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"Screwing Around"

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:21 am
by BWprowl
Yeah, I’m mainly calling out Six on this one, and his repeated assertion that Season 3 of Animated somehow wasted too much time or had too much filler or what-have-you.

Season 3 of Animated was relatively short, being 13 episodes long, with three of those dedicated to a season-premier three-parter, and two of them for the series finale. So that’s five out of twelve that are majorly plot-relevant already. Almost all the others contribute and move the story along, or deal with hanging elements from earlier stories in some way. Episode by episode:

TransWarped:
The season premier, with a ton of stuff going on. Picks up right where the previous finale left off, showing what happened to Starscream and Megatron. It also deals with the revelation the Autobots got about Shockwave being Longarm, with Blurr getting snuffed out before he can deliver the news to anybody. Further, it gives the Headmaster one last hurrah, and contributes more to the Omega Supreme plotline.

Three’s a Crowd:
Probably the most filler-y episode the season has, this one mostly exists to deal with the Constructicons, killing them/kicking them out of plot-range by the end, though it does leave Scrapper alive for a later plot.

Where Is Thy Sting?:
Brings Wasp back into the plot after establishing him in the previous season. Also brings the Elite Guard back to Earth for the time, and quickly introduces Jetfire and Jetstorm (their origin occurring off-screen in the pack-in comic).

Five Servos of Doom:
Finally gives us our Prowl flashback episode, and also brings Lockdown back to tie up both their story arcs as relating to Yoketron. Gives Prowl his sidecar armor back, and rounds up Swindle and the loose Starscream clones for later.

Predacons Rising:
Brings Blackarachnia and Wasp back to wrap up their respective plots, and lets Sentinel give his own send-off to Blackarachnia/Elita.

Human Error:
Brings Soundwave back, along with pretty much all the other loose end/one-shot characters to give them one last hurrah. Otherwise, not terribly plot relevant for a dramatic two-part episode, though it is the first one with Sari in quite a while. Mostly exists for ‘Whatever happened to {x} character?’ value than anything else.

Decepticon Air:
Definitively finishes up the plot with Swindle and the Starscream clones, and expands on Optimus and Sentinel’s relationship.

This Is Why I Hate Machines:
Bigass finale setup episode, establishing Sentinel as the new Magnus, finally outing Shockwave, and bringing Jazz to Earth for the end to go down.

Endgame:
It’s the ending, what more do you want! Wraps up pretty much all the plots that the rest of the season hadn’t spent tying up, gives everything a big finish to go out on. Pretty much the only thing left hanging is the whole Sari/Protoform business, and that’s clearly because it was brought up in this finale as something they would’ve followed up on in Season 4, and there was no way for them to quickly wrap it up when they realized this was a series finale, not a season finale.

So yeah, Animated Season 3 is pretty efficient. Almost every hanging plot thread they’d set up gets resolved, the overarching plots of Sentinel working to become Magnus, Shockwave working behind the scenes, and Megatron trying to get back to Earth to use Omega Supreme in an attack are poked at until they hit full-boil for the finale, and aside from the aforementioned Sari business, everything wraps up rather nicely. I don’t know where you’re getting that the season screwed around or didn’t follow up on its plots or story ideas or whatever, almost every episode in the season has a point in being there.

Yes I know that was a whole lot of effort and text just to try to prove some stupid point to one guy but dammit it was bugging me!

