B.O.T.

 

In no particular order...

More Than Meets the Eye parts 1, 2 and 3.
Dark Awakening.
Cosmic Rust
Roll For It
Fire in the Sky
A plague of Insecticons
Fire on the Mountain
Masquerade
Money is Everything
Fight or Flee
Dweller in the Depths
A Decepticon in King Arthur's Court
The Nightmare Planet
Countdown to Extinction
Chaos
The Killing Jar
Starscream's Brigade
The Revenge of Bruticus
The Girl who loved Powerglide

 

I finally finished with G1 just before Christmas, but forgot to come back to this thread with my completed list. As before the order is chronological, so one episode being before or after another is meaningless except in the sense of "this episode was produced before/after the other"

A+ Tier

• S.O.S Dinobots
• The Ultimate Doom (combined for all 3 parts)
• The Key to Vector Sigma (combined for both parts)
• War Dawn
• The Killing Jar
• The Dweller in the Depths

A Tier

• War of the Dinobots
• Megatron's Master Plan (both parts)
• Desertion of the Dinobots (both parts)
• Starscream's Brigade
• Dark Awakening
• Money is Everything

A- Tier

• More Than Meets the Eye (averaged out. The pilot was the first time and only time for the first two seasons where I graded each part of a multi-part episode individually. The 3 parts got an A-, B+, and A respectively)
• Divide and Conquer
• Fire in the Sky
• Heavy Metal War
• Dinobot Island
• Microbots
• The Gambler
• The Search for Alpha Trion
• The Movie
• Webworld
• The Burden Hardest to Bear

I also ranked Five Faces of Darkness Part 5 as an A-, but that whole 5-parter was a slow climb from a much worse grade at the start.


And because it's still in the range of "pretty damn good"
B+ tier

• Atlantis, Arise
• The Secret of Omega Supreme
• Auto-Bop
• The Revenge of Bruticus
• Starscream's Ghost
• The Ultimate Weapon
• Call of the Primitives

 

Stylistically the most often mentioned is Call of the Primitives. It's full of very detailed, kinda anime-esque, and stylized character designs and cool effects that you don't see anywhere else in the series. I remember everyone always saying they thought it was done by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, but according to TFWiki it seems that the most likely culprit is known Toei subcontractor Studo Ashi

Otherwise I would have to imagine that the best bet is a pre-movie episode done by Toei. It would've been when they were at their greatest amount of "give a damn" about the show quality and they had relatively fewer clunkers in that period. Because in season 3 and beyond they definitely seemed to stop caring about detailing and shading and all that. I'm watching Headmasters right now, which is entirely a Toei production, and it's shocking how bland and flat everything feels compared to early G1. I guess it was a budget thing?

 

I'm not so sure. I've just recently started watching Victory, which I'd never seen before- I acquired Headmasters and Masterforce when the box sets came out, but for some reason never got around to Victory. Now, Victory- at least as far as I've got in it, has excellent, if very stylised, animation with way, way too much stock footage ("Supreme Commander Star Saber, we have terrible news! I'm afraid the Decepticons managed to conquer the entire universe and three other nearby dimensions during your transformation sequence!") - but- that odd feeling of flatness, compared to G1, is still there. Admittedly, Headmasters has its own problem, which is that from about the time of "Explosion on Mars" through to "The Miracle Warriors", the animation gets incredibly *lazy*, with huge numbers of shots that are just basically motionless talking heads with flapping mouths/vibrating mouthplates, intercut with a couple of 'action' shots which are just still characters being slid one way, over a background being slid the other way- but one common factor is that, compared with the bright, colourful look of Toei's G1 episodes, their Japanese G1 episodes seem almost desaturated in comparison. They have the same look in Youtube clips of various sources, so I don't think it's just a matter of different DVD standards or anything, so much as a deliberate creative choice. They're at the opposite end of the spectrum from the pre-movie Akom episodes, where everything's *too* bright.

 

Personally, I think if I were going to have a top 10, several of the top players would be rather influenced by nostalgia; as in, the episodes I actually saw as a child in the '80s, though not all, since some would definitely be from ones I didn't see until Metrodome's DVDs came out.

For the sake of common sense, I'm going to do this by *story*, rather than by episode- which is to say, counting "More Than Meets the Eye" and others as one entry, not as multiples. I'm also not aspiring to rate these 10 against each other, instead listing them in chronological order.

