Web Video / TJ Omega

TJ Omega, real name Tyler James, is an internet reviewer, and former member of RVT. He got his start reviewing toys (mainly Transformers) and had a YouTube show called Plastic Addict in which he featured particularly bad examples of the brand. Since then, he has begun doing the more standard types of reviews. In addition to that, he also had a review show focusing on kids shows called TJTV. He's stated that every 10th episode of TJ TV (ep 10, 20, etc) will be a review of a Transformers cartoon. His 10th episode was of Transformers: Armada, and his 20th of The Transformers.

Now with a recap page in desperate need of assistance.

This show provides examples of (YMMV goes here):

• Aborted Arc:
  • Was forced to cancel several of his ongoing storylines due to various reasons that prevented him from doing them in a way that he felt would be entertaining, as well as the fact that they were getting in the way of reviewing things that he really wanted to review.
  • He built up to Armada Optimus Prime for Plastic Addict...but this was ultimately dropped, mainly due to the servos of the trailer running into trouble...and being a fire hazard, because it has a habit of bursting into flames.
• Affectionate Parody: Does this frequently.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The 'TJ Omega Automated Review System' TJ left in charge of his channel while he was at a con decides to break every single rule left for it by reviewing everything but Transformers and Kamen Rider.
• Anti-Hero: His Addict persona, who while not evil does morally ambiguous things at times.
• Awesome, yet Impractical:
  • One of his big gripes with many of the Titanium toys: the diecast metal used to make them is used so impractically handled that the toys end up as floppy messes.
  • Quite a few Plastic Addict victims are 'gimmickformers', Transformers with gimmicks that cripple the toy. Armada Sideswipe is probably a standout example, given he's so gimmick loaded his head is literally the only one not hampered by some kind of gimmick.
  • His personal viewpoint on third party Transformers, as while they're typically great they're too expensive for him to justify buying when a less awesome but more affordable version exists from Hasbro. The one exception to this, ironically, is when it's something that would be this trope for Hasbro to mass produce, which is where he feels third party companies shine.
• Bad Boss: To his "transformation staff". Between firing them and/or blowing them up for thinking they've mis-transformed a bad toy. This comes back to bite him in his Plastic Addict review of Energon Grimlock and Swoop.
  • Inverted with the Ride Bucket (the bucket he uses to demo Rider drivers), who's agent apparently has TJ paying it way more than it should.
• Berserk Button:
  • Do not insult Kamen Rider Decade.
  • Translucent plastic used for stress-bearing parts and especially ball joints. This is because it tends to not handle it well and will inevitably break over time.
  • A character being big being the only reason it gets a big toy, as his tirade in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen Demolisher's Plastic Addict episode.
• Big Bad:
  • In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?', Starscream is upgraded into Novascream by Unicron and ultimately takes Galvatron's place as the main antagonist with Unicron as the Greater-Scope Villain until the end.
  • Naturally, 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines' has Megatron as the main villain, though his actual motivations and actions differ.
  • In 'Creating A Story For Machine Wars', Starscream hijacks Skyquake's body and uses a body double of Megatron to take control of the Decepticons. He goes full on scorched earth and threatens to destroy the entire planet with the combination of Skyquake's body and his experience and intelligence making him a bigger threat than Skyquake ever was.
• Bigger Is Better:
  • Goes on a tirade about this trope for Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen Demolisher and how he and Blackout where as big as they are solely because they were big in the movie, which he finds stupid.
  • Played straight in regards with to the Cyber Battalion/Commander series figures, as while they are simpler, the rather gigantic size increase for the price point (along with generally decent representation of their characters and in some cases surprisingly good paint apps) gives them enough bang for your buck (a 15 dollar figure being slightly larger than a 20 dollar Voyager and a 20 dollar figure towering over the Voyager), especially for kids, makes him honestly disappointed the line didn't take off.
• Blatant Lies: Claims in his crossover with The Shades that he kicked his ass in RXW. The two have only had two matches, one of which was tag match with their partners being the ones to end it (Apollo Z. Hack pinning EZ Rider) and the other one with Shades winning the match.
