Big Small Rescue

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"Big Small Rescue"
Production code	116
Season	1
No. in season	16
Production company	Allspark Animation
Airdate	February 23, 2019
Writer	Danny Stack
Director	Pete Slattery
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on YouTube

The bots are surprised to discover that their important off-planet mission is actually to save a single tiny plant.

Synopsis

The recruits celebrate another successful training rescue, but are interrupted by Boulder who has an actual rescue for them. The recruits are excited when Boulder tells them to head to the space bridge, as that means they're headed for another planet. They land up in a cave on the rock planet of Parvus, which as they quickly observe, is very unstable. Boulder briefs them—they've come to rescue the Galax, a plant which lives somewhere in the caves and which is the last of its species. As the caves are too unstable for Boulder to go any further, the five recruits head in and soon locate the Galax, perched on a ledge on the other side of a chasm. Whirl attempts to transform, but sets off a fresh set of tremors—they realize they're going to have to stay in bot mode for the entire rescue.

Hoist uses a cable to get them to a ledge closer to the Galax, though they're still not quite close enough to reach it. Hot Shot's attempt to dig up the plant with his water blasters isn't helpful, so they get Wedge across to the ledge it's living on. His attempt to use his power drivers to dig it up is aborted when it sprays him with a sticky substance as part of its defence mechanism, and the others have to pull him back to their ledge. Another tremor causes their ledge to collapse, bringing them level with the Galax. They still have the issue of how to safely dig the Galax up, however Whirl comes up with the idea of making tiny tools to dig the Galax up, and Hoist manages to assemble some using parts from the other Bots.

Armed with the newly constructed tools, the recruits dig up the Galax, but a cave in seals the entrance they came through, and though Boulder radios them an alternate route, they come up against another cave in. With the help of Wedge's vehicle mode, they get through. As they're running through the next cave, Whirl falls into a sinkhole. Luckily the Galax's defence mechanism helps keep her and the plant safe so the others can dig them out. They finally get back to Boulder and head back to Earth, where the Galax is put in a terrarium and a second plant sprouts up next to it.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Others
Hoist (1) Whirl (2) Hot Shot (3) Medix (4) Wedge (5) Boulder (6)	Galax (7)

Quotes

"No plants are getting smooshed on my watch, and I don't even wear one."

—Whirl

"-And that's how it should work. Any questions?"
"Seven hundred and fifty two, but I'll save them for later."

—Hoist and Medix

"Small to be big, slow to be fast. Does any part of this mission make sense?"

—Wedge

Notes

Continuity notes

• TBA

Transformers references

• TBA

Real-world references

• Wedge suggests a potential offworld mission might be to save mining ships from a supernova "near Orion". Presumably he means the Orion constellation though as constellations are spread out over many light years, that's a pretty vague location.

Animation and technical errors

• Upon their arrival in the Galax chamber, Whirl inadvertently causes a major tremor and says she "was just going to change into my helicopter mode." This is kind of an odd thing to say considering she did change into her copter mode.

Trivia

• "Parvus" is Latin for "small" or "little". While the Bots are speculating on what the rescue might be, Medix suggests they'll be "protecting the giant moon of Gigas"—"Gigas" being Latin for "giant".
• The Cybertronian text on Medix's display of the unstable cave reads "DETECTING ACTIVITY" although oddly the text is upside down. The same text appears right-side up as the recruits later run through the collapsing caves.
• As he scans the Galax, the word "SEARCHING" appears.
• Hot Shot is able to hold a tube up to his mouth and blow through it.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Petits mouvements, grande mission" ("Small movements, big mission")
• Original airdate: ?