Double Jeopardy
From Transformers Wiki
| |||||||||
| "It's not a Penis Mightier, Mr. Connery! There's no such thing!" | |||||||||
| "Double Jeopardy" | |||||||||
| Season | 1 | ||||||||
| No. in season | 8 | ||||||||
| Production company | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Airdate | October 7, 1996 | ||||||||
| Written by | Jesse Winfield | ||||||||
| Directed by | Mark Schiemann | ||||||||
| Animation studio | Mainframe Entertainment | ||||||||
| Continuity | Beast Wars continuity | ||||||||
| Packaged with | Wolfang | ||||||||
| | |||||||||
After a series of failed missions, Rattrap's loyalty is brought into question.
Contents |
Synopsis
Dinobot and Optimus Primal explore one of the planet's frozen regions looking to retrieve the latest stasis pod. They find the pod overhead, hanging over the edge of a cliff, and protected by the three Predacon goons. While Terrorsaur and Scorponok bomb the Maximal duo, Waspinator grabs the pod to lift it back to the Predacon base. Primal sees the theft and flies after the bug, but is brought down by a shot in the back from Terrorsaur. With Primal downed, the Predacons scamper away.
At the Maximal base, Optimus Primal laments regarding the frequency of the Maximals being ambushed. Primal calls Rattrap into a private meeting, making it clear he suspects Rattrap has been feeding information to the Maximals' enemies. Rattrap denies this, and Cheetor and Rhinox can't believe it. As a test of loyalty, Rattrap is sent on a mission into one of the more dangerous sectors.
At the Predacon base, Tarantulas reveals the new Predacon made from the captured Maximal protoform: Blackrarachnia. Afterwards, they use their radio to eavesdrop on Rattrap's radio reports on how Rattrap's mission is going. Hearing that the rodent is by himself, Terrorsaur is sent to destroy Rattrap.
Terrorsaur and Rattrap battle, and with Rattrap unable to hit his target, Terrorsaur is able to stand over his enemy, his gun right in Rattrap's face. Desperate for his own survival, Rattrap bargains his own loyalty to Terrorsaur and the Predacons, while the rest of the Maximals listen, astonished by the change.
"Yeah, that's right. Turd Ferguson. It's a funny name."
Back at the Predacon base, Terrorsaur introduces his new underling and, with said underling's aid, overthrows Megatron (who is placed into the Predacon brig). Because he still can't be trusted, Rattrap is also imprisoned. The two captives are placed in cages and suspended over a flow of lava. Of course, Megatron has anticipated his own imprisonment and escapes with a few simple computer commands. Once Megatron is out of sight, Rattrap picks the lock on his own cage and jumps over the lava to freedom (barely).
Sneaking through the base, Rattrap follows another, actual rat. He passes by a Predacon computer console and discovers it contains a Maximal computer chip, explaining how they were able to listen to Maximal radio frequencies and anticipate the Maximals' movement. After removing the chip, he continues his sneaking, but activates a security alarm and is caught in a security web. He escapes, but Tarantulas follows Rattrap back to the suspended cages, compromising Rattrap's operation, or so he would be, were it not for Rattrap silencing the arachnid with a gun shot.
The Maximals begin an attack on the Pred base to retrieve Rattrap. With the other Predacons looking to him for leadership, Terrorsaur panics—even more so when Megatron pops up right next to him, free from his cage. But he deigns to give Terrorsaur rope to hang himself follow Terrorsaur's leadership as the Predacons counter-attack. Rattrap is freed to help in the defense and, on Terrorsaur's order, opens fire on Optimus Primal, scoring a direct hit on his former leader. After the two armies bounce off each other a bit, Megatron gives Rattrap the opportunity to destroy Dinobot, but Rattrap declines and shoots Terrorsaur instead, giving Dinobot the time to free himself by kicking out some of Megatron's teeth. The Maximals take Rattrap and retreat. With Terrorsaur's command shown to be a total frak-up, Megatron effortlessly resumes command of his forces and rubs in the defeat.
