It's a Bot Time
From Transformers Wiki
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| "It's a Bot Time" | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 25 | |||||
| Production company | Hasbro Studios | |||||
| Airdate | August 18, 2012 | |||||
| Writer | Nicole Dubuc | |||||
| Director | Patrick Archibald | |||||
| Animation studio | Atomic Cartoons | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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When Doc Greene's experiment with a time machine goes awry, the Bots end up being captured by an old nemesis.
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Synopsis
Frankie shows Cody to a secret room they've found under the lab. Inside is a workshop with an old police car from the 1930s, which Doc Greene is trying to fix. When he asks Cody to hand him a wrench, Cody inadvertently triggers a secret entrance to yet another room, containing a huge arch that the Doc says is a time machine. They check the lab records and find the machine was created in 1939 for the Griffin Rock Technology Expo, but the scientists of the time were unable to get it working. Frankie says she'd love to visit the future and use warp speed to meet real aliens.
Cody returns to the fire station and tries to interest the others in a double feature at the drive in. Unfortunately they're all busy doing their own thing, so Cody goes back to the control center and takes a call from Doc Greene, who wants the entire team up at the lab immediately—he's repaired the time machine. It turns out that the machine just needed a sufficiently powerful source of power, and nuclear power has provided the answer. He's intending to send Dither as an initial test. The destination is August 17, 1939 by which time the coast should be clear. Chief Burns has Frankie and Cody get inside Heatwave for safety before Greene fires up the time machine, however as Dither enters the vortex, bolts of energy zap the Rescue Bots, making them vanish.
The kids and Rescue Bots find themselves in the same room, but it looks clean and new, and Doctor Morocco stands before them! Morocco, understandably not recognizing them, welcomes them to the past. Cody has Heatwave let them out, but as Morocco questions them, Elma Hendrickson and other scientists arrive. While Cody and Frankie are taken away, Frankie uses her watch hologram projector to draw their guard away and they start trying to track down Dither, who's been programmed to avoid human contact. Frankie soon runs into trouble doing so, as there are no satellites or Internet in 1939.
Back in the future, Chief Burns contacts Optimus Prime and fills him in on what's been happening. Optimus believes the Rescue Bots' energon caused them to be affected by the time machine.
The 1939 scientists run tests on the Rescue Bots to determine their limits. Morocco muses about how he will make a fortune off what they learn. Looking distinctly elderly, he retires to a secret room where he uses a "chamber of youth" to rejuvenate himself. Unimpressed with the results his fellow scientists have gotten, he decides that dissection is called for. When Heatwave resists, Morocco activates a giant electromagnet, pinning them to a wall. Meanwhile, Cody and Frankie track down Dither in a junkyard and Frankie rewrites his programming. They return to the lab and manage to lure Morocco away. As Cody tries to free the Bots, Frankie overhears them talking, learning finally that they're alien robots. Unfortunately Morocco returns and starts menacing the Bots with a drill. When Dither's attempt to free the four Bots fails, Cody tries to stop Morocco himself, until Optimus and Bumblebee come bursting through the floor.
The two newcomers free the Rescue Bots and they escape as Morocco sounds an alarm, though Heatwave pauses to pin Morocco against the wall with some metal pipe. The group find the building with the time machine, but are confronted by Hendrickson. Frankie and Cody explain to her what's going on and she covers for them. As they reach the time machine room, Frankie realizes that they've left Dither behind, but Optimus is able to power up the machine. As Morocco arrives with reinforcements, the team dives through. Though the Rescue Bots have gone, one of the scientists presents Morocco with Dither.
Everyone but Optimus arrives back in the future, and the portal abruptly disappears. After a moment of alarm, another portal appears and Optimus jumps out. When they emerge from the lab, they find Griffin Rock greatly changed. A quintet of MorBots welcomes them to "Moropolis".
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Why do Earth females so enjoy yelling at me?"
- —Blades has no luck with women.
"Someone from Science Magazine to see you, sir! You've been voted scientist of the year!"
"Finally!"
- —Frankie and Morocco
"Chief Burns informed us of your time travel dilemma. We suspected that you might need some assistance."
- — Optimus Prime
Frankie: Do you Bots have to do everything Cody tells you to?
Heatwave: Absolutely not!
Boulder: Once in a while.
Chase: I take orders only from Chief Burns.
Blades: We have a choice?!
- —The Rescue Bots need to work out their chain of command.
Notes
Continuity notes
- Graham has engineering homework, presumably from Gremsky Technical Institute which he was accepted into in "You've Been Squilshed".
- Doctor Hendrickson previously appeared as a hologram in "The Haunting of Griffin Rock".
- Two of the scientists assisting Doctor Morocco were seen in a picture related to the Sanctuary Plan in "Countdown".
- Frankie refers to the events of "Shake Up".
- Cody's reaction to Dither leaving the 1939 laboratory is "But Dither's our only way home and we can't let him wander around in the past." That last part? That's exactly what Dither was sent out to do. And if he wasn't to leave the lab, then why wasn't he programmed for that either?
- Why wasn't Dither affected by the still-powered-on electromagnet? For that matter, why wasn't Frankie's computer/watch-adorned wrist pinned to the wall if it's that strong?
Real-world references
- The time machine and its vortex owe a great deal to the time machine from Irwin Allen's The Time Tunnel. The arch with roundels is not a million miles away from design aspects of the TARDIS in Doctor Who.
Animation and technical errors
- When Kade admires his reflection in Heatwave's finish, his reflection's comlink is on the wrong side.
- In the scene where Morocco uses the electromagnet on the bots, the establishing shot shows Hendrickson and three of the male scientists. When Morocco enters, she's been replaced by a bearded male scientist in a turban.
- The tools the scientists want to use to take the 'bots apart do not respond to the magnet like the 'bots do.
Trivia
- During the Prime episode "Metal Attraction", Ratchet mentions Optimus and Bumblebee are away on a scouting mission, suggesting this is what they were up to during that episode's events.
- This episode raises questions about whether Morocco had a Chamber of Youth with him in "The Other Doctor"/"The Reign of Morocco". It's possible he had one in his blimp, though there isn't one visible during the scenes inside it.
- The younger Mrs. Neederlander is credited as "bratty girl".
- What exactly do two cops and a scientist hope to do to stop six giant robots?
- Morocco's machinations are strange. While observing Hendrickson's tests of the Bots, he devises that "the war department would pay me hundreds." Considering $1 (USD) in 1939 is equivalent to approximately $18.36 in 2020, this seems to be aiming extremely low. He further muses that "with an army of these robots, I could rule the world." If he ruled the world, he certainly wouldn't need the "war department's" mere hundreds... or any cash, for that matter. Perhaps the Chamber of Youth reverses dementia as well?
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Menace dans le futur, 1ère partie" ("Threat in the Future, 1st part")
- Original airdate: ?
Hungarian
Italian
Portuguese
- Title: "A Máquina do Tempo" ("The Time Machine")
- Original airdate: ?
Home video releases
2014 — Rescue Bots — "Bot to the Future" (Beyond Home Entertainment)
2015 — Rescue Bots — "Complete Season 1" (Beyond Home Entertainment)
