Final Thoughts on Watching the Original Transformers Series

 Three weeks ago I posted about watching the first two seasons of the original Transformers series, which coincided with the new movie.  But there was still one whole season that took place after the disastrous 1986 animated movie--which is still one of my sentimental favorites--and the three-episode "Rebirth" miniseries that introduced a lot of the 4th wave of toys.

• I hated Rodimus Prime far less than before.  This time around I didn't hate the new Autobot leader Rodimus Prime as much as when I was a kid.  A big part of it had nothing to do with the show itself and more to do with the Lost Light comics I read a few years ago.  Rodimus was the leader for that expedition and while the original TV show character isn't nearly as good, I think it gave me more of a soft spot for the character I didn't have back in the late 80s when he was mostly the guy replacing the beloved Optimus Prime.  And in a way, what happened to Rodimus was sort of a forerunner to what happened to Azrael in Batman comics, though I don't think Rodimus was so much destined to fail.  With Azrael or the "Reign of the Supermen" characters, I think the plan always was to bring the original back.  But with Rodimus I don't think that was Hasbro's plan as there wasn't a new Optimus Prime toy until the fifth wave about two years after Rodimus's introduction.  When Optimus returns in the TV show he's the same as before, without any new gimmicks or a new alt-mode or anything.  That just doesn't jive with Hasbro's usual MO.  I think it was just Hasbro panicked when the ratings (and probably toy sales) dipped.  While fans usually considered Rodimus whiny and annoying it's really only 3-4 episodes of the whole season where he's kinda whiny about being the leader.  Like often happens, I think it just got blown out of proportion.  Really I think Rodimus's most hateable moment is when a planet of Autobot pacifists is blown up and Rodimus really has no empathy for the survivors losing their home.  He's basically like, "Meh, your planet sucked anyway."  It was out of character for an Autobot.  Stuff like that makes him more a victim of poor writing than anything.  Like in "Dark Awakening" he just hands the Matrix off to zombie Optimus when what was probably just a few episodes earlier in "The Burden Hardest to Bear" he realizes that he's the guy and the Matrix is his cross to bear.  When you're a kid you aren't going to think about stuff like that but it becomes more noticeable about 35 years later.
• Some episodes needed room to breathe.  The third season doesn't really have an episode I like as much as "Fire in the Sky," "The Master Builder," or "War Dawn" of the first two seasons but there are some decent ones.  Episodes like "The Burden Hardest to Bear," "Forever is a Long Time Coming," and "Only Human" had some decent concepts.  The real problem was they could have used to be two-part episodes so there was more time to explore them.  The latter I did in a story of the same name when three Autobot-type robots land on Earth to search for a comrade and take on human bodies.  The TV episode is only 22 minutes so there's barely any time for the Autobots who are turned into humans to deal with all the complications of being tiny flesh creatures.  A two-part episode or a book like mine provides a much better opportunity to get into the central conflict.
• Carnage in C-Minor is Worse Than Kremzeek!  The story of the episode is actually a pretty serviceable Transformers story:  there's a planet where the leaders use musical harmony as a weapon and of course the Decepticons capture it and the Autobots have to stop them.  But when I watched it this time, the actual drawing and animation were so, so bad.  It seemed every scene had characters who were drawn badly, not drawn to scale, or miscolored.  And I'm not sure if whoever was doing the animation even read the script from  how characters like the Aerialbots would show up suddenly and then disappear or how at one point Hot Spot was standing next to Defensor--of which he is the central component.  It was just hard to watch and more annoying in a way than "Kremzeek" because it was just so incompetent.
• Speaking of incompetence...I don't know who's in charge of the Pluto TV On Demand, but several of the episodes were out of order.  "Dark Awakening" is supposed to be the final episode before "The Return of Optimus Prime" but they have it like 7th or 8th.  There's even a segment at the end that says, "Is this the last we've seen of Optimus Prime?  Tune in tomorrow..."  In one episode, Octane laments to Sandstorm how angry the Decepticons are with him for trying to usurp Trypticon...which was a few episodes down the list.  Speaking of Sandstorm, there's another episode farther down the list that's supposed to introduce him as part of a planet of pacifist Autobots.  And I'm pretty sure "The Quintesson Journal" was supposed to go AFTER "The Big Broadcast of 2006" instead of the other way around because in BB2006 the Quints are trying to recover the journal that in QJ exposes their Ferengi-like dealings with the galaxy, such as selling weapons to both sides of an intergalactic conflict.  They really needed someone who knows what he/she is doing to curate this list.
• Someone didn't do the math.  Supposedly Captain Marissa Fairborn of the Earth Defense Command is the daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye in GI Joe.  I mean, the captioning even refers to her "father" in one episode as Flint.  Buuut, since GI Joe was running concurrently to Transformers and Flint and Lady Jaye had no daughter, that would mean Marissa could only be about 19 years old at most as the third season takes place in 2005-2006.  Unless she's some kind of Emma Earl-type genius, I don't see how she's a captain in the defense command at such a young age.  This is something shows often don't think about but it's an annoying little hobby of mine.  Another stupid game I play is, "How old would this character be now?"
• There is almost no way to make Headmasters and Targetmasters not stupid.  The last 3 episodes introduce the new lines of toys known as Headmasters and Targetmasters.  The Headmasters had heads that could pop off to become little guys who could be pilots of the Transformer's vehicle/animal mode.  The Targetmasters had guns that would turn into a little guy to again serve as a pilot if you want.  The show tries gamely to come up with a concept for why a Transformer might have his head turned into a little dude that comes off.  In this case they go to the planet Nebulos and the Nebulons have their own civil war.  There's really no good reason for them to create Headmasters and Targetmasters other than they have to.  Having a pilot provides a slight benefit on the unfamiliar planet of Nebulos, but it's not where they'd really need to have their heads turned into little suits of armor.  The comic book also struggled to find a way to justify this and I think did an even worse job.  "To show we come in peace, have our heads!"  Um...what?  I just don't see much of a way to justify this with organic pilots.  I think the later Titans Return line that revived the gimmick justified it a little better by saying that the little head guy was a tiny robot who would give the rest of the robot some special power or ability it wouldn't otherwise have.  That's probably the best way to do it.  Still, while it's a fun thing for a toy, it's not really great for a story.

Anyway, those are some random thoughts on the last season-plus of the show.  Like the movie it's still a sentimental favorite.