• Body Horror: Notes he normally doesn't like figures to have molded in screaming faces, as it makes them look like they're always screaming. He makes an exception to this with Beast Wars II Max-B, as due to how horrific his cyborg visage looks like, he seems like the guy who would always be screaming. He continues this assessment with the other Cyborg Beasts.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In his Armada Sideswipe review, he gets into an argument with the opening! In the end, he fires it.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "I stay addicted so you can stay away!"
  • "Gimmicks are EVIL!"
• Came Back Strong: In 'Creating A Story for Machine Wars', Starscream's ghost possesses Skyquake's body and gets it repaired and upgraded. The end result is Skyquake's raw power, now with Starscream's experience and cunning at the helm. This massive power boost allows him to quickly assert himself as the Big Bad.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early on it's established early on in 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines' that Megatron's sensors can't pick up technorganic beast modes. Primal uses this to win the Final Battle by hiding from Megatron's spark extractor cable, letting him turn it on the tyrant.
• Companion Cube: The Ride Bucket, which despite being an ordinary bucket TJ uses to model Rider Belts, is apparently sentient, has a contract that requires TJ to play trumpets when it appears, and has sued him in the past.
• Cool Sword: Has a sword collection which he uses to often open packages. He's also wielded roleplay swords as weapons in his skits.
• Crossover: Recently did one with fellow RVT reviewer The Shades to review the Kamen Rider Decade and Kamen Rider Double Crossover.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?', Megatron tries to retrieve the Matrix of Leadership from Starscream (now upgraded into Novascream)...unfortunately, Megatron greatly underestimated just how big of a powerup Novascream got and got completely demolished to the point he's mortally wounded and dies shortly thereafter.
  • In 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines', Jetstorm (actually Starscream) dishes out one to Strika and Obsidian due to sheer experience and power.
• Deadpan Snarker: TJ gets into this, particularly for Plastic Addict.
• Deal with the Devil: In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?', Unicron offers Starscream to become his herald. Unlike Megatron in the movie, Starscream jumps at the opportunity for power and willingly accepts the bargain, being upgraded into Novascream.
• Death by Adaptation: In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?', while Optimus Prime survives, Megatron is killed by Novascream.
• Death by a Thousand Cuts: In the Final Battle of 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines', this is how Rat Trap beats Tankor: cutting wires one after another until Tankor is unable to move.
• Death Glare: Notes that the Beast Hunters Deluxe Bumblebee has a molded in one so terrifying he 'feels his soul catching fire.' Made all the worse as his pupils are painted such that they follow you. There is a reason TJ nicknames him 'Murderbee'.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Implied to be Megatron's fate in 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines', being sucked into the Matrix through Vector Sigma directly.
• Enemy Civil War: 'What if Optimus Prime Survived the '86 Movie? Part 2' sees the Decepticons splinter in two due to Novascream lacking the clout of Megatron, half staying with him to try and weaponize Unicron's head and half joining the Quintessons.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?,' Megatron ultimately sides with the Autobots because Unicron is a threat to all of Cybertron and the Decepticons have been taken over by Starscream, now upgraded in Novascream.
  • Likewise, 'Creating A Story for Machine Wars' sees Megatron forming an alliance with the Autobots to stop Starscream, who has possessed Skyquake's body, usurped his leadership, and decided to raze Cybertron to the ground. This time, it actually sticks and Megatron, tired from the conflict after the horror Starscream just unleashed, ends the war one Starscream is defeated.
• Enforced Plug: Plugged Big Bad Toy Store in many of his videos from 2014.
• Expendable Clone: Made some. Most of them were wiped out...except for the one that got away and is still trying to kill him. At first, this wasn't too bad since he tried to kill the clone first...except he finally spared him and the clone is still after him.
