‘A BETTER MOUSETRAP’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

In this ‘Beast Wars’ episode, the new defence grid for the Maximals’ base called Sentinel goes haywire. This happens to be Rattrap’s fault, as he caused a prank on Dinobot to prove how effective the Maximals’ base’s defences are. Rattrap should have been careful.

Incidentally, this raises a bit of continuity error since Sentinel was in ‘The Probe’ two episodes ago, yet this happens to be a new defence system in ‘A Better Mousetrap’. There has been some confusion as to whether this episode should come before ‘The Probe’.

As I saw ‘The Probe’ on Tuesday and ‘A Better Mouse Trap’ on Thursday in the October half-term week in 1998, I’m willing to go with that transmission order and assume the continuity error occurred by accident. It makes sense regarding the next episode ‘Victory’.

As it’s Rattrap’s fault for causing Sentinel to go haywire, he decides to go in and turn the defence system off. Cheetor, Rhinox and Dinobot exit the Maximal ship, only to be locked out by Sentinel. Even their weapons can’t penetrate the ship’s shield when shooting their way in.

It was tense to see Rattrap journey his way into the malfunctioning ship and reboot the security system. I did get anxious for Rattrap and hoped he would be able to turn off the defence system, despite Sentinel trying to shoot him with every use of firepower it has. 😐

Meanwhile, Optimus Primal and Tigatron investigate the mysterious presence of Waspinator close to the Maximals’ base. Optimus is alerted of Sentinel locking out his Maximal comrades. He heads back whilst Tigatron goes to investigate Waspinator alone.

This leads to Tigatron finding Waspinator, Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia about to use a sonic emitter to penetrate the Maximals’ base. Tigatron attacks and steals the sonic emitter, leading to a chase before he throws the emitter away and it eventually explodes.

Thankfully, Tigatron survives when Optimus, Cheetor, Rhinox and Dinobot find him. As the episode draws to a close, there was a sense that Rattrap may have been destroyed by Sentinel. Thankfully, Rattrap survived, and it was funny how he appeared to the Maximals.

‘A Better Mousetrap’ rating – 10/10