Bumblebee and Powerglide are flying towards a certain spot. Bumblebee checks in and asks if they are getting close. Optimus Prime tells him they are heading directly towards the strange energy waves Teletraan I detected, and their report will be of extreme importance. Bumblebee says he'll do his best, and then cuts the transmission. He tells Powerglide he didn't think Prime thought that much of him, but Powerglide tells him he must be, or he wouldn't be sharing the skies with him!
They arrive at the energy wave and manage to get through it, and as they come out the other side they see a island below. Bumblebee says there's not supposed to be an island down there. Things get stranger when a pteranodon appears.
The pteranodon immediately goes for Bumblebee and grabs onto his jetpack. Powerglide comes to assist by dropping some bombs, which explode near the pteranodon and scare it enough to drop Bumblebee.
Bumblebee's jetpack malfunctions and he falls towards the island, and uses a tree to break his fall. Powerglide comes down and transforms, and sees that Bumblebee's jetpack has been damaged. He starts to repair it, as Bumblebee has a look around. He thinks it's a wild-looking area, and Powerglide says he's never seen a place like this before. Bumblebee says that he has -in pictures, when the Dinobots were being constructed. This place is just like what the Earth looked like during the dinosaur age, 100 million years ago!
Before Bumblebee can talk any more, a tyrannosaurus sees him and comes over. Bumblebee goes to Powerglide and points out the tyrannosaurus, so Powerglide tosses the broken jetpack aside and instead gets Bumblebee out by transforming and flying away with him.
They head back to the Autobot HQ and let everyone know what happened. Spike is really interested in the dinosaurs and wants to visit the island, but Cliffjumper thinks they have enough headaches with the Dinobots, the last thing they need is dinosaurs. Wheeljack says that the Dinobots have a lot of good qualities. They can be kind of clumsy, but lately he's been teaching them to use their powers with a little more finesse. Huffer thinks otherwise -once a dino-klutz, always a dino-klutz! But he tells him to go ahead with his demonstration, if just to prove his point.
Wheeljack has Grimlock come into the room and transform. He then asks Blaster to help out by transforming and playing something nice. Blaster says and now, a nice and nifty musical selection for easy listening, hold on to your dancing shoes and go man, go!
He transforms and Grimlock uses his laser breath to hit his buttons, causing him to play a tune. It's pretty loud though, causing Ironhide to tell Blaster to cut that racket -he's fusing his audio sensors!
Snarl and Sludge wonder what's going on, and think it's time to do their thing. They transform and head towards Grimlock, just as Wheeljack asks Prime what his verdict is. Prime tells him it's very impressive, but asks about the other Dinobots. Slag and Sludge then stumble in and accidentally crash into Grimlock, which causes him to shoot his laser breath everywhere.
He tells them to go away, as he's demonstrating finesse, whatever that is. As he spins around his tail hits a computer, destroying it. Snarl and Swoop hear all the noise and want to know what's going on, so they transform and head over. However they end up stumbling into the other Dinobots, and things get out of control.
The Dinobots start fighting each other and head towards Teletraan I, but Windcharger saves the computer by putting one of his force fields around it.
Red Alert asks Inferno if he's ready, and Inferno says he is -he's always ready for action! The two transform as Red Alert leads Inferno to a fire, which the latter puts out. Ratchet and Sparkplug are about to start some repairs when Snarl smacks the computer they were going to work on out of the way with his tail.
Sideswipe says they'll fight the Dinobots to a standstill, and he and a few other Autobots charge, but Prime tells them to stop. He says Grimlock will bring the other Dinobots under control. He tells Grimlock to stop stumbling around and end the chaos. Grimlock transforms and says he'll stop stumbling.
He calls out to the Dinobots, and tells them to transform and end the chaos -he commands them! The other Dinobots stop and transform. Grimlock tells Prime that they didn't mean to make this mess. Prime says he knows, it's just that the Dinobots are too big to train here, they need more room. Bumblebee then suggests the island he and Powerglide found. Prime thinks they should give it a try.
Outside the base, Soundwave and Ravage are doing some spying, but back off when they see a door opening. The Dinobots head out and Prime tells them they will remain on the island until they've truly mastered their powers. Grimlock says he understands, and the Dinobots are enthusiastic about going to the island. Powerglide is going to lead the way, and Spike goes with him. Bumblebee hopes he has more fun on that island than he did.
Powerglide and Spike take off, and the Dinobots fly after them. Soundwave transforms and reports everything to Megatron, and asks if he should return to base. Megatron tells him not yet, as the mysterious island intrigues him. He tells him to dispatch Laserbeak to investigate.
The Autobots head towards the island, and soon come across the energy waves, which they pass through, but they don't see that Laserbeak is following them. Spike sees the island and decides to call it "Dinobot Island". Grimlock says he loves Dinobot Island, and Slag says it will have room for them to move, fight and stumble.
They land and Grimlock says it feels like home to him, although he doesn't know why. Spike thinks the place is like an encyclopedia come to life. Laserbeak lands at the edge of a cliff and starts recording things -including the fact that the island has several energy sources on it, such as active volcanoes, oil pools and steaming geysers. Having seen enough, Laserbeak heads back to the Decepticon HQ.