• Eye Am Watching You: Done to his clone when he sees him outside his window.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • In 'What if Optimus Prime Survived the '86 Movie?' TJ makes the natil that Hot Rod shot the gun out of Megatron's reach rather than tackled him. As a result, Megatron is arrested and captured, resulting in Unicron instead offering Starscream to be his herald after Optimus tests Hot Rod with the Matrix, upgrading him into Novascream.
  • In Part 2, Optimus Prime is brought before the Quintessons, and thanks to the Matrix, he knows what and who the Quintessons are, and has a different plan than taking a hostage and is the one to explain the history of the Transformers. It's also Planet Junkion that's destroyed by Novascream rather than Planet Goo, resulting in the Junkions moving the Cybertron. Due to Novascream not having Megatron's clout, a good chunk of the Decepticons side with the Quintessons, whose home planet survived and they have more resources. Blitzwing joins the Autobots because Optimus is just a better speaker than Rodimus was.
• Harmless Villain: TJ's evil descendant from the future is this. He wants to murder TJ...but constantly fails, in part because if he actually succeeded he would cease to exist. The other part is he's not very intelligent in general.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • In 'What if Optimus Prime Survived the '86 Movie? Part 2', Optimus actually manages to convince Blitzwing to switch sides because he's more experienced and well-spoken than Rodimus.
  • In Creating A Story for Machine Wars, Megatron forms an Enemy Mine to take down Starscream due to finding Starscream's actions too extreme and destructive, even for him. After Starscream is beaten, Megatron realizes that continuing the war in his current state and after all the destruction isn't worth it and willingly ends the war.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: Novascream decides to take advantage of Unicron's wrecked state to attempt to hijack the Chaos Bringer while he's vulnerable.
• Homage: His Plastic Addict review of Beast Machines Silverbolt is based entirely off The Raven.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The Final Battle of 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines' sees Starscream possessing Waspinator back in Beast Wars ultimately come back to bite him hard. Waspinator sharing a body with him caused him to absorb his experience and memories, and being Older and Wiser with an upgraded technorganic body let's him actually use it and fight Starscream to a standstill before killing him.
  • During the same battle ultimately ends with Megatron using a spark extractor to try and take Primal's spark...but Primal just reverts to his beast mode, hiding from its sensors, so the extractor is completely confused and unable to react. Primal then grabs it and turns it against Megatron and extracts his spark instead. Primal takes Megatron's Spark and it's sent back to the Matrix by Vector Sigma as a final punishment.
• Hostile Show Takeover: TJ's evil descendant from the future, after finding out that TJ's still trying to get over having to review Sonic Underground, attempts to review the first episode of Super Human Samurai Syber Squad. He gets as far as the series overview. Unfortunately for him, TJ came back.
• I Hate Past Me: Reviewed his first Plastic Addict video and spends ninety percent of it harping himself and finally disowned himself.
  • His review of the CSM Decadriver starts with him watching his review of the original DX Decadriver and pointing out all of the various flaws in said review (such as mislabeling New Den-O as Den-O Rod Form).
• Insult to Rocks: TJ states that Titanium Megatron has more in common with a brick than a Transformer...and ends up apologizing to the brick he used for the gag.
• Is That the Best You Can Do?: After the clone tried to kill him with a Dopant Memory using Invisible, TJ stops him easily and asks him if that was the best he could come up with.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His Plastic Addict/TJ TV persona amps up the anger and snark but retains his appreciation for his fans.
• Jump Scare: TJ's review of Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters Deluxe Bumblebee, arguably achieves some of these, due to sudden closeups of the terrifying robot mode head, with creepy music accompanying it.
• Legacy Character: One change that TJ makes during 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines': the Vehicon Generals are just shell programs and it doesn't matter which spark is used. Further more, any of the drones can be upgraded into a general. As such, when the original Tankor is killed and Silverbolt is freed from Thrust, Megatron just sticks new sparks in a new tank and motorcycle drone to make new ones.
• Living Toys: Sometimes the toys in his collection start talking or tries to kill him.