Back in the Axalon, Optimus Primal explains to his friends that the entire betrayal was a charade—a ploy to let Rattrap into the Predacon base and find out how the Predacons have been listening to the Maximals' radio communications.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons |
|---|---|
|
|
Quotes
"They're trapped! The pod is my trophy!"
- —Terrorsaur—shortly before looking up to see Waspinator flying off with the pod.
"Oh, be still my spinnerets."
- —Tarantulas after creating Blackarachnia.
"Will you still defend your friend, or will you see him for what he is—a traitor?!"
"You're a fine one to talk."
- —Dinobot gets burned by Rhinox.
"The wise tyrant always ensures his prisons are designed for his personal escape."
- —Megatron after getting out of his cage.
"So, the juicy rat has been running his maze."
- —Tarantulas being creepy as usual.
"And thus ends the glorious reign of Terrorsaur: a lost battle, a missing Blackarachnia, AND WHO KNOWS WHAT DAMAGE inflicted by the Maximal spy!"
- —Megatron exposing Terrorsaur's blundering leadership abilities.
Notes
Script timeline
- First draft: 30th January 1996
- Second draft: 22nd February 1996
- Finalised: 13th March 1996
- As Air: 28th August 1996
Animation and technical errors
- Blackarachnia's protoform doesn't resemble those seen later in the series, instead using a modified form of the model used for pre-reformatting Megatron in "Beast Wars (Part 1)", but with Blackarachnia's head. The same model shows up with a different head as a generic Predacon in "The Agenda (Part 1)".
- Even by the standards of other season 1 characters, Blackarachnia's transformation is extremely cheatsy. Her entire body basically emerges from her beast mode mouth. (She's also by far the least toy-accurate model on the show, but when you consider that her toy is a redeco of Tarantulas's, that's probably a good thing.)
- As Dinobot exclaims "We are betrayed!", his right foot is sliding around.
- Then as Scorponok's missile blasts him and Optimus away, Dinobot's feet are still parallel to the ground even as he flips over.
- When he transforms over the box canyon, one of Waspinator's right wings stops moving and just floats next to him. Also, the ice cracks under the pod look completely different in this shot than before.
- Scorponok's visor turns red as he tries to target the flying Optimus. It goes back to yellow after Dinobot's eye beam hits him.
- The damage to Dinobot's shoulder is gone when he blasts Scorponok away.
- The angle of Optimus' fall after Terrorsaur shoots him out of the air is odd – he gets knocked forward, then begins falling while somehow being pulled backward, slamming into the icy cliff before plummeting to the ground. Perhaps the intent was that his jet propulsion went haywire, but his thrusters aren't lit up as he falls.
- As Optimus puts his hands down on the table, some of his fingers clip through Dinobot's fist.
- Cheetor's right hand momentarily passes through the table's edge as he says "Like some rat slipping info."
- Tarantulas' claw and spider-leg kibble keep clipping through parts of the computer before he presents Blackarachnia to the team.
- When Blackarachnia begins striking poses after her introduction, her feet momentarily turn a darker shade, and her spider leg kibble clips through her head.
- When Rattrap transforms to engage Terrorsaur, the rock he places his left foot on begins wobbling like Jell-O.
- In the same shot, the blasts fired by Terrorsaur aren't visible, but the small explosions caused by them are.
- The tip of Terrorsaur's wings clip into his rising platform as he prepares to introduce Rattrap.
- When Terrorsaur laughs at the fallen Megatron, the underside of Blackarachnia's spider abdomen is brown. This also happens later when Terrorsaur addresses "his" troops again.
- In the closeup on Scorponok as he announces his loyalty to Megatron, the floor under him looks different than in the previous and following shot.
- When Terrorsaur orders Rattrap to be locked up, his long pterodactyl wing-finger briefly clips into part of his wing skin flap.
- When Rattrap and Megatron's cages are lowered, the bars on Rattrap's cage are spaced far enough apart that he could easily pass through them. They're placed closer in other shots.
- When Megatron breaks free from his cell, his tail clips completely through the bars. Then again, he does say the cage was designed for easy escape...
- When Tarantulas attempts to transform to confront Rattrap, his spider legs clip into the vent's sides. And an extra exploding object, meant to create debris, can also very quickly be seen appearing inside of his torso just slightly before Rattrap's blast hits him.
