I still need to actually watch the show; haven't found a means to yet, but here's my two cents off of trailer and clips that I have seen.

Prime's and Meg's voices seem tight.

Love to see more Elita and hopefully she's not a ragging asshole like in IDW1.

Soundwave's gonna take some getting used to, but new designs can be fun.

Arcee's model cheats like hell. Not even a muscle car either.

I honestly hate the seeker's head designs, and Starscream looks dumb with that goatee.

Personally, I've rather dislike gender swapping characters, but at least they're doing something interesting with Skywarp and Frenzy for once.
Alex seems like a real Gomez Addams type. That's a W. Non-negotiable.

Mo's head is less weird in motion.

 

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I think we can presume he is alive and well. Just, y'know, in prison. And also missing an arm.

 

Yeah, it's pretty good!

STORY: There are some clear... concessions, I guess I'd call it, to being a kids' show - the risk/threat level is pretty low most of the time, pretty much everyone gets handed the Idiot Ball a time or two, and in particular, Optimus ends up seeming like kind of a dipshit. Then again, this Optimus is openly and explicitly a cop who is locking up his own species for refusing to go along with a truce they (seemingly) were not involved in developing or signing, a truce that as far as we can tell pretty much makes any non-compliant actor a criminal, all the while hiding Bumblebee and the Terrans from GHOST. "Decoy" sort of began to tease out the hypocritical aspects of this, and I'm curious to see how it affects the Prime/Megatron relationship, which is otherwise enjoyable.

Also, two brand new Transformers appear on Earth and Optimus.... doesn't bother to inquire as to where they came from, apparently for days if not weeks. That seems like a real dereliction of duty on his part, unless his responsibilities with GHOST go way beyond giving tours and rounding up the dregs of the Decepticons that are still out there.

ART: The animation is pretty damn good, with some weirdly selective decision-making - Mo's hair is animated beautifully, while most of the adults might as well be wearing hair-shaped plastic helmets.

The fight scenes improve dramatically over the run of the show. The TFs need to have a feel of heft behind them - even when they're flipping over each other and doing cool moves, they should seem heavy in a way that they sometimes don't.

Absolutely love this take on Arcee - the 50's car altmode, the whole "Jessie from Toy Story" vibe...

OVERALL: Looking forward to seeing where things go from here - this is a real tease of an initial drop. If it never gets much better than this in storytelling and theme, it's already setting a pretty reasonable bar for TF fiction in the '20s. On the other hand, it seems like the pieces are there to shoot for the Adventure Time/ATLA/BTAS-JLU/Gravity Falls/She-Ra/Steven Universe tier (and I'd settle for landing comfortably at the DuckTales reboot.)

 

I was arguing with a troll over this, who claims that Transformers by their nature are binary (switching between robot and vehicle modes) and that the coding for their personalities itself is likely binary (0100110) too, so how can you have a physically binary and "mentally" binary being be non-binary? I was a bit stumped to be honest.

 

tell them about triple changers and BLOW THEIR MIND

 

And then there's Six-Changers. Rare but they exist, like Sixshot and RID2001 Megatron (who later got the ability to transform into ten different modes as Galvatron/Devil Gigatron, though they were actually just made by messing with the configuration and can be achieved on the original figure as well).

 

Just wait until they see Blitzwing or Springer. Oh, or better yet, Sixshot! Not exactly the troll's best line of logic when the Transformers franchise more than occasionally refuses to limit itself to giving characters just one alt-mode (or even one robot mode sometimes, considering Counterpunch).

Although it took us by surprise, pretty much all of my friends watching it with me were really enthusiastic about Nightshade's nonbinary identification. (Outside of one who's an outsider to the series, and didn't understand how Cybertronian gender worked at first). Although their dialogue immediately after was a little tacky, it makes sense that it feels that way, considering this will be a lot of children's first exposure to a nonbinary fictional character.

If I recall correctly, Nicole Dubuc hinted online that there would be more nonbinary inclusion later on, which is very interesting to consider. A nonbinary version of Shockwave could be very interesting to see, considering the character's focus on logic and progress over emotion and presentation.

EDIT: Whoops, others swooped in and ended up making my exact points while I was typing. I'll still leave my post up, though.

 

Anyone have that list of episode titles and descriptions that popped up awhile ago? Had all the episodes in it.

 

Spoiler

>101-102 Secret Legacy
>ROBBY, reeling from his family’s move from Philly to the rural town of Witwicky, finds new joy and purpose when he and his sister MO bond with the first-ever Earth-born Transformers: the TERRANS, TWITCH and THRASH. Tied emotionally to their human siblings by emotionsharing cyber-sleeves, the Terrans quickly become the target for the cyber-human villain MANDROID. It’ll take OPTIMUS and his AUTOBOTS along with RANGER DOT and DR. MALTO to save the kids and Terrans, all while keeping their existence and adoption a secret to prowling DECEPTICONS and the mysterious agency of GHOST.