• Love It or Hate It: TJ acknowledges in-universe how the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon has had this reaction with the fanbase, adding that it has the secondary effect of "making you throw rocks at whoever disagrees with you".
• More Dakka:
  • One of the things he absolutely loved about Mad Blender is how many guns he's got.
  • Conversely, this (amongst other reasons) is why he despised G.I. Joe Extreme. Specifically, the show treating the guns as a character trait.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: TJ opening the box containing Armada Hotshot is accompanied by this. It only plays when the box is open and stops when it's closed.
• Nightmare Face:
  • Notes that Beast Machines Supreme Cheetor has one, especially when his gimmick that turns his eyes green and opens his mouth is activated.
    TJ: He looks like he's about to eat my children if I had any!
  • Notes all the Beast Wars II Cyborg Beasts have these, and given the Body Horror involved in them, he doesn't blame them.
• Palette Swap: Defends this trope when it comes to Transformers sometimes, as it gives collectors a second chance to get a cool toy, can help if you liked the toy but not the color scheme, or if done really well can make it look completely different. That said, if a bad repaint is done, he will call it out, though after Silverbolt, he stopped using this only as a qualifier for Plastic Addict, though sometimes will do a worse repaint of an already Plastic Addict worthy toy.
• A Rare Sentence: Didn't think he'd ever speak the phrase "lavender windshields" prior to doing a Random Review on Botcon 2010 Autobot Spark.
• Redemption Equals Death: In 'What If Optimus Prime Survived The '86 Movie?', Megatron dies trying to recover the Matrix from Novascream and covering the Autobots retreat. His dying words are pleading with Optimus to save Cybertron.
• Redemption Promotion: It 'Let's Rewrite Transformers Beast Machines', the heroes' Sixth Ranger isn't Botanica, but a post-Heel–Face Turn Waspinator. Not only does he get a much stronger technorganic body, but he's Older and Wiser and thus far more successful and competent than he ever was in Beast Wars. He ends up matching and killing Starscream in a one on one fight.
• Ret-Gone: A problem TJ's evil descendant from the future runs into: he can't kill TJ because he'll cease to exist.
• Rule of Cool:
  • Pretty much the reason TJ uses his collection of Cool Swords to open new toys he's gotten. Are there much more practical ways to open a box? Yes. Would they be anywhere near as awesome? No way!
• Running Gag: His early Kamen Rider toy reviews normally ended with the toy blowing up or being used to blow up a Transformers toy. He lampshades this the last time it happens.
  • More recently, lampshading how easy it is to lose a launched missile by claiming a number of bizarre circumstances will cause it to vanish the moment you take your eyes off it. When he actually did fire one on camera, it went missing for the entire week.
• Satire: Plastic Addict is meant to be this of the toys reviewed. It annoys TJ a bit when people actually take them seriously after he's pointed out several times they're simply satire and meant to be funny.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Played for Laughs with Armada Hot Shot complete with Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Self-Deprecation: Reviewed his own first toy review and pretty much chewed himself out for 90 percent of it. He ends up disowning himself at one point.
• Shout-Out: To this very website, in his Mighty Ducks review for TJ TV.
  • His TJ TV episode on G.I. Joe Extreme has him thinking of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which, given the Liefeld-inspired show, was more than likely a reference to 90's Kid.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • He eventually clarifies his "Gimmicks are evil' catchphrase to "Intrusive gimmicks are evil". He prefers these kind of gimmicks: simple unintrusive ones that still accomplish something but don't consume 90 percent of the toy to do so.
  • This is why he likes Armada Tidal Wave: despite having a ton of gimmicks, they're all fairly simple gimmicks that don't hinder him due to being placed in parts of the toy were they don't intrude on function even though he's a triple changer, and in fact give play options when used together.
• Story Arc: Tends to have running storylines when it comes to Kamen Rider roleplay weapons and other toys.
• Suckiness Is Painful: Happens from time to time, most notably on Titanium Megatron, a toy so unbelievably horrible that it burns TJ's eyes just to look at it.
