye.
"Meltdown not hurt Dinobots, Dinobots hurt Meltdown"
- —Grimlock. Run far, run fast Melty.
Other notes
Continuity errors
Transformers references

- Meltdown's genetically engineered minions (previous failed attempts at producing "human transformers") bear a striking resemblance to the Generation 1 Pretenders Bomb-Burst/Blood and Submarauder/Gilmer. In fact, Meltdown's plan shows some similarity to the Pretender concept.
Real-world references
Miscellaneous trivia
- This is the first episode where Snarl and Swoop transform.
- Bumblebee appears in this episode, but doesn't speak.
- Part of Grimlock's transformation is recycled animation from Blast From The Past
- Captain Fanzone's phone seems remarkably outdated compared to the mobile phone his subordinate is shown using; it's the size of a brick, has a permanently extended antenna and amazingly features a rotary-dial to ring in the numbers...and even then Fanzone can't figure out how to use it. The man was clearly born a century after his time and presumably would be more comfortable around gramophones and steam locomotives.
- It's amazing that while Fanzone can overhear Prowl and Bulkhead's whispered conversation from ground-level with a phone pressed up to one ear, it completely slips by the other Autobots who are standing standing right next to the two co-conspirators.
- The fate of Meltdown's mutated test subjects is not addressed in the episode. They are not present on the boat back to Detroit so are presumably still on the island and subject to the 'tender mercies' of the Dinobots. Given that they were innocents (well, semi-innocent given one was a lawyer), this seems overtly harsh. Another possibility is that unlike Rhodes and Meltdown they could not be 'neutralized' and were sealed in the ship's hold for the return voyage.