>103 Moooooo-ving In
>As the Malto family gets used to its new members, Bumblebee hopes to quickly knock out his mission to train the Terrans in all things Autobot. But he's flummoxed when they seem more interested in cows and games than the wisdom he has to impart; maybe all parties could do a little more listening.

>104 H.O.U.S.E. Rules
>Thrash chafes at the "restrictive" Malto family H.O.U.S.E. rules, and he convinces Mo to go along with his loopholes around them. But when the Decepticon Swindle does some exploiting of his own to convince Thrash and Mo to help find his missing brother, they soon find themselves playing by a far more dangerous set of rules.

>105 Classified
>GHOST Special Agent Schloder is in pursuit of a Deception that is targeting kids (really a misidentification of Twitch and Robby). Meanwhile, Dot is put through GHOST orientation, where she learns that GHOST’s intentions might not be completely above board.

>106 Traditions
>Robby begs off Alex's traditional Wakwak hunt, so Alex shares his family history with Bumblebee, while Twitch, eager to gain her own traditionas, encounters her "Dad2" -- Wheeljack.

>107 Friends and Family
>The Terrans' erratic behavior may be reflecting Mo and Robby's anxiety about their first day at their new school. Or it could be something far worse…

>108 Decoy
>While out on a mission to captures three tricky tuneful Mini-Cassette Bots, Megatron and Optimus Prime have a disagreement about GHOST's treatment of Decepticons.

>109-110 Age of Evolution
>Twitch and Thrash wonder if they're the only two Terrans in the universe, and they venture to discover if that's true. With the help of Optimus, Bumblebee, Alex, Robby and Mo, they relocate the cave of their origin and find much more than just the Emberstone. With the birth of three new Terrans (hashtag, Nightshade, and Jawbreaker), the Malto family has grown. But will these new allies be enough to rescue Dot and Megatron from the clutches of Mandroid?

>111 Hashtag Oops
>Twitch helps Hashtag choose her alt-mode, and it takes them both for a wild and GHOST-ly ride. Meanwhile, Alex and Bee struggle to hold down the fort with the new Terrans when Dot has to leave for work and the kids go to school.

>112 Outtakes
>Jawbreaker is feeling nervous about his alt-mode. How does he choose the right one? A conversation with Mom gives him an idea: use a camera to inspire bots into telling him why they chose theirs! But when Hashtag gets involved, the scale of the project gets a little out of hand.

>113 Missed Connection
>When Nightshade’s feeling isolated from the rest of the Malto family, they find a new connection in the most unlikely of places…

>114 Security Protocols
>When Mo, Robby, and their Terran siblings are locked down in the Dugout, there’s no way to avoid longsimmering conflict.

>115 Bear Necessities
>When Twitch gifts Dot a baby bear cub for Mother’s Day, the two of them and Robby embark on a journey to return the baby to its own Mom...who, unbeknownst to them, is tussling with the other Maltos at the homestead!

>116 Warzone
>Robby and Mo join the Terrans on a visit to the Spacebridge Memorial Park, but the memory of the siege opens old wounds... and more... for Megatron.

>117-118 Home
>The kids and Terrans sneak out for a night of fun in Philadelphia, but their dreams of visiting the big city transforms into a nightmare.

>119 A Stygi Situation
>Jawbreaker gains a dinosaur alt-mode, but instead of changing into it, the alt-mode changes him.

>120 Disarmed
>As Mandroid secretly works inside GHOST, Robby, Mo, and the Terrans attempt to force new cyber-sleeve powers to unlock, with disastrous results.

>121 What Dwells Within
>The Malto kids are lost in a maze of underground tunnels with a mysterious monster stalking them. In order to survive they have to team up with Starscream! But can they trust him?

>122 Prime Directive (or Once Upon a Prime)
>Robby’s cyber-sleeve illness threatens his life, so Mo renounces ever touching the Emberstone and Quintus Prime shows Mo why she’s the hero her family needs.

>123 Stowed Away, Stowaway
>When Bumblebee is called away on a secret spy mission, Robby, Twitch, Thrash and the others decide to go on their own secret mission to protect Bee.

>124 The Battle of Witwicky
>The truth about the Terrans is revealed as the Malto family makes a last stand against Croft and her sinister forces within GHOST.

>125-126 Last Hope
>The Malto family must overcome insurmountable odds to stop Mandroid once and for all, and save Cybertronian kind.

