Give your thoughts on the 5th episode.

About halfway through the race I just went "You know what? I don't care if there's a single cell of animation dedicated to giant robots in this episode, just give me more of this"

And honestly, the monster showing up during the last two minutes just felt forced because of it, but I'm definitely not complaining overall.

It isn't the sash and the fancy hat that makes you a commissar, it's the way you wear them-Cain

Also, I don't know why but I found Illana's sudden entrance to say "Don't drink the milk it expired yesterday" and disappearance just as rapid to be mind numbingly hilarious.

It isn't the sash and the fancy hat that makes you a commissar, it's the way you wear them-Cain

Nice breakdown.

I like that Octus took an interest in flavors and eating. It's arguable whether it's anachronistic for a robot to do such a thing, but I'm just tired of seeing robots/androids who don't show much curiosity about food simply because they don't require nourishment.

On to the episode in general: I feel fairly confident that I've picked up on how SBT is laid out. For the most part, things are working on two different levels -- 1)The main characters, plot, and aesthetics reference super robot anime 2)The setting of Earth and it's inhabitants oftentimes reference modern TV tropes.
Examples of the latter include the neighbor lady who is a "cougar", the shady police detective, the piss 'n vinegar army general, the asian guy into drifting, and (to some of our chagrin) slutty high school girls. Typically, though, the TV tropes are presented behind the more prevalent super robot influences...

That wasn't the case with this episode. Like Deathstroke points out, in Ep.5 almost all of the anime/scifi stuff we're used to is either not included at all or is shown very little and just at the end. I wouldn't presume to judge what constitutes as a successful episode of Sym-Bionic Titan (GT is probably the only person with that right), but this one felt out of place. It did very little for character development and absolutely nothing to advance the plot.

It wasn't bad, mind you. The races were exciting and the sound production alone was phenomenal. Also, it was a stroke of genius to transform a mundane driver's test into an action set piece!

Nevertheless, this doesn't change the fact that I personally watch SBT for the waves of nostalgia produced by all of the super robot homages. Change is always good but I could do without SBT pandering this much to teens in western culture.