Spider's Game

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"Spider's Game"
Season	1
No. in season	18
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	January 6,1997
Written by	Larry DiTillio
Directed by	James Boshier
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity
Packaged with	Predacon Tarantulus
Watch this episode on YouTube

Tarantulas detects a new stasis pod and attempts to turn the protoform into a new Predacon.

Synopsis

It was only after Tarantulas had finished hooking up his TVs that he remembered cable wouldn't be invented for a few epochs.

As anotherstasis podleaves orbit and completes planetfall,Tarantulassends out a magnetic pulse that disrupts the sensors at both thePredaconandMaximal bases.The pulse ensures that Tarantulas will be the first to arrive at the pod's landing site, withinGrid Halex,and that he will be able to manipulate theprotoforminside.Blackarachniadiscovers what Tarantulas is up to and insists on accompanying him to the pod's landing site.

Tigatronalso sees the pod arriving, but is unable to contact theMaximalbase so he sets out to intercept the pod on his own. He is intercepted by Waspinator, who delays Tigatron until Airazor arrives and saves him. Tigatron tellsAirazorto go to the pod and that he will join her there.

But the box said there were supposed to be ten live ants.

Arriving at the pod, Tarantulas and Blackarachnia are too late to hand pick an arachnid form for the protoform; however, Tarantulas is able to do some reprogramming and turn the protoform into aPredacon.The new Predacon,Inferno,emerges from the pod only to attack the other two Predacons, then begins marching about the stasis pod. Tarantulas deduces that Inferno'sbeast modeis dominating his logic circuits and that he thinks he really is a fire ant protecting his colony, which his mind concludes is the stasis pod. Blackarachnia tries to fire on Inferno, but Tarantulas stops her, saying he wants no damage to the pod.

Airazor arrives on the scene only to be attacked and disabled by Inferno and Blackarachnia. While Blackarachnia uses this opportunity to make nice with Inferno and start to win him over, Tarantulas uses it to accomplish his real goal—stealing the stasis pod. This act enrages Inferno who sets out in pursuit of Tarantulas, with Blackarachnia not far behind. Tigatron arrives and tells Airazor to find Optimus while he pursues the Predacons.

Whoops, sorry, I didn't see you there.

Nearing hislab,Tarantulas is caught by Inferno who demands the return of the "colony". Tarantulas ensnares Inferno in a web and is preparing to finish him off when Scorponok arrives and informs Tarantulas thatMegatronwants the pod. Before that can happen however, Tigatron arrives and destroys the pod. His victory quickly turns sour as he is attacked by both Tarantulas and Blackarachnia, who inflict heavy damage on him.Megatronarrives on the scene shortly, and even though both of the spiders flee, Tigatron is still in trouble. Inferno breaks free of Tarantulas's web, enraged at the destruction of the colony. Impressed with new guy's violent attitude, Megatron directs Inferno's fury on Tigatron. The ant is prepares to destroy the tiger, butOptimus Primaland Airazor arrive and blow Inferno into scrap.

Who buried the loyalists?

Megatron gathers up the parts of Inferno and has him restored, while Optimus and Airazor take Tigatron back to the Maximal base for repairs. Back at his lab, however, Tarantulas is lamenting the loss of the pod, revealing to Blackarachnia his beliefs thatthe planetthey're onis doomed.From this, the black widow correctly surmises that Tarantulas was going to convert the pod into an escape shuttle, but is unable to wrench any more information about his motives for doing so out of him.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Besides, you're socute."

—Blackarachniato Tarantulas. Erugh.

"Ew, anotherinsect.How depressing. "

—Blackarachniaon Inferno's alt mode.

"Spiders! Dare invade the colony? Inferno, terrorize!"

—Inferno's first words.

"As Cheetor would say, that flight mode is ultra-gear!"

—Airazorshould find better people to quote.

"You won't be getting any of our secrets from that pod, Predacons!"
"And you won't be getting any older, Stripes."

—TigatronandBlackarachnia.

"At least consider it; we could be a great team....Lunatic."
"Witch."

—BlackarachniaandTarantulascontemplate working together again.