1. More Than Meets the Eye (1-3) - Not all that controversial, perhaps. It contains so many deeply memorable moments that sum up the franchise, make Optimus Prime into the enduring hero figure that he's remained for over three decades now, efficiently and wonderfully set up characters, and pairs it with rather good storytelling for the era and the target audience, not to mention setting the bar high for animation- higher than, perhaps, the show will consistently achieve in years to come, and for incidental music, which it will more reliably match.

"Those who tried to harm you are called Decepticons. We must stop them before they destroy your world." (Eyes flash with resolve)

2. Fire on the Mountain - Good grief, Thundercracker has a personality. Admittedly, he only lets it out for this episode, but still, it's great to see. Oh, and "Wrong again, you dipstick tape deck!"

3. Dinobot Island (1-2) - By part two it's become a blatant toy commercial episode by the standards of a series which is a fairly blatant toy commercial- but it's also huge fun, with, once again, good animation, very nice voice work, a large cast, and a very nice punch-the-air moment when the Dinobots turn their saurian brethren on the Decepticons at the end.

4. The Master Builders - A very nice little story, featuring some of my favourite characters in the persons of Grapple, Hoist, and the Constructicons. I rather like the way that there's a sense that, although it turns into a con quickly enough, the Constructicons' treatment of Grapple is not entirely straightforwardly cruel flattery and manipulation- the episode is played to leave enough ambiguity to suggest that they did actually enjoy working on the project as well, and that stabbing Grapple in the back and turning it over to Megatron was a necessary complication, rather than their entire motivation.

5. Megatron's Master Plan (1-2) - Yes, the story has certain problems with believability. It's a cartoon about giant robots. However, seeing the Decepticons win- part two, after they give up the Masquerade, is basically "All Hail Megatron" only entertaining, and the final battle is bizarrely satisfying. I say bizarrely because on one level it's a classic 'bad' G1 fight- consisting of a series of pans over motionless cels of each side shooting at each other, but curiously, in this particular instance, it somehow works, after Ironhide's line of "Let's show them a little reality", we see the Autobots, put upon for two episodes, return to find the Decepticons enslaving humans, open fire and *keep* firing. Somehow, here, the motionless nature of the troops here works with this, to give the distinct impression that, at this point, the Autobots are deeply pissed off, and if Megatron had not retreated, they would have continued standing there firing, until nothing with a purple badge was left in one living piece.

6. The God Gambit - A good episode. You can say out of character, but I rather like the alternate take on the character of Astrotrain, and it's nice to see Starscream outclassed in the treason department for once. The Autobot cast are good too, and it's an episode with Jazz as one of the principle heroes rather than just a bit-part.

7. Sea Change - This one probably won't be high on many lists, and I can entirely understand why. Once again, it's a particular moment that sells this one to me- it's the fact that, for all his robo-blushing and the rather cheesy romance sub plot, it's not fancying Alana that prompts Seaspray to step into the Well of Transformation, rather, it's her suggestion that he can't because he's just an unliving machine. Seaspray's response "... but I don't believe it!" followed by taking the risk- and surviving it, proving himself - and Transformers as a species- to be as alive as any human or other organic- carries a weight to it and is handled with, ironically enough, a humanity which is extremely well done. For me, this episode sells "living metal beings, not machines" far more than any babbling about 'sparks', and all the cheap cod-Cartesian Dualism that represents ever will.

8. War Dawn - The sheer *creepiness* of Megatron in his dealings with Orion Pax. The way the Aerialbots learn their lesson, and learn it well. Optimus' roaring rampage of revenge in the final act. The rather elegant segues between the time periods.

9. Dark Awakening - Creepy, brooding, and ominous. This was my first encounter with both Series Three - via VHS- and with Akom animation. I remember being startled by how much darker and more unsettling it seemed, and while the animation felt scrappier by far, it also had a dangerous, raw quality to it. Transformers were damaged, torn apart, died, and almost anything might explode. The episode runs the emotional gamut rather fiendishly- just look at essentially one shot, when Optimus Prime emerges and shoots Galvatron.

There's punch-the-air glee, of course. Galvatron's been midway through a victorious gloat, and suddenly he gets cut off by a gunshot- and its Optimus. Music rises, the Autobots rally, Kup bellows "Charge!"... Except that we already know things are not right. Oddly enough, Akom get the visual perfect here, managing to convey that Optimus is, from the go, not right at all, irrespective of the damage, a 'deadness' to his eyes.