- After he closes the cell door, Rattrap's gun clips through its bars.
- When the Maximals transform to launch their assault on the Predacons, Cheetor's gun clips through the ground.
- Several giant pieces of debris land on the floor when Waspinator reports to Terrorsaur, but the timing of the sound effects doesn't line up with any of them.
- When the Predacons transform on Terrorsaur's command, the stripes on Waspinator's thighs are facing the wrong way – a common error in the show's early episodes.
- In one shot as the Preds and Rattrap rush toward the Maximals, Rattrap's feet keep sinking into the ground.
- Optimus closes his mouth plate when he takes off during the big battle, but it's open again when Rattrap shoots him down.
- The fallen Primal is missing from the ground when Blackarachnia walks towards Cheetor during the battle.
- Optimus is suddenly fine at the end of the fight, despite being shown with severe damage marks after he crashed.
- When the battered Predacons gather at the end of the battle, some of Scorponok's beast legs and a piece of metal are awkwardly sticking out of his shoulder. These disappear in subsequent shots. And his visor is red again.
- Though the error appears in other episodes, the frontal shot of Dinobot advancing on Rattrap with his spinning shield clearly shows how the shield's fake motion blur effect "blots out" the reflection textures on Dinobot's shiny parts.
- As Dinobot realizes that Optimus and Rattrap planned the latter's defection, the stripes on his right arm are reversed.
Continuity errors
- Other Maximals or Predacons who changed allegiances either prior to this episode or afterward signified the switch by changing their activation code. Rattrap doesn't follow suit. He simply changes the Maximal symbol on his arm to a Predacon symbol. Perhaps this should have been Terrorsaur's first tip that Rattrap wasn't truly defecting. (At one point, he says "Rattrap, Maximize" before he changes his symbol back to the Maximal one.)
- Far be it from us to question the Maximals' resident infiltration expert, but surely sneaking around the Predacon ship in his (much smaller) beast mode would have made a lot more sense? It would have made his footsteps quieter, at the very least.
- There was really no need to keep the plan from the other Maximals (none of them had any contact with the Predacons until after Rattrap recovered the chip). It can't be that Optimus was worried about being overheard while on the Axalon, since it looks like he briefed Rattrap about his plan right there on the bridge. Nor did it seem like there was any particular need to keep the deception going well into the battle in order to extract him from Predacon territory and all the way back to base afterwards. Did Rhinox not speak to Rattrap at all while carrying him on his back?
- Not necessarily an error, but while listening in on Rattrap's battle with Terrorsaur, Rhinox motions towards Dinobot saying "Told you he was no Predacon clone!", a notion which was never mentioned prior in the episode or series itself. While this might have made more sense had the episode taken place after "Double Dinobot", Megatron was shown only capable of creating a nontransforming clone of Dinobot's Beast mode, which would cast doubt on the idea of the clearly transforming Rattrap being yet another clone.
Continuity notes
- This is the (not entirely auspicious) debut of Blackarachnia. After being introduced by Tarantulas, she transforms into robot mode, then spends a few minutes posing, preening, and doing karate moves in the background while Megatron talks. Later in the episode, she kicks loose screws out of Cheetor (and, admittedly, is a badass about it), then goes missing for no clear reason, though it does give early insight into her treacherous nature. Either way, Blackarachnia is already back with the Predacons by the next episode, leaving her absence at the end of the episode pointless.
- The Maximal chip is labeled in Cybertronix. It says "caution very hot".
- The activation codes have now started to function more like battle cries. Both times Terrorsaur declares his intention to "terrorize", he has already finished transforming before he's even said the word. (Rattrap hilariously breaks cartoon etiquette by shooting Tarantulus before the latter has a chance to finish speaking his activation code.)
- When Terrorsaur laughs in beast mode, his eyebrows seem to bounce up and down, moving in unison with his beak. This may be a CGI error or an awkward decision on the animators' part to make him emote.
- For the first time in the series, Terrorsaur doesn't squawk when he orders the other Predacons to "Terrorize".
