Let's be reasonable here...
The correct Watch Order for The Transformers is ZERO episodes.
This show wasn't good. It was cheaply made, the stories were ridiculous, the characters thin, it was a blatant vehicle to sell toys, and was so sexist that it failed to even have "80s cartoon token female" characters. This page exists purely due to misguided nostalgia. If I ever choose to watch The Transformers again, it will help me reduce the vicarious embarrassment of watching a Transformer wear a Rolls Royce front grate on their chest.
If one must dabble in The Transformers, the right answer is probable: just watch the 1986 Transformers: The Movie. Its higher budget shows, its music is wonderful, and it moves fast enough that your brain might just not realize it is also a mess. While it is a hot mess, I still enjoy watching 90% of it. It is a fun ride with some great lines, great scenes, and an emotional hit that the TV show could never achieve.
But hey, if you really want to watch some Transformers G1, but aren't sure you can stomach 98 episodes, I'm here to help.
My COHERENT list will have the show make as much sense as it ever did. I would strongly suggest NOT watching more than these. If you like strange ninja cultural-appropriation, that one MIGHT be OK?
My BEST list chops out some of the weaker episodes and leaves you with:
- the introduction story,
- episodes where characters have some conflict about their role,
- a wild sci-fi ride through space,
- the creation stories for the Aerialbots & Combaticons, and
- the dark post-movie episodes about ghosts, corpses, and sanity.
My numbering should more closely match the production order than the airing order, but I honestly doubt that either is particularly chronologically sound.
Really, you should probably watch MUCH better Transformer shows like Transformers: Beast Machines or the newer Transformers: Prime.
BEST?Mini Series: 1: More than Meets the Eye Part 1 2: More than Meets the Eye Part 2 3: More than Meets the Eye Part 3 Season 1: .. .. .. 7: Fire in the Sky .. .. .. .. .. Season 2: .. .. .. .. 16: The Master Builder 17: Auto Berserk .. 28: Childs Play 31: The Gambler .. .. 40: The Key to Vector Sigma Part 1 41: The Key to Vector Sigma Part 2 44: War Dawn 46: Starscream's Brigade 47: The Revenge of Bruticus Transformers: The Movie Season 3: .. .. .. .. .. .. 8: Dark Awakening 9: Forever is a Long Time Coming .. .. 16: Webworld 18: The Quintesson Journal .. 28: The Burden Hardest to Bear 29: The Return of Optimus Prime Part 1 30: The Return of Optimus Prime Part 2 Season 4: .. .. .. Episode Count: 21 |
COHERENT & A BIT MOREMini Series: 1: More than Meets the Eye Part 1 2: More than Meets the Eye Part 2 3: More than Meets the Eye Part 3 Season 1: 1: Transport to Oblivion 2: Roll for it 3: Divide and Conquer 7: Fire in the Sky 9: Fire on the Mountain 11: The Ultimate Doom: Brainwash (Part 1) 12: The Ultimate Doom: Search (Part 2) 13: The Ultimate Doom: Revival (Part 3) 14: Countdown to Extinction Season 2: 2: The Immobilizer 8: Atlantis, Arise! 9: Day of the Machines 15: Microbots 16: The Master Builder 17: Auto Berserk 27: The Golden Lagoon 28: Childs Play 31: The Gambler 33: Sea Change 37: The Search for Alpha Trion 40: The Key to Vector Sigma Part 1 41: The Key to Vector Sigma Part 2 44: War Dawn 46: Starscream's Brigade 47: The Revenge of Bruticus Transformers: The Movie Season 3: 1: Five Faces of Darkness Part 1 2: Five Faces of Darkness Part 2 3: Five Faces of Darkness Part 3 4: Five Faces of Darkness Part 4 5: Five Faces of Darkness Part 5 6: The Killing Jar 8: Dark Awakening 9: Forever is a Long Time Coming 10: Starscream's Ghost 15: Ghost in the Machine 16: Webworld 18: The Quintesson Journal 22: The Dweller in the Depths 28: The Burden Hardest to Bear 29: The Return of Optimus Prime Part 1 30: The Return of Optimus Prime Part 2 Season 4: 1: Rebirth Part 1 2: Rebirth Part 2 3: Rebirth Part 3 Episode Count: 48 |
"More than Meets the Eye" are added because you have to watch the pilot episodes. Having only seen some comics and the toys before seeing this episode... my 10 year old brain melted. These three episodes TRY, but the show just don't make very much sense. Animation errors abound, the world building is basically rewritten in the later season, but it is kinda glorious. Does Soundwave really transform into a lamp post???
