The Core is another AKOM special. Garbage animation as is par for the course with them, but also features the Autobots reprogramming Devastator to be their personal attack dog, and then (after he snaps out of the brainwashing), they can’t understand why he wouldn’t want to be an Autobot.

A rare moment of the G1 Bots crossing the line.

 

Yeah... that episode was pretty ethically questionable in retrospect, wasn't it?

 

Carnage in C-Minor

 

There was another reason in that Shin was one of the veterans who carried over to Marvel Productions from Depatie-Freleng and thus had been with them since 1974, plus he had the creation of lightsabers on his resume. So of course he would get preferential treatment when the scramble to move away from Japanese animation started.

 

Not arguing with any of that but I like the Core as Devastator does alright (especially compared to later episodes).

 

And that’s fine too.

It could be argued that it’s a great episode for showing that even the Autobots can lose their moral compass at times and totally justify it to themselves.

 

From this episode (The Core) is perhaps my favorite OP quote.

What's the matter, Chip?"
"I guess I was hoping Devastator might join the Autobots for good, but that's probably just a dumb old dream."
"Hang on your dreams, Chip. The future is built on dreams. Hang on."

 

I think it's safe to say that "B.O.T." and "Carnage in C-Minor" are some of the worst shows in the series, though I dislike the latter even more than the former.

 

That is pretty good! I forgot that line came from that ep.

 

For extra fun (while fully acknowledging that the series generally didn't give even the tiniest damn about continuity) this was less than 10 episodes after "Attack of the Autobots" which prominently featured the eeeeeeevil Decepticons being super evil by reprogramming the Autobots to do their bidding. For evil.

I guess "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" was more of a guideline than a concrete personal credo, eh Optimus?

On the whole, the AKOM episodes do have awful animation, but it doesn't always bother me that much. It's obviously bad looking, but I'll take an entertaining episode brought to life by bad AKOM animation over the most gorgeous episode they could produce being used to deliver a junky, boring script.

I also like the line @Distant1 points out quite a bit. And IIRC so does Peter Cullen, so there's that too.

Plus I have a weird soft spot (for reasons I don't entirely understand and can't explain) for Chip's blue jacket that only appears in the AKOM episodes.

 

Plot is silly but I loved this episode as a child because in first act before using disks on them, Constructicons work and appear a lot in bot mode and then ,just before Devastator saves the day, they have a memorable speech between them.

 

I'm surprised no one's mentioned it, but my least favorite episode growing up was easily "Sea Change". It was Seaspray's spotlight episode. I always found Seaspray annoying, and found the plot of this episode bizarre, even by the standards of corny G1 episodes. About the only think I like is Deceptitran, he was cool (I like the concept of Megatron using drones to rule other planets). But the whole magic pool thing that turns Seaspray into a mermaid was dumb.

I actually like BOT. Sure, the animation was pretty poor, but it had some neat story ideas. The idea of some kids building a robot out of scrapped Decepticon parts is cool, I also like how sleazy Swindle was. It just wasn't executed very well. Still, I've always felt like it gets a bit too much hate. I watched it when I was younger, and just saw it as a middle-of-the-road episode.

(Note: I'm still in the process of rewatching Season 2 and 3. There might be something worse I haven't stumbled upon yet).

 

I think I mentioned Sea Change. Like you I never liked turning Seaspray into a merman that still kept his robot feet for some reason, and the lazy cheat of turning the mermaid girl into an Autobot, but dodging having to make her transform (into a viking lonbgoat/gondola sort of thing) with a glowing morph effect instead of a proper transformation.

I also didn't think Seaspray was the type of character to carry an episode. He never really had a characterization to set him apart. All he had was his bubbly voice effect.

 

This one is an odd choice, but in terms of the episode I'm passionately hate I'll go with the "Return of Optimus prime" two-partner; Due to how much it renders Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime's character arc in the previous episodes (Which is one of the major themes of Season 3) and Optimus Prime's self sacrifice in "Dark Awakening" completely pointless, and making Hot Rod as a joke character in the fanbase. The fact that the preceding episodes like "The Burden Hardest to bear" and "Dark Awakening" is some of my favorite S3 episodes just makes it even worse.

As bad the animation is on episodes like "Carnage in C-Minor" is, at least there are some fun moments like Broadside exploits his Mass-shifting transformation to crush Devastator with his Aircraft carrier mode. I can't even say the same regarding the "Return of Optimus Prime" two-partner, in which everything that happens "happens" just to conveniently bring Optimus Prime back to life (Which isn't even possible since Optimus Prime gets fully disintegrated into nothing by the Sun in "Dark Awakening").

