Season Guide
Transformers: Generation 1 Season 3
Season 3 Review
⚠ Spoiler alert Season notes below reveal how the story develops.
Season 3 of Transformers: Generation 1 premiered 1986-09-15 and ran 30 episodes through 1987-03-03.
Episodes
1
Our TakeMiddle of the road. Watchable, but you'll forget the details by next episode.
2
Our Take Part two keeps the Galvatron villainy rolling but spends a lot of its runtime on setup, with the Quintessons' scheme only barely coming into focus. The animation is…
3
Our Take Part three keeps the miniseries chugging along, though it's mostly setup and scattered skirmishes rather than anything that lands hard. The Quintessons make decent villains with their cold,…
4
Our Take Part four of this five-parter continues the season three tradition of stretching a thin story across too many episodes. The animation is noticeably sloppy this time out, with…
5
Our Take The finale wraps up this five-part slog with a lot of shouting, recycled animation, and a climax that lands with less impact than the runtime deserved. Galvatron's meltdown…
6
Our Take A strange, cheap-feeling bottle episode that traps Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Wreck-Gar, and Marissa in a ship with an alien blob judge. The confined setting forces some decent character…
7
Our Take A Kup-focused outing that leans on flashbacks to his old war stories, which is a nice idea since Kup's rambling is one of the better running bits in…
8
Our Take A surprisingly heavy hour for a toy commercial, with the returned Optimus Prime turned into a weapon against his own friends, and the show actually commits to the…
9
Our Take A goofy supernatural detour that mostly works because Starscream's pettiness is fun even after death. The plot is thin, the animation gets noticeably sloppy in spots, and Octane…
10
Our Take This is widely considered one of the low points of the whole series, and honestly it earns that reputation. The plot has Trypticon literally stealing famous landmarks, and…
11
Our Take A time-warp episode that leans into the show's Quintesson backstory, and honestly it holds together better than most season 3 outings. The animation gets wobbly during the action…
12
Our Take A middling entry that leans way too hard on Daniel and Wheelie, the two characters most likely to test a viewer's patience. The misunderstanding plot with Ultra Magnus…
13
Our Take A weird detour into sword-and-sorcery territory that mostly works because it commits to the bit. Daniel and Grimlock stumbling through a fantasy world is silly, but Grimlock's deadpan…
14
Our Take This one is a mess even by season three standards, with animation errors so constant that characters swap colors and models mid-scene, and the sound-based plot never makes…
15
Our Take A solid mid-season entry that leans on an interesting idea, a refugee Autobot whose pacifist planet gets targeted by the Decepticons, without fully exploring it. The action moves…
16
Our Take A surprisingly dark hour that treats Galvatron's madness as an actual plot point instead of a running gag. The therapy planet concept is genuinely weird and the animation…
17
Our Take A weirdly ambitious hour that sends Starscream's ghost to Unicron's floating head in search of a new body, and it mostly gets away with it. The premise is…
18
Our Take A rare season 3 episode with an actual sense of menace, as the Quintessons' buried creations turn out to be genuinely unsettling rather than just another robot of…
19
Our TakeMiddle of the road. Watchable, but you'll forget the details by next episode.
20
Our TakeMiddle of the road. Watchable, but you'll forget the details by next episode.
21
Our Take This is basically a clip show with the Quintessons' journal as an excuse to replay old footage, and the frame story around it is thin. A few new…
22
Our Take This one's a fairly disposable half hour where the Junkion broadcasts cause trouble and the Quintessons lurk around the edges doing their usual scheming. There are a few…
23
Our Take A weird detour that puts the Autobot minds inside human bodies for a mob-tinged crime story, complete with a barely disguised Cobra Commander cameo. The noir mood actually…
24
Our Take Grimlock gets smart and honestly it's one of the better season 3 ideas, playing his sudden genius for both comedy and a little sadness. The animation is rough…
25
Our Take A forgettable mid-season slog that coasts on guest characters nobody asked to care about. The animation is as rough as season 3 gets, and the comedy beats mostly…
26
Our Take A strange, oddly beautiful outlier this late in the show's run. The animation is unlike anything else in the series, almost surreal at times, and the flashback to…
27
Our Take A surprisingly somber episode for a Saturday morning cartoon, focusing on Rodimus Prime's struggle with leadership he never asked for. The emotional beats land better than most G1…
28
Our Take A sluggish late-season oddity that feels like it belongs to a different show entirely. Daniel gets way too much screen time, the plot involving a mysterious Japanese girl…
29
Our Take A transparent but effective piece of fan service that finally brings Optimus Prime back after his controversial movie death. The Hate Plague premise is genuinely grim for a…
30
Our TakeMiddle of the road. Watchable, but you'll forget the details by next episode.