  TJ Omega: I'm sorry everyone, I did not properly prepare my eyes to see this in person. Luckily, converstion to Youtube nulifies the effect...mostly. If you smell a burning sensation, that's your retinas catching fire, find a bucket big enough for your head.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Deals with ''R.I.D. Bruticus by siccing an even worse toy on him.
  TJ Omega: Don't mess with somebody that knows worse toys than you!
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to the Shadocon staff for gross incompetence in his "Shadocon 2012" V-Log. This was not a skit, it was his genuine feelings. In particular, he called them out on their treatment of their performers and guests, both of which were atrocious, and in the latter case, downright dangerous.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Tells the audience this before his review of Transformers: Convoy no Nazo.
  • During his livestream of Subnautica, he decides to go into the Aurora and fix the reactor (the so far toughest part of the game). Which is guarded by a Reaper Leviathan . He makes no attempt to hide how terrible an idea he feels this is. Surprisingly he manages to succeed.
• Uncanny Valley: In-Universe, he's very freaked out by the fact Animorphs Tobias' human head looks way too much like his own.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Clone!TJ. After TJ finally decided to spare him, the clone is still plotting to kill him. Ok, yes, TJ tried to kill him first, but still.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: By this point, TJ doesn't seem surprised by any of the crazy stuff that happens anymore. For example, his reaction to a sphere of fire and light erupting out of his chest and floating nearby? "Oh, what now?" in a rather annoyed voice.
• Video Game Movies Suck:invoked Most of the video game cartoons he reviewed got negative opinions from him:
  • Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm: Criticizes the idea of making an M rated game into a kids show. The toned down nature drove away fans, and the the violent source material drove away children. He also criticizes the unneeded drama, the idiotic writing, and the lazy animation (but praises episode 13). Not to mention Sub Zero being voiced by Luke Perry.
  • Darkstalkers: Criticizes the fact that the plot has nothing to do with the game, and that it's non-existent. Things like Morrigan being a stereotypical villain instead of the protagonist. He also dislikes the fact that the show gets things explained in the game wrong (like calling Donovan's sword the Spellsword, when it's actually Dylac).
  • Double Dragon: TJ Omega criticizes the lousy writing. The fact that it's a supehero show and has almost nothing to do with the games besides characters. This also includes the fact that episode 1 is all filler and the real show starts at episode 2 (using different openings that spoil each episodes events in them).
  • Donkey Kong Country: While TJ Omega praises the voice acting, he criticizes the animation. He notes that 3D animation was new at the time, but indicates that ReBoot was airing at the same time and did it better. He also criticizes the insert songs in each episode, noting that exposition is occasionally inserted into the songs, forcing the viewers to listen to them. He also criticizes the fact that the plot contradicts itself in the first episode.
  • Sonic Underground: TJ Omega views this as a failed attempt to blend the dark-tone and setting of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), with the goofiness of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and a music-based cartoon that the executives crammed Sonic into. He criticizes the bad animation filled with errors and reliant on pans and zooms, and viewing the designs of the new characters being out of place in a Sonic cartoon. He criticizes the show removing what made Sonic awesome by giving him siblings, Sonia and Manic, and having all 3 of them being voiced by Jaleel White, including Sonia, who's a girl, giving Sonic magical music-based superpowers when he's already known for his speed, and a tour bus. All this is in addition to being a Moral of the day based show, where in addition to the person delivering the morals being Sonic, someone known for his attitude, the Aesop's are usually broken because the day is saved with things like Manic stealing what they need to win. While it's the Sat AM version of Robotnik design wise, he doesn't sound threatening at all, nor does he even have a fitting voice. The presence of unnecessary insert songs actually makes him kill the overview portion of the review before he could mention that the show was the animated debut of Knuckles.
• Video Review Show
• What Did I Do Last Night?: In TJbletop #9, TJ recounts his party's wizard having this happen in Dungeons & Dragons. The guy rolls a Nat 1 after drinking the strongest thing the tavern has. He then got an insanely high roll on what happened. What did he get? 'You wake up married'

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