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:21 am
by Shockwave
Was there really only 13 episodes? What about the one with Sari and her team of "reserve Autobots"? Or was that the one with Soundwave? On the one hand you have a good point, each episode did advance some ongoing arc in some way. Maybe they just shouldn't have introduced the whole Sari/Protoform thing since that seemed like a much bigger plot point than many of the ones that got resolved. Or, I guess the main complaint is that they should have addressed that one earlier. Y'know, instead of giving us Jetfire and Jetstorm who really didn't add very much to the series.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:03 pm
by BWprowl
Shockwave wrote:What about the one with Sari and her team of "reserve Autobots"? Or was that the one with Soundwave?
Yeah, that was part 2 of 'Human Error'.
Or, I guess the main complaint is that they should have addressed that one earlier. Y'know, instead of giving us Jetfire and Jetstorm who really didn't add very much to the series.
Well, the twins were barely in the series as-is, and never as main/primary characters, no time was really wasted focusing on them or anything. Removing them from the few portions they were prominent would hardly have 'made time' for Sari's situation to be addressed (especially since that plot-line wasn't even really dug up until they got to the moon for their part of the Endgame arc), their roles would've just been filled by some other Elite Guard dudes.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:23 pm
by Sparky Prime
The only episodes I didn't care for of the 3rd season was "Three's a Crowd" and "Human Error". "Three's a Crowd" mainly because I wasn't a fan of any episodes that focused on the Constructicons, Dirt Boss in particular I thought was overly abrasive, which this episode introduced. And "Human Error", Autobots trapped in virtual reality as humans and they made it two parts? I think they could have made it one episode and it would have been better, but wasn't really a fan of the idea of the Autobots as humans in the first place, or Sari and her crack team of 'reserve' Autobots.

Other than those episodes though, season 3 was a lot of fun.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:58 pm
by Onslaught Six
Hey, shutup.

No, I'm tired today so I can't form a coherent argument. But I still disagree.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:49 am
by Shockwave
I also think "Human Error" was filler. I mean, did we really NEED another Soundwave episode? His storyline was already wrapped up and, as much as I liked seeing the Autobots run around dealing with being human, that two parter could have set up the whole moon/protoforms thing which could have either been resolved or resolved later in Endgame. And I'm not sure we needed another "Blackarachnia does something stupid to rid her hideous beast mode" episode either. Great, she turned Wasp into Waspinator. Awesome. Again, that was time that could have been spent on Sari's arc rather than wasting time just to shoehorn a BW character into animated.

I dunno, I kind of have mixed feelings on this. Mostly because at the time, I enjoyed those episodes because I always thought we'd be getting season 4 and there would be time to wrap up all of the other plot elements later. But then, the series got cancelled and looking back, I can't help thinking that those who were producing the show had to have had some advanced warning of this and could have spent the time better wrapping up the various plot elements that were more significant. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they didn't have advance notice. Maybe they believed there would be a season 4 just as we did. Point is, if there had been a season 4 and all of this had been addressed later, no one would be complaining about anything in season 3 being "screwing around".

