Upon Further Review: G1 Season 3
I'm one of those fans who has been with Transformers from the beginning. I can't remember what the first episode I saw first, but I know it was in the first season. With a lot of fans, that would solidify the first two seasons, with Optimus Prime and Megatron, Starscream and Jazz, as one's favorite. It's completely understandable. Those are the characters who first drew our attention to their fantastic world. Heck, those first two seasons, the toys, and the early issues of the comic are the reason a lot of us remain fans today.
The third season, though, is seen in a little different light. Though it might not be all that rare, it's unusual to actually hear somebody say they're indifferent with the third season. It seems sometimes that fans either like it or they hate it. Me, I love it, even if I was a fan from the beginning. Though I've liked all incarnations of Transformers to date, the third season of the original series stands firmly as my favorite. That's probably why I tend to think that the third season gets a bad rap.
For those who aren't fond of it, the third season represents their heroes from the earlier two years simply being tossed aside. I can understand this where feelings like this stem from. It would almost seem that the powers-that-be didn't understand that kids would be so upset at the deaths or disappearance of the former characters. Maybe they were callous or maybe they didn't realize the power of the show or the characters that they created. Whatever it was, the third season was the result.
To me, the third season was a breath of new life. I didn't think that the previous seasons were stale or anything, but it was neat to see a whole new group with all new struggles fighting the war on all new planets. There was just something exciting about it. We weren't looking at the same drab browns that surrounded Autobot Headquarters. It's a matter of taste, I suppose, but liked how the settings often varied. We saw action on a multitude of worlds, instead of just Earth. We saw Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers, at least as often as Earth, which makes more sense from the Transformers' perspective. It's their home, after all. Then there was Paradron, Goo, Junk, Charr, that annoying planet with all the music, and I'll bet that's a short list of worlds we've seen. The Transformers being away from Earth more often, rather than just staying put, just made more sense to me. The Transformers are a highly-advanced race. They were space-faring four million years ago. It made little sense to me that they stayed on Earth most of the time. It's not like in Beast Wars, where they had no means to repair their respective ships. The combination of human and Cybertronian technology made it possible that they could leave. But they didn't. Both sides had reasons to stay, but there were reasons to go as well. It would have been nice to see more than simply Earth 98% of the time. If nothing else, we might have seen Shockwave more. :)
How the third season dealt with humans in another reason I like this season better. Throughout the course of the show, humans have been shown to be a technologically strong race, but a bunch of wimps that couldn't handle themselves when push came to shove. They were at the complete whim of the Transformers, whether they were trying to protect them or harness their resources. The third season (and the truncated fourth season) showed a slightly different story. The Transformers were still more advanced and powerful, but the humans were often working with them instead of relying on them for protection. People like Marissa, Carly, and especially Spike, fought side-by-side with them instead of being shielded. Spike and the gang helped the Autobots in the first two seasons, but I can't remember a time when they fought beside them. This happens a lot more in the third and fourth season and I personally like the respect they gave the humans in not making them complete and utter wimps after the movie.
Another thing that sets the third season aside was the cohesive, grown-up stories. Well, most of the time. There are some stinkers in there, but overall my feeling is that there were more grown-up stories than previous seasons. I don't think I'm alone on this either. Previous Trannies have had "Webworld" near the top of all-time favorite episodes in each year to date. Many people seem to like "Call of the Primitives," "The Burden Hardest to Bear," and "Fight or Flee." The problem is that people sometimes typecast season three by "Carnage in C-Minor," "Surprise Party," or "Five Faces of Darkness" (a future topic of an "Upon Further Review" essay). I'm not sure that's exactly fair. The second season isn't typecast by "Autobot Spike" and "City of Steel" after all. If you looked hard enough, it was even possible to find a little continuity, something that was lacking in the previous seasons. Rodimus Prime grew wiser as the season progressed. There was the arc in and around the reappearance of Starscream. Not a lot of continuity, as I said, but there was still some there. Season three also had its share of strong-in-plot episodes. There was still the typical share of EI/AD (evil invention/alien device, phrase coined by KKC, I believe) but somehow they didn't seem to dominate all the time. "Fight or Flee" wasn't about Paradron's power source, it was about Sandstorm and the Paradronians learning what they had taken for granted. "The Ultimate Weapon" was about Galvatron's fake weapon, it was about First Aid and Rodimus learning about their inner strength. "Only Human" wasn't just Cobra Com—er, Snake trying to weaken the Autobots, it was four nearly-immortal beings having to learn to survive in more fragile bodies. There are exceptions (*cough* "Carnage in C-Minor" *cough*) but these kinds of stories, with a lot of season three's stronger episodes dealing with responsibility, seemed lacking in some earlier episodes. There are exceptions to this as well ("The Golden Lagoon" leaps immediately to mind) but season three used the EI/ADs very well, trying to keep it in a supporting role.
Then there are the characters. I'm a character kinda guy and the characters, in my opinion, are the greatest strength of the third season. We were given Rodimus Prime, a young leader who steadily learned what it meant to have the lives of the rest to worry about. We had the stoic Ultra Magnus, who acted as the logical angel on Rodimus' shoulder. There was the ever-loyal Cyclonus, who stuck with his leader through a lot of crap to help his cause. Good old Springer, with his snarky wit. Galvatron, the off-kilter leader, struggling to keep his forces together. There are many good fanfics and essays dealing with these guys, so going into great detail here would by redundant. But these characters and many others in the third season interest me to know end. We occasionally caught some characterization of more minor characters as well, even though season two served better in this capacity. Blitzwing, Sandstorm, First Aid, and Octane were all given a chance to shine in the sun for a little while at least. This is something that is completely opinion, but the characters seemed very real. Personally, I could relate to every one of the main characters, save one or two. I knew where they were coming from and what they might do in a given situation. You learned a lot about them over the course of the season and they actually seemed to grow as the season progress. It's difficult for me to say that about some of the character in earlier years.
All this isn't to say that the third season didn't have its faults. Learning tons about the core characters left characterization wanting for others, especially on the Decepticon side. Season two was good at giving us one-shot stories focusing on more obscure characters. Guys like Hoist, Beachcomber, and Powerglide, among others, were given their own episodes to deal with their characterization. Season two sometimes made good use of its large cast and large number of episodes in doing this. Speaking of those characters, there is almost a complete lack of season one and two characters in season three. Despite liking the characters in season three a lot, I do miss the occasional appearance of Smokescreen or Trailbreaker and it smacks of poor judgment on the part of writers of season three to leave most of these guys out. I think fans would have been happier with characters like Cliffjumper, Tracks, or Skids (what am I saying…he didn't figure into any episodes before :) having small roles in some episodes. They did come first and I, like many of us, grew an attachment to my favorites. And when characters from earlier seasons do appear, they don't always shine like Perceptor and Astrotrain often did. The Dinobots leap immediately to mind, especially the suddenly-lobotomized Grimlock. The writers and animators seemed to forget that those guys had the ability to transform. Also, the animation in season three could have been the worst of any season to date. "Carnage in C-Minor" makes me cringe to this day. :)
Even with these faults, I really like season three of the original series. This doesn't take anything away from the first two seasons; there were many memorable stories and characters present with those particular episodes. But sometimes, I think season three doesn't get the respect I feel it deserves. The story grew up and so did the characters. To me, the G1 Transformers universe was never so real as it was in the third season.
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