Notes

Script timeline

• First draft: 19th June 1996
• Second draft: 16th July 1996
• Finalised: 14th August 1996
• As Air: 8th January 1997

Animation and technical errors

• As Blackarachnia talks while Tarantulas works away at the protoform, her claws at one point clip through her hip, and then through Tarantulas' armkibble.
• When Waspinator flies after Tigatron, he clips through the screen.
• After smashing into the boulder, Tigatron's head briefly clips into it.
• Inferno's beast form seems to be way too large for the stasis pod he crawls out of...
• Inferno's legs are also colored quite randomly. This means that when he first transforms torobot mode,his right leg suddenly goes from being dark red to a bright hue.
• Just before Inferno transforms for the first time, one of his ant legs in the pod jerks back and forth.
• When Inferno salutes after firing at the spiders, his hand clips into his head and his "horns".
• When Blackarachnia hides behind a tree, her spider legs clip into its trunk.
• Then, as she transforms, Tarantulas' forearms are on backwards. And whenhetransforms, his robot mode legs miraculously disappear, only to flip down from his body and retract into it again.
• Right after this, as Inferno's walking up and down to guard his pod, his back kibble are doing their own independent movements.
• Blackarachnia's line "An opportunity has arrived" comes out of both her and Tarantulas' mandibles.
• As Blackarachnia throws Tarantulas off herself, he briefly passes into her back.
• The spinning blades on Inferno's abdomen have a tendency to clip through his legs as he flies or hovers.
• When Tarantulas snickers to himself after Blackarachnia goes to talk to Inferno, his spider "hands" clip into the ground.
• When Inferno introduces himself to Airazor, his hand passes into his chest.
• The sound effect for Inferno's spinning blades can still be heard when he lands in front of Blackarachnia, but they aren't moving.
• As Airazor struggles to get up, the fingers on her right hand twist outwards two times.
• As Airazor caresses her right arm when talking to Tigatron, her left hand keeps popping on and off its joint. Then, as Tigatron leaves, her right arm clips into her thigh.
• When Tarantulas transforms after Inferno finds him, the markings on his spider abdomen change as it becomes his back.
• Before Tarantulas shoots his web at Inferno, the latter is standing in front of an open plain, but when he's hit, the rock outcropping that was to his side appears behind him.
• Scorponok is standing on the ground when he finds Tarantulas, but when Tigatron's blasts knocks him back, he's suddenly on a boulder.
• When Inferno breaks out of the web Tarantulas traps him in and fires his jets, his spinning abdomen is seen slashing through the back of his legs. (for a brief second anyway)
• While he flies higher up, Inferno tilts his head back so much that the back of it clips completely into his torso.
• Both Megatron and Scorponok are missing from view when Primal's shot flies at and hits Inferno.
• As Primal's missile flies toward Megatron, a strange flickering line appears on the ground on the right side of the screen.
• After getting blasted by Primal, Megatron has odd "prongs" sticking out of the back of his head for a shot.
• The damage on Megatron's torso disappears as he fires at the retreating Maximals, only to reappear afterwards.
• Tarantulas' maniacal laughter at the end is accentuated by a rare dramatic shadow that sadly makes it look like he's hovering in the air.

Continuity errors

• While other stasis pods are shown with hatch windows in outer space, Inferno's stasis pod does not have a window when viewed from the inside.
• Despite what the stasis pod says during Tarantulas's reprogramming of it, it had already started and finished scanning for DNA before the spiders even arrived.
• While Airazor is standing up from her injury, the stasis pod can be seen in the background, even though Tarantulas has already taken it away.
• When Tigatron is injured near the end of the episode, his beast mode's face (which serves as his robot mode's chestplate) appears to be bleeding (and has a black eye). Unless mech fluid happens to be red, this either contradicts what Cheetor said to Tarantulas in anearlier episodewhen he said "I don'thavereal blood... onlymech fluid.",or this lends credence to the theory that beast modes are wholly organic.
• It's snowing rather heavily near the end of the episode. Considering that the series most likely takes place in prehistoric Africa, this is... odd, to say the least. Perhaps it has something to do with the energon deposits?

