Making Sense of Generation One: Part 2

Today is a really lazy Saturday, so why not post another part of this series. With the success of the first season of Transformers, Hasbro commissioned a second season to be produced. The series moved to weekdays and began its broadcast run in September of 1985. The second season contained a titanic 49 episodes in order to bring Transformers up to the required 65 episodes to make it into syndication.

The second season featured improved animation, a larger cast, a new intro, and a new theme song. Thirteen of the episodes focused on the original cast from season one. After which, there were many new Autobots and Decepticons who joined the show. In a really weird move, these characters just seemed to appear out of no where with no explanation of how they arrived. All of the season one characters acted as if these new Transformers had always been at their side. The broadcast order of the episodes helped with the transition, but if you were to watch the episodes in chronological order, it was a bit of a shock. The second season also dropped the sequencing of the first season episodes. Up until the final thirteen episodes, you could pick up and watch the episodes in any order. The style was redone in order to make sure every character/ toy had a spotlight episode. The final thirteen episodes had more continuity but it wasn't always concrete. These episodes featured the origins of the Airealbots, Stunticons, and Combaticons. The Protectobots pulled a "season 2" and just magically appeared in the final two episodes of the season.

Season two was the high note of the Transformers animated series. The episodes from this season are among the most remembered by long time fans. The highlights of this season included the introduction of the combiner teams and triple-changers, the first appearance of Alpha Trion, the introduction of Carly (Spike's future wife), and a first look into the crafting of Transformers mythology. The season also saw a maturing of the themes and stories as the stories became darker and certain characters (Megatron and Starscream in particular) became more intense. Some of the best episodes of season two included The God Gambit, Starscream's Brigade, The Key To Vector Sigma (Parts 1 & 2), Day of the Machines, and Traitor.

The two low points about this season were definitely the lack of a proper season finale and Hasbro's focus on Transformers as a "toy" show. B.O.T. is one of the worst episodes in terms of story telling in the series, and it was no way to properly end the season. In Japan, an OVA called Scramble City did appropriately tie off the season with the introduction of Ultra Magnus, Metroplex, and Trypticon. However, the OVA was meant to be a filler for the Japanese audience to bridge the gap between seasons two and three since they wouldn't get Transformers: The Movie until 1990. Hasbro's focus of Transformers being a "toy" show became far more evident in this season due to all of the spotlight episodes. The series is still one of the best cartoons ever produced, but it really did start to feel like an advertisement rather a series of great stories at times.