 

proof of more NB rep please

 

This tweet seems to imply it, although I could be wrong. (For reference of those not in the know, Nicole Dubuc is one of the executive producers of Transformers: Earthspark, as well as the voice actress of Skywarp & Nova Storm.)

 

I don't think that tweet implies anything of that nature, it's just a response that including a non binary character was important to the show crew. There's nothing teasing further non binary characters in that tweet, least not how I'm reading it.

 

That's a valid way of seeing it, I could totally just be looking too far into it. To me, the "and no doubt they do" seems like it's in reference to the previous user's "do any other characters use non-binary pronouns?". As it stands it could go either way.

 

Since I didn't have much work today, I decided to binge the rest of the series. I'll just list my thoughts cos I'm tired:

Let's get the spoilery stuff out of the way:

Spoiler

• I was initially interested with the Terrans and family dynamic, but I quickly got tired of it. The episodes that rather leaned on SoL were my least favorites and I was more invested in the Autobots and Decepticons stuff by the end. Hell, you could take out the Terrans and you would still have a cool premise. Also, I knew what I was getting into with the family angle, but you should be able to convey your theme without shouting it every minutes.
  
• As a guy who’s tired of Bumblebee's overexposure, I never thought a show would genuinely make me care for him, even if it’s not that hard when you’re the straight man to a bunch of kids’ antics. The twenty minutes of episode 3 made me root for Bee as he struggles to lead more than an entire season of RID2015 – although I think it came at the cost of writing the cost and Terrans as childish and jerky. Turns out he can work as more than the rookie or/and a goody two shoes.
  
• I don't understand why Terrans’ existence must remain a secret while the Autobots and Decepticons are public knowledge. It's not like they pose any threat. I'm even more confused that OP hasn't told GHOST about the them when he should be able to make sure they aren’t treated like the Cons. Humans don’t even need to put a Terran under a scalpel to understand what they are: they are just as eager to find out.
• I don't see the fuss about detaining the Decepticons either. I’m frankly on OP’s side. Call him a "lackey", but he’s being pragmatic and reasonnable. GHOST is shady (you wouldn’t have characters going on about it if that wasn’t the case), but it’s safer to contain openly hostile Cons and not run the risk of them arming humans or Cybertronians. What else are they supposed to do? Let them walk free and tell them not to squash any human on the way out? At least I’m relieved writers don’t seem to paint the issue as black and white. By the end, OP concludes GHOST can be improved but they should appreciate what they have.
• I genuinely enjoyed the bonding between Twitch and Wheeljack. It actually felt more touching than the bonding with the Malto. On a sidenote, I'm not too fond of giving Wheeljack facial hair but it looks nice on him here because he radiates even more of a father vibe.
• I was glad to see more Decepticons show up in episode 7, but I would have preferred something else than OP and Meg getting humiliated by the cassettes.

• I’m Glad Alex was more than "the goofy dad". It’s a very tired trope, especially when coupled with the no-nonsense mom.
• The cassettes look good except for Frenzy's head. Sideswipe is already proof hair don't look good on bots, and I particularly dislike that kind of hairstyle. I know she's supposed to look like a rockstar, but to me she looks more like she spends the day getting offended on Twitter or on the Cybertronian equivalent – hopefully they don’t have one.
• I like their choice for Soundwave’s alt-mode. I never really thought of him on a bot who flies, but a stealth jet is surprisingly fitting, better than the drone in Prime.
• I don't think much of fem!Skywarp. It's just cool to see an incarnation that actively uses the teleportation power.
• I'm glad we can agree Hashtag is an awful name.
• Arcee's face doesn't look better in motion. It looks way too human and not robotic enough. That organic look makes her particularly clash with the rest of the cast.
• There’s no redeeming Starscream’s face either.
• If I had a penny every time a Transformers was attacked by a small mammal and fell off a cliff, I'd have two pennies, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
• Finally, is just me or does the frame drop for a few seconds at times?

Overrall, I had a decent time. It’s not my favorite show and I’m not excited for the next episodes, but you can't deny it was done competently. What matters is I gave it a shot despite my doubts. I could mostly do with better models, less meh jokes and less zoomerisms like OP and Meg texting.

EDIT: Forgot to say the action was great, particularly the fights with Skywarp and Novastorm. I was so caught up in the details the amazing fight choreography went over my head.

 

Frenzy. We haven't seen Rumble yet.

 

Sorry, used to Rumble being the blue one.

 

RIBFIR and RIRFIB are dead folks,

Long live purple Frenzy

 

All hail FIPRIN

Frenzy Is Pruple, Rumble Is Nonexistent.