Continuity notes

• Following on from the events of theprevious episode,Tarantulas has correctly realized that the planet's strange geography is the result of alien manipulation, and is planning to flee the planet before they show up.
• Tarantulas hopes to make another of "our kind", referring to the role he played in Blackarachnia's own creation back in "Double Jeopardy".
• Prior to this point, Predacons had been known to exclaim "By the Inferno". With the introduction of a character using that name, the phrase is quietly dropped to avoid confusion and will be replaced in a couple of episodes with "By thePit".
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Airazor can perform a "sonar scan" while in beast mode to detect faraway targets.
  • We get to see the installation of a Predaconshell programonto a Maximal protoform, which involves physically replacing a chip within the pod's machinery.
  • We also get to see Tarantulas pooping out some webbing, which he uses to pull the Stasis Pod along. It... doesn't sound pleasant.

Trivia

• Remarkably, this is the first episode where Tarantulas and Blackarachnia interact since her debut.
• While Megatron is complaining that repairing the computer is Tarantulas's job, you can see the words "eat me" on the screen in the Predacon variant ofCybertronix.
• This is the only episode of the series in whichScott McNeilvoices just one character (specifically, Waspinator). The other fifty-one episodes saw him voicing two to four characters.
• Inferno's stasis pod is the only pod in the entire series to make a controlled descent and scan abeast modewithout incident. Of course, it doesn't stop him from being bonkers, but hey.
• It can be speculated that Inferno's faulty programming can be attributed to his pod already selecting his beast mode before Tarantulas began the reprogramming sequence. It is possible that without the Maximal or Predacon programming chips in place, the pod began to program him with the basic instincts of an ant.
• This is the first episode of the series to not featureRattrap,Cheetor,orTerrorsaur.
• After Tigatron hits his head, there's a cartoony, tweeting-bird sound.
• Just before Inferno's pod lands, one ant in the screen's lower left corner is doing rather questionable things to its partner. Hopefully that particular behavior wasn't picked up by Inferno's programming.
• A toilet flushing can be heard right before Optimus Primal asks Rhinox why the power is out. Optimus states that he was running a "strategic simulation."

Foreign localization

French

• Title:"Inferno"

• Title:"Inferno"(Canada)

German

• Title:"Das Spiel der Spinne"(" The Game of the Spiders ")
• Original airdate:1 August1998

Italian

• Title:"Intrighi"(" Intrigue ")

• In previous episodes, Megatron's "Yessss!" was generally translated asSicuro!( "Sure!", although the very first episodes had some exceptions) but, starting from here, it's instead literally translated asSììììfor some episodes (the old translation will return inBefore the Storm).

Japanese

• Title:"Jigoku no Ari Senshi Inferno"( địa ngục のアリ chiến sĩ インフェルノ," The Hellish Ant Warrior, Inferno ")
• Original airdate:28 January1998

• Inferno is dubbed fairly faithfully to his English language version, with the addition of incessantly repeating words and phrases to express his mania. Like all other characters, Inferno was given a unique verbal tic. In his case, he ends sentences with the phrasede arimasu,an outdated predecessor to the more moderndesuused only in highly formal situations (for Inferno, it illustrates his reverence for "the colony" ). "Ari" also happens to be Japanese for "ant", making it a pun. Like all characters, he shouts a phrase whenever he fires his weapon. In his case, it'sshageki( xạ kích, "Fire!" ).

Portuguese

• Title:"O Jogo das Aranhas"(" The Game of Spiders ")

Spanish

• Title:"Juego de Arácnidos"(" Spiders' Game ")

Mandarin

• Title:"Zhīzhū de Yóuxì"( tri chu đích du hí," Spiders' Game ")

Home video releases

VHS

1998 —Beast Wars— Warning from Space (Alliance Video)
1998 —Robots-Bêtes— Alert Dans L'Espace (Alliance Video) — French audio only.
1998 —Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers— There are 2 Dinobots? (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
1998 —Beast Wars/Robots-BêtesThree pack (Alliance Video) — Available in English or French audio.
2001 —Beast Wars: Transformers— The Beginning: Vol. 3 (Universal)

LaserDisc

1998 —Beast Wars: Transformers— Predacon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.

DVD

2000 —Beast Wars: Transformers— DVD Box (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
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 3 — The Battle Rages On! (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 Againre-airings:
  • "The Hellish Ant Warrior, Inferno"on YouTube
  • "The Hellish Ant Warrior, Inferno (Part 2)"on YouTube