[8.0/10] This episode is scary in a way not many *Beast Wars* episodes are. There is what feels like legitimate torture involved, with pain and power beyond the weightless weekly skirmishes between Maximals and Predacons. There are harsh and unknowable alien gods, who treat our heroes and villains like destructive and unnecessary interlopers, far beneath their care beyond the level of household pests. And there is also, of course, the prospect of apocalyptic destruction, when those aliens decide that enough is enough, and it’s time to just wreck this place. That’s the thing that stands out to me in the beginning of the end here. This is Serious Business, and while normally I tend to roll my eyes at such severity, it makes it feels like there’s something genuinely at stake here, something that can’t necessarily be wiped away and forgotten after twenty-two minutes the way the events of most episodes can. Maybe that just comes from the presence of the aliens. I know I’ve talked about the plain *Star Trek*influences already, but they’re especially potent here. For one thing, the mysterious god-like aliens who treat a planet and its mortal inhabitants as flies to wanton boys is pure Roddenberry. There’s something that feels so Kirkian when Optimus declares to the image of Unicron that these robots have the spark of life and not even the aliens, with all their power, have the right to extinguish. But there’s something equally and oppositely frightening when the aliens basically say “We don’t care.” The prospect of this planet as an “experiment” of some sort, one that that the Beast Wars have ruined, is intriguing, and feels like one of those teases we may never get complete resolution to. Still, the notion that these aliens were carrying out some mission ehre, and are ready to push the self-destruct button, makes this one feel appropriately epic. There’s also some great visuals going on. While the weird green texture on the alien structure is a little dated-looking to the modern eye, the interior is an appropriate mix between technologically advanced and utterly creepy with its dark lighting and strange ballards. The tableau of Optimus bound with green light erupting from his eyes as he cries out in pain is striking. And the look of the structure itself blasting out white light to signal the destruction of the planet stands out as well. The other storylines are a little premature and undercooked. Tarantulas and Black Arachnia breaking into the Maximal base to steal a stasis pod in order to escape is definitely teased and moved forward, but nothing much comes of it until the very end. The same goes for Megatron playing Mastermind here. For two episodes, we’ve seen hints that he has some larger plan, but haven’t seen him put into action in any real comprehensible way beyond letting the Maximals tangle with the aliens first and sending Inferno to spy on the spiders. Maybe both of these stories will come to an exciting conclusion, but for now, they’re pretty mild compared to the big alien shebang. Still, the alien shebang is cool enough to make you sit up and pay attention to this one. Despite some cheesy fighting between Rattrap and Waspinator, this episode takes things seriously and earns that posture given the stakes involved. I’m curious, to say the least, as to how the show will resolve things in the finale.