‘DARK DESIGNS’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

‘Dark Designs’ is one of two ‘Beast Wars’ episodes that I saw on Monday the 28th of December 1998 during the Christmas holidays via GMTV. The other episode was ‘Double Dinobot’. I greatly enjoyed the two episodes when I was getting into ‘Beast Wars’ back then.

In the episode, a ferocious battle takes place between the Maximals and the Predacons when Optimus Primal and his team are searching for Energon. Rhinox manages to defeat the Predacons by using his ‘tornado’ gun and trigger a rockslide to crush Megatron’s group.

Impressed by Rhinox’s fighting capabilities, Megatron decides to have Rhinox captured and reprogram him as a Predacon. Tarantulas captures Rhinox using one of his ‘energy-enticing’ webs. Rhinox is soon reprogrammed as a Predacon along with very evil red eyes.

That’s when he’s in beast mode, of course. He had red eyes when he was a Maximal. Also, the gold aspects of his robot form change to silver when he’s reprogrammed as a Predacon. And of course, he has the Predacon insignia on his head instead of the Maximal one.

At first, Megatron is pleased with his efforts of turning Rhinox into a Predacon. But the evil Rhinox causes trouble by turning the Predacon base upside down and doing more harm than good. 😮 This includes crushing Scorponok by pushing a stack of hardware onto him.

He then has Waspinator hit by a heavy piece of weight – another hardware box, I believe. It causes Waspinator to go crazy and make him think he’s Shrapnel, a Decepticon from long ago. Shrapnel was also one of the Insecticons from the original G1 ‘Transformers’ series.

Terrorsaur tries to form a partnership with Rhinox once he sees him causing trouble in the Predacon ranks. Rhinox isn’t interested however and threatens Terrorsaur to keep silent. Tarantulas and Blackarachnia also get poisoned by their own webs, caused by Rhinox. 😮

After a skirmish with Megatron, Terrorsaur and a repaired Scorponok, Rhinox is reverted back to being a Maximal. Optimus, Cheetor, Dinobot and Rattrap attack the Predacons’ base to save Rhinox. The story ends with the Maximals relaxing as Rhinox get to smells some flowers.

‘Dark Designs’ rating – 10/10