You may notice that I kinda love Starscream... "Fire in the Sky" is a strange view of the pre-Decipticon Starscream while introducing Skyfire (not Jerfire nor a Macross Valkyrie) AND "killing" him off too. The plot is ridiculous, but I do love the attempted character work. How hard it is to kill a Transformer is SO all over the place. Shockingly, two episodes later the autobots need to fly somewhere, so dig Skyfire up in "Fire on the Mountain".
"The Master Builder" is basically the Transformers version of The Wind Rises. The unethical engineer learns an important lesson! Grapple is SUCH a flawed character here and it is just kinda amazing to watch. The Autobots end up being anti-technology, because all technology can be stolen and used for evil by the Decepticons? No wonder nobody trusts Wheeljack. This episode doesn't really work, but it is SO interesting.
"Auto Berserk" is the first of two deeply strange episodes about mental illness. I don't know exactly what we are supposed to take from Red Alert's journey, but it is an interesting thing to watch.
"Childs Play" has no plot elements that make sense, but it is WILD. What if the massive Transformers go on a Gulliver's Travel world where THEY are the small ones! I love how this episode isn't on Earth and is SO off-format. This kid's room has TWO means of interstellar travel just lying around! Also, it is a rare episode with serialized impacts on later episodes.
"The Gambler" is an episode which follows "Childs Play" while the Transformers fly home on a toy rocket. Sure, it is just a story about the dangers of gambling, but it is the idea of Megatron being a galactic mob boss surprises me most. Like "Childs Play", the Transformers don't seem that tough vs all the other aliens in the universe.
"The Key to Vector Sigma" is a BIG world building episode, which everyone partially ignores? I kinda love how the show has been introducing new Transformers left and right, but NOW they show us HOW baby Transformers are born. The stunticons were pretty toys, but are boring characters. The Arialbots have a lot of teen angst to get through in their first day of life. This also leads nicely into "War Dawn" where we get even MORE world building back story, and the Arialbots really learn about the horrors of war.
Now we get to one of the better examples of Starscream actually trying to take out Megatron. Why Megatron doesn't kill him leads me to the comic-canon where Megatron seenms to believe that the infighting and backstabbing makes the Decepticons stronger. In "Starscream's Brigade" and "The Revenge of Bruticus" we see an alternative way of adding new characters (with little explination) and shows Starscream being kicked out and then re-earning his position over multiple episodes.
Transformers: The Movie is a FAR FAR better movie than it should be. It has some weak parts, is kinda a toy commercial mixed with a rock musical, but it is absolutely glorious.
"Dark Awakening" is basically a zombie movie in a flying graveyard where Optimus Prime's body is brutalized. So many corpses... so much death... grim stuff.
"Forever is a Long Time Coming" is yet another time travel backstory episode, and I love it. This time we meet a young adult Alpha Trion and I need to ask: Who in the world were the holders of the Matrix of Leadership WHILE the Quintessons ran Cybertron?
I would love to know how in the world "Webworld" got made. This is literally just an allegory for mental health treatment, but taken to some nightmarish extreme. This episode is so far off-format that it feels like an entirely different TV show where the Decepticons go around the universe trying to help Galvatron heal from the damage Unicron did.
Again "The Quintesson Journal" is a weird episode where most of the Autobots are just talking at a peace-talks table. Just a reminder that the Quintessons really suck.
"The Burden Hardest to Bear" absolutely fails to do anything well, but it tries to do so much. What happens when Rodimus loses The Matrix, what happens when a Decepticon tries to use The Matrix, etc... through some Japanese cultural appropriation and a quick 20 minute hero's journey... so strange.
"The Return of Optimus Prime" is the last of the G1 worth watching. As plotting goes, this actually holds together WAY better than most Transformers' stories. It is reaosnably written, well plotted, and reasonably characterized at all... Just surprisingly good. The ending is basically random, but who cares. I find Bumblebee's reboot to be sad every time.
And if you really want any of the above to make "slightly more sense", I would suggest the much longer "COHERENT???" list, but the episodes get way more boring and predictable quickly.
References: Wikipedia list of The Transformers episodes