The Dinobots and Powerglide start to look around, and Sludge and Snarl say they like the place. But Spike decides to wander off on his own, and thinks this place is too much -he could stay here forever! But things quickly take a turn for the worse when a pterosaur spots Spike, and decides to attack him.
The pterosaur grabs him and takes it up to her nest, but Spike calls out for help. Swoop arrives and scares off the pterosaur, allowing him to save Spike and take him back down.
Swoop drops off Spike near a river and tells him to be careful next time. As Swoop heads away, Spike is almost immediately attacked by a plesiosaur. It grabs him and starts to head back into the river.
Powerglide and the Dinobots hear him and head in, and see what's going on. Sludge and Swoop head over to rescue him. Swoop scares the plesiosaur enough into dropping Spike, who lands in the water.
He swims up to Sludge and gets on him, and the trio head back onto dry land. Spike thanks them and says Dinobot Island is all theirs. He and Powerglide decide it's time to leave, so they fly off.
Meanwhile Laserbeak has returned to the Decepticon HQ, and Soundwave displays the things he's seen. Megatron sees the island is a raw and primitive place, but is also an energy paradise, ripe for plundering. Starscream warns of the strange waves Laserbeak also reported, as they might be dangerous, but Megatron silences him and tells the Decepticons they'll leave for Dinobot Island immediately.
Grimlock thinks this area is a good place for tests, so the first thing they do is do some target practice. Grimlock then orders everyone to transform and do various things, such as Swoop doing "flying stuff".
The other Dinobots train and Grimlock says they're getting better, but still not better enough. Meanwhile, the Decepticons land on the island. Megatron tells Starscream to behold -energy sources rich enough for them to control the destiny of this entire solar system! Starscream is still worried about the bizarre energy waves, but Megatron tells him to stop quibbling. He has Soundwave start creating energon cubes.
The Decepticons start filling them up using the island's energy sources. Blitzwing fills up a cube by gathering energy from an erupting volcano. As the Decepticons work, there is suddenly a lightning storm, something Starscream takes as a bad omen. Megatron smacks him down and tells him to continue the energy collection.
As the Decepticons pile up their energon cubes, Swoop happens to see some of them and reports it to Grimlock. Grimlock says the Decepticons don't belong here, so they'll get rid of them. The Dinobots transform and move out.
Meanwhile, Spike and Bumblebee leave a library -Spike says from now on he'll do his dinosaur watching in books, where it's safe. But as they leave, they see a strange portal down the street, which gets larger and larger. And then suddenly a barbarian riding on a wooly mammoth comes out of it!
Spike is amazed as these things haven't existed for 50,000 years! Bumblebee thinks they must have come through a time warp, but how? But they are then chased by the mammoth, and take cover in a building. The mammoth starts charging into the building, causing it to fall apart right on top of the two.
Back on Dinobot Island, Starscream points out that the Dinobots are on their way. Skywarp wants to attack at once, but Megatron stops him. He tells him to guard the energon cubes, as others shall deal with the Dinobots. He heads down but as the Dinobots fire at him, he ignores them...
...and instead starts firing at some dinosaurs, causing them to go into a panic, and a stampede. He gets them to head towards the Dinobots, who are trapped at a dead end. He keeps firing to keep the dinosaurs moving, and as they keep on going, he says even the Dinobots can't fight all of these dinosaurs.
The reason Megatron is doing this is to get the Dinobots to fall into a tar pit -and with nowhere to go, the Dinobots can only keep moving back. The cliff edge crumbles, and all five Dinobots end up dropping down into the tar pit.
Megatron laughs and bids the Dinobots farewell!
NOTES
-SCRIPT DIFFERENCES: Click here for details.
-This episode (and its next part) introduce several new characters were had toys on the shelves for 1985. And by "introduce" I mean "put them in without explanation and just pretend they've been there from the beginning". In this episode, the Autobots get Grapple, Hoist, Blaster, Red Alert, Tracks and Smokescreen, the majority of these characters have no lines or do anything (in some cases, even move!). The Decepticons do even worse, getting Blitzwing, Thrust and Ramjet, all of whom say nothing. This is one of my few problems with this season -putting in new characters left, right and center with, for the most part, absolutely no explanation to how they got there. And a few episodes later, the audience is expected to believe all these new characters have always been there. It's strange because the first season usually gave the new characters explanations to where they came from. Things do get better in that regard later on this season.
-Part of me thinks the new characters might not have originally been in this story at all. If you took them all out it'd make next to no difference, as the main part of the story is about the Dinobots, and the majority of the dialogue is spoken by first season characters. Perhaps Hasbro stepped in and requested the new characters were added to show them off as their toys were hitting the shelves. I also wonder if originally this episode wasn't a two parter, but was turned into one to give the new characters a chance to shine (as some of them do end up doing things in the next part).
-Bumblebee talking about the time when the Dinobots were constructed is a very rare moment where previous episodes are referenced. S.O.S. Dinobots, War of the Dinobots and Dinobot Island were all written by the same person: Donald F. Glut.
-Thrust and Ramjet keep their cones up on their heads in robot mode, whilst the instructions on their toys tell you to pull them down. Presumably this was done to differentiate these characters from Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp.