As the first season of Beast Wars approaches its conclusion, we come to one of the first real episodes of the series that builds a strong bridge between the series and G1 – Episode 21, “Possession”…
Possession – Story Summary
The episode starts off with us seeing a stray spark flying through space. An unusual event in itself as they’re not known for their ability to exist outside of the body, but this is no ordinary spark as we’re about to discover as it heads towards an all-too-familiar planet which is currently experiencing a heavy storm, which is causing chaos for the Maximals.
Meanwhile on the Predacon ship, they’re experiencing the same electrical problems as their adversaries. But the stray spark strikes their ship causing a surge that hits Waspinator who starts to act a little differently, some may even say possessed…
Enter Starscream!
The stray spark was none other than that of the legendary Decepticon, Starscream – who has now taken over Waspinator’s body and has revealed his presence to Megatron. Starscream explains that physical form was destroyed by Unicron but his spark managed to survice but has been drifting through space and time, before finally coming across the Predacons.
As expected, he claims that he wants side with Megatron although it’s clear that his intentions are less than sincere – since when has he ever been anything but self-serving? Despite having doubts, Megatron accepts believing Starscream’s guarantee that he can help him beat the Maximals.
Heavy Assault
Using knowledge gained from Starscream, Megatron attacks the Maximal base and while they were expecting an attack, the tactics the former Decepticon suggested proved to be a complete success. Taking the Maximals by surprise they were quickly overwhelmed and forced to retreat, abandoning their base and leaving Megatron to gloat over his unexpected victory.
With two bases to oversee, Megatron is left with no choice but to divide his resources. Thanks to playing a significant part in his victory, Starscream is rewarded with command of the Maximal base even though Megatron is still wary of him.
Meanwhile, the Maximals, still licking their wounds from their defeat try to work out their next move. Playing to his ego, Primal and the rest of the Maximals head back to their base calling Starscream out… offering to surrender. Putting Dinobot into a CR chamber to repair his injuries, Primal is captured while the rest are forced to obey Starscream to protect them both. So has Starscream done what Megatron couldn’t and finally beat the Maximals?
Double Cross
As expected, Starscream – with Blackarachnia under his wing – decides to double cross the Predacons and plans to use the Maximals to attack them. However, he hasn’t planned on Primal escaping captivity and striking from within. Nor Blackarachnia turning on him the moment she thinks she might be on the losing side.
Primal manages to get to the Predacon base to save the Maximals from certain doom before defeating Starscream and separating his spark from Waspinator’s body sending him out into the void once more…
Perfect Casting
Doug Parker (who normally voices Terrorsaur) stepped up to take on the role of Starscream in Possession and did an admirable job of portraying the untrustworthy Decepticon. It wasn’t going to be an easy task for any voice actor taking on the part that Chris Latta made so iconic in the original G1 run, but Parker managed to do so wonderfully.
Throughout the episode he captured Starscream’s mannerisms and characteristics and there wasn’t a single moment where you didn’t believe that this wasn’t G1 Starscream. Considering the character’s appearance didn’t change at all apart from a few brief moments when we saw a flicker from Waspinator to a silhoutte of Starscream this made his performance even more convincing.
Serious Tone
Unlike a lot of Beast Wars episodes, this was mainly played as a serious story from start to finish with very few lighter moments. I do love the lighter, more comedic moments that the series brings but Posessession is one of those episodes that works well without them. Granted, there was a brief moment when the Maximals were going to surrender to Starscream with some dialogue between Rattrap and Dinobot (although any scenes with the two of them usually generates something no matter what the episode is) and a line from Primal at the end lifed straight from the Terminator series but apart from that, this was pretty straight laced stuff.
Overall
This was yet another great episode for the series and as I said, the serious tone worked remarkably well. It was great to see Beast Wars acknowledging its G1 heritage and it was clearly a sign of things to come from the series. I may have had my occasional gripes about some episodes previously, but this is one that had me gripped from start to finish, and it’s one of the highlights of the season so far.
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