Note: This is just in my opinion, obviously.

Best:
1. Animated
2. Prime Seasons 1 and 2
3. Movie Series
4. Armada
5. RiD 2015
6. Cybertron

Worst:
1. Prime Season 3 and Predacons Rising
2. Combiner Wars

I haven't seen RiD 2001, Beast Wars, Beast Machines or Energon, so I can't comment on those.

 

Why was season 3 of Prime bad in your opinion? I thought it was awesome

 

The only Transformers series I outright think is the worst is Beast Machines (horrible character changes and designs, trampling on everything Beast Wars did, etc.) and the movie series (for more reasons than I care to list). Most of the other TF series I don't like are more "it was meh" (Animated, Armada, RiD2001) or "disinterested in it" (Prime, NuRiD)

 

Based only on North American releases that made it to tv:

Best: Beast Wars

Worst: Energon

 

The good.
#1 Prime - I wish I appreciated it more when it was new, but now going back rewatching it, I just love the animation and writing so much.

#2 G1 - It's what started it all, and growing up I loved every minute of it except Season 3. It hasnt aged well, but rewatching it, there were a few episodes where Sunbow was able to put together a well animated, cohesive 22 minute toy commercial.

3 - Beast Wars - I never have been, and likely never will be a fan of beast modes, but there was some great writing and voice acting here.

The bad and ugly.

#1 Combiner Wars - Rushed, overhyped, extremely poorly written, so many missing plot points and combiners on a show called "Combiner Wars" who never combine.

#2 RID 2015 - Just call it Prime Lite...whimsically animated, comedy relief by Grimlock, too much Bumblebee. On the plus side, it has been getting slightly better.

#3 I dont have a #3 as I havent watched enough of any other series to fairly judge them, but I can safely say ifI did, it would be one or more parts of the Prime triolgy.

 

There were quite a few reasons I didn't like it, personally.

• Megatron's heel-face turn at the end of Predacons Rising. I'm not against the idea of good-guy Megatron, but it was out of nowhere. It didn't fit with his character and was just weird.
• Predaking-I just didn't like his character. His character seemed more annoying to me than anything.
• Predacons Rising-why did this need to happen? The series had a great ending in "Deadlock". Unicron's return seemed really contrived and I don't think anyone thought, when they heard the title "Predacons Rising, that it would be a movie about Predacon zombies. Everyone thought it would be about Predaking getting an army of Predacons.
• While not part of the season, I eventually learned that season three was originally planned to be way more interesting. Originally it was planned that Cybertron was going to be restored at the end of Season Two. A ton of new characters would have been introduced, including Bludgeon and THE MAXIMALS!!! That means that if there were Predacons, there could've been a Prime version of Beast Wars. Alas though, this didn't pan out. *Sighs*

Honestly, I like the Japanese ending to Prime a lot better. They ended the series at "Darkest Hour". The final scene is where all the Autobots except Optimus have left the base. The Decepticon warship is looking outside. It deploys its cannon and prepares to fire. Inside the base, Optimus pulls out the Star Saber and raises it to destroy the Autobot bases' control panel. Then the show ends. Honestly, I think they could've used that ending and it's ambiguous tone would have fit Prime's dark tone. It would basically be like "Did the good guys win?? You'll never know!" The Japanese show was kiddified a bit (source: tfwiki), but I'm sure with some dialogue changes they could've used the Japanese ending and made it fit. Well, it'll always be the ending in my headcanon.

 

Wait, their plans for season 3 was going to take place on Cybertron?!? Wow, that would've been interesting to see...
But Megatron didn't become a good guy out of the blue. I think it was because in Predacons Rising, since Unicron was controlling his body and abusing him, Megatron had no free will so he realized that he treated others the same way Unicron treated him hence why he said "I now know the true meaning of oppression..."

 

I guess so, but it still seemed really rushed. If they had shown him having doubts about what he did before his possession, then having him become a good guy after being freed would fit. As it stands though, it seems somewhat rushed and unbelievable. Plus, the whole reason he started the war was because he was oppressed when he was a miner. Maybe if he shows up in RiD 2015 they'll explain it more.

 

I'll just rank all the series I've seen for simplicities sake.