 

As TFWiki makes clear, BOT is the worse episode (probably over all, certainly before the movie). It's comedy gold, of course -- almost right from the start. But the plot is total nonsense and the animation is awful.

 

I don't think I can hate the episodes becuase they were interesting in and of themselves, but I agree with how much it sucked that Return completely shafted Rodimus' character development. The Burden Hardest to Bear was very literally the episode that directly precedes Return. So Rodimus finally figures out how to be a good leader and not be crushed by the weight of the responsibility, and then it's immediately taken away from him.

 

I mentioned sea change too...

 

How funny, I never thought about The Core that way before.
So basically...Wheeljack became Batman's Mad Hatter, using dominator disks instead of hats with microchips in them to get others to do his bidding. Too bad the show in general didn't have more plot continuity; it would have made more sense, and been less morally ambiguous, for Jacky to be using the disks to attempt to undo the Robo-Smasher's reprogramming of the Constructicons. I still like the ep, though, especially for the little character moments for the Constructicons.
Hook: "OF COURSE I did it. I can perform flawlessly within 1/500,000 of a Cybertronic mini-inch." (I think I remembered that line right...)

I think I mentioned it before, but I just don't like City of Steel. Between the dumb plot, slow pacing, bad AKOM animation, Prime's strange ability to "sense" and control his body parts, and some weird dialogue, I just find it hard to watch.
Mirage: "This alligator is big and heavy."
Prime: "From the looks of it I'd say a little of both." ????????????????WTF????????????
(yes, I'm aware it was the result of bad sound editing. Still confused the hell out of me back when I first saw it).

 

This is hard for me to pinpoint because I mostly enjoy the G1 series for its cheesiness and silliness. So it has to fail at being entertaining even in unintentional ways for me to consider it bad.

I don't think that there is an episode that fails to meet those criteria for me, so the closest I have is "Fight or Flee" for the damage that it did to Rodimus's character. For whatever reason, during production, the crucial detail that the Decepticons had turned Paradron into a massive weapon, so Rodimus had to destroy it to prevent the weapon being used, was completely left out. Instead, if taken as is, Rodimus seemingly has a peaceful planet blown up just so he can get at the Decepticons occupying it regardless of the needs or feelings of its original denizens. Rodimus comes off as rather petty and cruel in this episode, which is completely out of character.

 

G1 is full of Episodes good and bad. But for my least favorite, I could go for easy targets like B.O.T., but my least favorite is probably one that not a lot of people think of is necessarily bad.

I absolutely cannot stand the 3 part finale "The Rebirth". As a finale, its falls flat in so many areas. While its not the worst in terms of animation quality, it falls flat in terms of story and characterization.

This is less of a finale sand more of a giant toy commercial that kind of ties up the series and yes, I know a major goal of Transformers is to sell toys but this episode is insane. So many characters are brought into this one episode just so that toys can be sold and though characters like the Throttlebots, Punch/Counterpunch, the Decepticon clones and the Headmasters, etc but none of these characters get much time to grow. Some get so little screentime that "hi and bye" is an understatement. And its sad because again, they're all interesting in concept. The Nebulons and how they interact with Transformers, Punch having a Decepticon disguise, Fortress Maximus and Scorponok, all awesome plots that aren't given enough time because the next toy needed to show up.

The plot is a mess, it feels rushed to scrap (and I know it was supposed to be 5 parts and cut down, but still), the explanation for why Headmasters and Targetmasters exists kind of works at first, but the logic goes to the pits, most of the story is kind of an odd rehash of "The Key to Vector Sigma" and a really weird plan to make the sun go nova. Heck, it doesn't even seem like this Plasma Energy Chamber can create any "original Autobots" when just trying to open it can release enough destructive energy to throw a ship to a far off planet. We never see how it can create in this episode, only it nearly killing characters.

And as a finale its just far too convoluted. Vector Sigma woke up one day and decided the show had to wrap up and thus, allowed Galvatron to find out about something that could destroy the Earth, the Sun, and Cybertron, all in hoping the Autobots won't fail in the situation and will siphon off energy from the chamber to fill Cybertron's "Storage Capacitors" and revitalize the planet so that a new Golden Age could begin. Its so over the top but not in an enjoyable way. Its so insane and messy. It confused me even more when I was younger because Galvatron said in TRoOP that the Autobots had his respect yet that's just thrown away here.

Again, they're Episodes with worse animation and even with extremely lazy or poorly written stories, but for me, this crazy, convoluted, messy, toy ad is a poor way to end off a show loved by many. I'm sure not everyone would feel the same way but in my opinion, this is the worst G1 episode by far.