Oh, and for those Rodimus haters who complain that Optimus never gave him a dressing down for his supposedly poor performance...

Hot Rod: "I'm... I'm taking command!"
Optimus: "What took you so long?"

10. The Rebirth (1-3) - Yes, Akom comprehensively akominated it. I've never disliked Akom as much as others though. There are things about their style I dislike- the main one is something which other commentators rarely seem to mention, actually- that they tend to frame their scenes in wider shots than most of the other visual contributors, leading to a lot of shots of Transformers that are whole body character models at a distance, looking rather 'small', rather than partial body close ups. This, along with substandard composition into the background- the lighting in the background shot rarely has any relation to the lighting, if any, on the animation cel- contributes a lot to the 'cartoony' (yes, I know it's all a cartoon) look of their work. They do, however, have the guts to try to pull off things which are beyond their capabilities, and attempt to do some very epic visuals, of which this story tends to be one of the more prominent examples.

Personally, I'm not a fan of these episodes' treatment of the Headmasters, either- I'd prefer either a more comprehensive, life-altering, meaningful binary bond, as per the comics, or the Japanese continuity's backstory with small Cybertronians and transtectors over this- but for all that, what it's decided to do, I think it does very well, and it also provides a suitably epic conclusion to the series.

It is abundantly fitting that, after his introduction in 1984 as the "human in distress", finally in 2007, the Decepticons are sent packing for the last time when a bloody furious Spike Witwicky turns up, at the controls of an Autobot super weapon, and takes no scrap from *anyone* until he's rescued Daniel.

Lastly, although his wrestler physique really fails to match either the characterisation, the backstory, or the voice- on all counts, he should be an emaciated, spindly, vaguely insectoid humanoid figure without his armour, Zarak makes for a very sinister new villain.

 

I have soft spots for
-Heavy Metal War
-The Secret of Omega Supreme
-Child’s Play (might be my personal favorite)
-Starscream’s Brigade
-War Dawn

 

Reading all these makes me want to re-watch G1 again!!

 

Starscream's Brigade is a great episode that finally delivers on Starscream's attempts to usurp Megatron's rule. He literally creates his own army to wage war on Megatron.

It's my favorite episode of the entire Transformers franchise.

 

Five Faces of Darkness
Dark Awakening
Webworld
The Burden Hardest to Bear

 

I think in G1 rebirth part 3 galvatron and blitzwing alive and run away of a war?

 

The Ultimate Weapon... Is one that i always remember as a favourite when First Aid leaves the autobots.

 

Plus, it's got the best Metroplex/Trypticon fight in the entire series.

 

Ultimate Weapon is a good call, actually. I wonder if it gets overlooked in season three sometimes because it's so season two an episode, from the (good) animation, to the plot structure, setting, and characterisation focus.

The "goof" of having Blitzwing and Octane show up despite their various banishments has never bothered me; they were banished on Galvatron's orders. It would be entirely consistent with character to assume that the only reason Octane got thrown out before "Fight or Flee" after being forgiven in "Thief in the Night" is because Galvatron forgot he wasn't Blitzwing, and by the same token, by this time, Galvatron's processor may have fizzled again and got both of them back on his Christmas card list.

 

Maybe Octane and Blitzwing just show up again and pretend to be a different bot, figuring Galvatron's too crazy to notice.

"Octane?!? I thought I banished you!"
"I'm not Octane, mighty Galvatron. I'm his cousin... erm, Octone!"
"Very well, Octone. But serve me well or suffer the same consequences as your kin!"

*3 weeks later*

"Octone! I told you never to return to Decepticon space!"
"I'm actually mmmm..octane. Yeah, Moctane. I'm also their cousin."
"How many cousins are there in your blasted family?"
"It's a big family, sir."

 

Ok, so I recently saw Dweller in the Depths and Monster Planet, and I was incredibly impressed by the animation. I really loved Dweller, but the voice acting was a little off for Galvatron and some of the other characters but otherwise it was probably my favorite episode. I began season three LARGELY unimpressed, but it is getting better.

 

Either Triple takeover or webworld. Everything about those episodes was batshit crazy and hilarious. I loved those episodes.

 

KREMZEEKKKKK!!!!

 

I have to believe the writers were just trolling us with that one.

 

Bless you. Here, have a handkerchief.