The Five Faces of Darkness
Otherwise known as, TFTM 2, or at least it seems that way. FFOD not only explores the new status quo post-movie, but it wraps up some loose plot threads that were never explained in the movie, such as who the Quintessons are and what the meaning of their trial is. The story is fairly good, if as full of plot holes and conveniences as most childrens' cartoons at the time.
The basic plot: the Autobots have won the war, and are taking their place as peaceful members of the intergalactic community, which contrasts greatly with the first two seasons where they were largely trapped on Earth with a "Megatron's evil plot of the week" variety of storytelling. The Decepticons are in bad shape following their loss, and many season 2 characters that didn't appear in the movie show up on Char. Dead End gets all sorts of fatalistic lines about how doomed they are, which are hilarious. Plotting in the background are the Quintessons, who have decided that now is the time to reclaim their home planet of Cybertron and destroy their wayward creations, the Transformers.
I remembered that this was the origin story when it comes to the cartoon, and it's actually fairly reasonable. The Autobots are consumer model robots, while the Decepticons were the military hardware. They were made too well and grew beyond their programming, at least enough to overthrow the Quintessons, though their essential natures remained. Enough so that the Quintessons in the present day can often predict what they will do. It's strongly implied if not outright stated at one point that humans have greatly influenced the Autobots and changed their behavior. The Quintessons are afraid of humans because they can't predict and control them.
There are some good ideas here. The origin story is mixed with Rodimus adjusting to his new position of leadership, and all of that is balanced against the return of Galvatron to power. And the story isn't afraid to burn some bridges either, as Quintessa is destroyed, along with (surprisingly) the Ark and Teletran 1, as Trypticon smashes the volcano.
Nice to see Jazz, alive and well as shown at the end of the movie, though he gets no lines. He wins a race in episode 1, and shows up during the fight in episode 5. Thrust and Dirge are apparently killed by Ultra Magnus, but I'll bet they turn up later. There are so many animation errors that it's hard to tell what's genuine sometimes. Characters are the wrong colors, and Insecticons turn up in one crowd scene.
On the downside, there are a lot of convenient coincidences, and the pairing of the two most annoying Transformers ever (Wheelie and Blurr) is stretched out over all five episodes, as they struggle to get to Earth with the transformation cog for Metroplex. Bad design to have one component that allows transformation, and without it you've got doomsday. The same is true later on when one demolished power plant leaves the entirety of Cybertron defenseless. And Rodimus has to nearly die to access the Matrix? What's the point of all that wisdom and knowledge if a hale and hearty leader can't access it? Maybe Rodimus just doesn't know how, I don't know.
And I want Scourge's sense of vision. While standing inside Unicron's head, he peers out into space and can see Galvatron's arm sticking out of a pool of plasma many solar systems away, AND tell that he's alive. Yeah, right.
Overall: as with all G1, and keeping in mind that it's a children's show that was often rushed into production to meet deadlines, it's a mix of good and bad. Five Faces of Darkness actually has some great ideas and would have benefitted from a little more structured storytelling and some more logical consistency to the narrative... but wishing for that may be a little too unrealistic, right?
The Killing Jar
Pretty standard plot. We've seen it on Star Trek on more than one occasion. Alien captures human specimens for study, only in this case a Quintesson captures an Autobot, a human, a Junkion and a Decepticon for study. The episode is largely an excuse to showcase some of the new post-movie characters and play them off of each other. Intergalactic time and distance is completely ignored, which is of course par for the course. The animation is decent for season three, and an attempt is made at characterization, which raises this episode above some others. I laughed at the Quintesson complimenting his guard for the guard's piloting skills though, since the ship ends up in an electrical storm in space as well as a black hole. Wouldn't want to know what poor piloting looks like if that's good!