1. Animated
2. Rescue Bots
3. Beast Wars
4. Victory
5. Beast Wars Neo*
6. Galaxy Force/Cybertron
7. Superlink (Superlink, not Energon)
8. G1
9. Car Robots (not RID)
10. Masterforce
11. Headmasters
12. Beast Wars II**
13. Beast Machines
14. Prime
15. Armada
16. Zone

*I did miss a few episodes just before the Blendtrons and a few right after.

**I only saw about half the series to be fair, but I did see the movie.

RID (2015) isn't on the list because I won't judge it and add it to the list until it's done. As it is now, I'd somewhere around G1.

 

BEST
Animated
G1
Prime
Beast Wars

WORST
Energon
Combiner Wars

I've not seen enough of the rest to form an opinion.

 

Wait,
Car Robots in a thing...?

In Prime's story, I thought the whole war started when Megatron grew corrupted and used his followers for his own benefit.

 

I'm just gonna go ahead and rank them

1. Prime 9/10
2. Animated 8.5/10
3. Beast Machines 8/10
4. Beast Wars 8/10
5. Armada 7/10
6. G1 6.5/10
7. Bayformers 6.5/10
8. RID (2001) 6.5/10
9. Cybertron 6/10
10. RID (2015) 5.5/10
11. Energon 4/10

 

Miner? Wasn´t he a gladiator?

 

Where did you get that information about season 3?

 

Best:
Animated
Beast Wars
Beast Machines

Worst:
Combiner Wars
Energon
Headmasters

 

From this thread here http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/aligned-continuity-panel-at-tf-con-charlotte.1053596/page-3#post-13037358. Bear in mind that none of this is official 100% fact, but it's very possible that this was originally what season three was intended to be.

 

Best: Beast Machines.

Worst: Prime and Combiner Wars.

 

Have you watched any others?

 

I would have to say the best would be a tie between Animated and Prime. I like both shows for their strengths but do admit their flaws, it's because of this I find it hard to decide which one takes the top spot as my favorite Transformers series. G1 is basically the runner-up, while it wasn't the greatest at times with character and storylines, the show tend to have that humorous 80s cheesy feel that I can't help but love. The plots and moments may be ridiculous, but I still get a good laugh. Well... except for "Carnage in C-Minor" that episode annoyed me more than amused me, preventing me from enjoying it and labeling it as the worst Transformers episode in my opinion. But that's not to say G1 didn't have good story and character development; I feel like Rodimus is a good example of both, I just find it sad the writers kind of abused the plotline and caused Rodimus to be stuck in character development loop. I enjoy RiD2015 but I wouldn't say it's one of my top favorites yet, Season 3 would have to really wow me to beat G1. I also slightly enjoy Rescuebots, I like how it's a show for younger children that doesn't treat the audience like idiots, something that annoys me with most shows aimed at that age group. But that's as far as my interest goes since I watched a few episodes and the plots felt quite standard and a tiny bit bland, but not too much to take away the enjoyment of watching. Though there were rare occasions where I really enjoyed watching an episode, such as the one where everyone's minds got swapped. It was quite amusing to see the Rescuebots react to being humans and it reminded me of G1's "Only Human" and Animated's "Human Error."

As for the worst, out of all the Transformers shows I watched, I could never call one the outright worst. That is until Combiner Wars came along! Ugh I hate that series so much and it's mainly because I had wanted the show to be good and was willing to give it a chance after it failed to give me a first impression. There are so many things wrong with that series such as bad pacing, boring battles, pointlessly killing off characters, terrible animation, horrible mouth movement, lag issues, emotionless actors, terrible character writing, having characters constantly spout exposition, etc. Ugh, it was frustrating to see so many mistakes, especially in a product paid by Hasbro. Honestly the only thing that series did right Megatron. Literally just Megatron. His only problem was turning into a gun as a blatant G1 fanservice when in reality he should have transformed into a tank just like his toy. We'd be here a while if I wrote down every single problem I had with Combiner Wars, so I'll leave it at that.

 

Best: Prime, Movies, RID 2015, Season 2 and 3 of Beast Wars, and Armada for nostalgic reasons.

Middle: G1, RID 2001, Season 1 of Beast Wars, Rescue Bots, Cybertron

Worst: Energon, Animated, Comics, Combiner Wars, and Beast Machines.