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:36 am
by BWprowl
Shockwave wrote:I also think "Human Error" was filler. I mean, did we really NEED another Soundwave episode? His storyline was already wrapped up and, as much as I liked seeing the Autobots run around dealing with being human, that two parter could have set up the whole moon/protoforms thing which could have either been resolved or resolved later in Endgame.
"Human Error" is one I'll concede is one that didn't really *need* to be there. Part of me feels like they felt they had to follow up on Soundwave's "I still function" from the end of his episode, as well as follow up on Wreck-Gar, who was in a similar situation, but in the end it wasn't absolutely necessary. On the other hand, we got Optimus Prime getting into a rock-off with Soundwave, so who am I to want to trade that for anything?
And I'm not sure we needed another "Blackarachnia does something stupid to rid her hideous beast mode" episode either. Great, she turned Wasp into Waspinator. Awesome. Again, that was time that could have been spent on Sari's arc rather than wasting time just to shoehorn a BW character into animated.
This one was important though, because it resolved Wasp's plotline (he'd been left running around after he came back in "Where Is Thy Sting?") as well as the last parts of Blackarachnia's (finally letting her encounter Sentinel in her current form), and then getting rid of both of them (via time travel...or whatever the hell happened at the end of that episode). This was a useful episode in terms of legitimately tying up loose ends, especially Wasp since they'd barely set him up back in Season 2.
I dunno, I kind of have mixed feelings on this. Mostly because at the time, I enjoyed those episodes because I always thought we'd be getting season 4 and there would be time to wrap up all of the other plot elements later. But then, the series got cancelled and looking back, I can't help thinking that those who were producing the show had to have had some advanced warning of this and could have spent the time better wrapping up the various plot elements that were more significant. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they didn't have advance notice. Maybe they believed there would be a season 4 just as we did. Point is, if there had been a season 4 and all of this had been addressed later, no one would be complaining about anything in season 3 being "screwing around".
That's my point though, they did wrap up all the other plot elements. Wasp and Blackarachnia, the Starscream clones, Shockwave, Omega Supreme and Arcee, all those got followed up on and wrapped up in Season 3. The *only* thing left hanging was the whole Sari thing, which didn't even get the Protoform thing brought up until the finale, in what was an obvious set up for what would've been a Season 4 plotline. Virtually every episode of the season, save "Human Error" and maybe "Three's a Crowd" (and that's debatable since it was showing what happened to the Constructicons after the S2 finale) followed up on and tied up an existing plot thread. You can hardly call that 'screwing around'.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:57 am
by JediTricks
I only recently watched 'em all, and I have to say that Prowl's right, that season was tight as a drum. Had every single episode been driving major stuff home, it would have felt like a big slog, a trudging towards an inevitable conclusion. Instead we got a few moments left and right to break it up and let it still feel like the show it was on the drawing board. Yes, there wasn't new stuff, but the majority of old stuff - large AND small - got resolved in some satisfying way.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:06 pm
by Shockwave
Ok, I'll concede the point, season 3 didn't screw around, but I guess I'm wondering why if they knew it was getting cancelled, did they bother to "set up" season 4 with the whole protoform thing? I guess I'm just wishing it hadn't been mentioned at all if they knew there was going to be no follow up or if they really did want to work it in there to bring it up and deal with it earlier.

Unless of course, Hasbro really did cut them off last minute and they didn't know there wasn't going to be a season 4 in which case, Hasbro sucks for not giving them better warning. I really have to wonder what goes on in that corporate office sometimes.

Re: "Screwing Around"

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:53 pm
by BWprowl
Shockwave wrote:Ok, I'll concede the point, season 3 didn't screw around, but I guess I'm wondering why if they knew it was getting cancelled, did they bother to "set up" season 4 with the whole protoform thing? I guess I'm just wishing it hadn't been mentioned at all if they knew there was going to be no follow up or if they really did want to work it in there to bring it up and deal with it earlier.
I get the impression they didn't find out until relatively late in the game, and by that point the animation and voice-work for Sari's scene about the protoforms had already been completed, and they couldn't just cut it or the episode would run too short (not to mention we'd have even LESS explanation of Sari's nature in the series).

Underscoring this, I've always felt that the 'final' scene in the series, that quick shot of Optimus and co. returning to Cybertron with the Decepticons captive and being welcomed by a joyous crowd, seemed like a last-minute addition they worked up after they'd found out they'd been cancelled and wanted to give the series a more 'final' send-off.
Unless of course, Hasbro really did cut them off last minute and they didn't know there wasn't going to be a season 4 in which case, Hasbro sucks for not giving them better warning. I really have to wonder what goes on in that corporate office sometimes.
From what I understand it wasn't even Hasbro this time, really. Cartoon Network had had issues with supporting the show, being that while it was doing decently, it was costing them a fair bit, especially with having to share licensing with Hasbro. So when Hasbro announced that, after enduring the partnership for so long, they were going to go off and start their own network to show all their cartoons on themselves, CN retaliated by holding onto the rights for Animated so Hasbro wouldn't be able to play it on their network, so they went with their Plan B to just make a new show, TFPrime. Hasbro was eventually able to wrestle the rights, which is why Animated is rerunning on the Hub now, but new episodes would be kind of a moot point, the show having been over for over three years and having no toyline to support it.

Although allegedly the folks over at the Hub had looked into trying to order new episodes of the Batman and Superman Animated Series they're showing reruns of, but got blocked by WB/DC on that. I'd also heard a rumor that they HAD tried to order new episodes of Animated, but CN somehow cockblocked them on that as well. This is all hearsay though, so be sure to take it with a whole bunch of salt.