- "Feet" is used as a unit of distance, after metric units were used in previous episodes. It's like living in the UK!
- Gadgets and powers:
- Rattrap carries an infiltration kit (including lockpicks) in his forearms. We're beginning to suspect that his arms are how Rattrap accesses his own personal storage dimension.
- Terrorsaur fires purple eye-beams
- Tarantulas has booby-trapped at least part of the Darksyde with the same stasis webs he used back on Cheetor in "The Web".
Trivia
- The female black widow is seen eating her tiny mate, in a reference to real-world spider mating habits.
- Unlike Tigatron being recycled from Cheetor in the previous episode, Blackarachnia's character model was not simply retooled from Tarantulas as the toy had been. While this unequestionably resulted in a more feminine figure, it also meant her toy was almost completely innaccurate to the show, the only similarity being the beast mode. Blackarachnia is the second and final retooled-toy character introduced in the show.
- Throughout Terrorsaur's big speech to gain leadership, Rattrap is making gestures in the background to punctuate his remarks.
- When Rattrap blasts Tarantulas for discovering his escape, Tarantulas is shown to have ball joints. It even matches his toy. Score one for toy accuracy!
- While sneaking through the Predacons' ventilation duct, Rattrap encounters a small rat, which seems to acknowledge his presence with a nod. Later on, Rattrap inadvertently saves the same rat from being eaten by accidentally walking into Tarantulas' web and triggering his alarm.
- Someone at Mainframe Entertainment apparently got new "Battle Damage" software. Optimus looks like hell after he's shot down at the beginning of the episode, as does Tarantulus after Rattrap shoots him. All the Predacons are sporting various knocks and discoloured parts at the end as well.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Agent Double" ("Double Agent")
- Title: "Double Danger" (Canada)
German
Italian
- Title: "Doppia condanna" ("Double Jeopardy")
- Terrorsaur's last line is oddly changed from: «Oh, my aching head!» to: «Can I take command?».
Japanese
- Title: "Kumo Onna no Kick" (クモ女のキック, "Kick of the Spider Woman")
- Original airdate: 19 November 1997
- When Terrorsaur introduces Rattrap and makes his big speech, Rattrap's mannerisms are accompanied by sycophantic, supportive dialogue. For instance, when Terrorsaur nominates himself as the new leader of the Predacons, Rattrap suggests, "And President!"
- When Rattrap makes the jump from the cage to the vent shaft, he announces "Flying Body Attack!"
- In the scene where Rattrap spies the shadows of Scorponok and Terrorsaur arguing over whether Megatron is the true leader of the Predacons or not, Scorponok is heard to be weeping heavily. When Terrorsaur dismisses him, Scorponok runs away crying.
- With this episode, the Maximals fully embrace the (irritating) running gag of making noises every time they fire their weapons. Rhinox shouts "danananana", Cheetor shouts "utsubeshi" ("shoot"), Rattrap shouts "kuna" and so on. Every. Single. Time.
Portuguese
- Title: "Perigo Duplo" ("Double Jeopardy")
Spanish
- Title: "Riesgo Doble" (America, "Double Risk")
Mandarin
- Title: "Shuāngchóng Wēijī " (双重危机, "Double Crisis")
Home video releases
- VHS
1998 — Beast Wars — Beasties Escape (Alliance Video)
1998 — Robots-Bêtes — L'Évasion (Alliance Video) — French audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers — Lonely Warrior Tigatron (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
1998 — Beast Wars / Robots-Bêtes Three pack (Alliance Video) — Available in English or French audio.
2001 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Beginning: Vol. 2 (Universal)
2002 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 3 (Rhinomation)
1998 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Maximal Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
- DVD
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2002 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 2 (Rhinomation)
2003 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete First Season (Rhinomation)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
2011 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2005 — Beast Wars — Classic Episodes: Volume 2 — The Saga Continues! (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2005 — Beast Wars — The Complete First Season (Alliance Atlantis) — English and French audio.
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 1 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
External links
Official uploads (Japanese)
- Beast Wars Again re-airings:
- "Kick of the Spider Woman" on YouTube
- "Kick of the Spider Woman (Part 2)" on YouTube