Megatron was ascended by machinery, his gaze on the screen, "Yesss. With my machinations in full swing, I will destroy Primal, who no doubt is planning for his inevitable-"

The screen turned on, showing the Maximals. With our hero Primal no doubt forming a good plan-, "Balance! Balance, balance, balance!"

Ratrap, Blackarachnia, and Nightscream were just saying the same thing to the point that the writer of this fic isn't even going to bother writing it out. Cheetor roared, getting everybody's attention, "Guy's stop! We need to actually do things."

"But balance/snarkiness!"

As the non-stop yelling that would get super annoying over the course of two thirteen episode seasons raged on, Megatron turned off the screen and groaned, "How have I not destroyed them yet?"

I'm not mad, just disappointed.

I decided to binge both Beast Wars and Beast Machines in preparation for Transformers Kingdom. I knew that the first series was very much beloved and the second had it's fans.

Beast Wars was a very fun ride from start to finish. A classic due to the daring risks that it took.

It was a piece of media that was hated for it's time, but people have grown fond of it with time and for good reason. Like I said, it took risks. Being entirely 3D was still a rarity at the time and the serial nature of the show, while this would become the norm for most cartoons these days, was also very rare at the time.

The series ended on a very good note. With the amazing version they had of Megatron captured, the good guys returning home, and Waspinator getting a happy ending after all the abuse he suffered.

Then this series happened.

Like the first series, this show was massively disliked at the time and has gotten it's fans as time went on. So I just want to say this now, if you like this series, I'm not doing this to invalidate you as a person or your interests.

This is just me stating my own opinion on this series and why I feel that way about it. So I hope that you can understand that and if you want to discuss why you disagree with me, I'm more than happy to see it, I love having those kinds of discussions.

Now to actually talk about Beast Machines. Quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure where to begin.

I guess starting with a small problem with the series that might just be a me thing. The episodes are really repetitive.

Most of the episodes go like this. The Maximals go do something, they get detected by the Vehicons, fighting happens.

That's pretty much most of the episodes of S1. It gets pretty old, pretty quick. Going back to the first series, there was a wide variety of episodes. Tackling different plots and conflicts, but here, it feels like the series desperately trying to be more serious only really hurts it.

Oh yeah, the tone. Beast Wars had a pretty good mix of seriousness and light heartedness. But here, it's all just doom and gloom. It's just jarring watching that series and this one back to back. It's like watching the Adam West Batman and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Dumb Titles back to back.

Okay, let's talk about the thing most of you who hate this series will agree with me on. The character assination.

Optimus Primal, a character who was a good level headed leader who had a sense of humor, is reduced to a generic 90's hero who is constantly pissed and babbles about 'THE BALANCE' to no friggin end.

In S1, it's not so bad. There's actually a bit of awareness in the show that this is out of character, especially when Cheetor calls him out in the S1 finale. But in S2, they just drop it and have 'BALANCE' be his friggin catchphrase.

He says it like three times an episode in S2. It just gets annoying and aggravating to see this once intelligent character be reduced to a cybertronian equivalent of a deranged christian.

Cheetor is actually the best character here, because he actually feels the same as he did in Beast Wars. He calls everyone out and tells them to get their act together. It really does feel that he is the same character.

Then there's Rattrap, Blackarachnia, and Nightscream. I hope you like snarky bickering with no actual wit or charm to the dialogue, because they love the snarky to the point where every scene where these characters are together drags on for eternity.

I don't even want to talk about the episode where Rattrap, instead of just killing Megatron right there and then with the mech he gets, decides to defend him, so he can keep the mech. Also, way to be idiots, everyone else, by not taking this great opportunity.

The story reason is that he feels useless and insecure, but that is not Rattrap's character. Like at all. He was a bit of a whiner in the original, but not like that and that episode is probably the worst in the whole series.

Then there's Silverbolt and all of the stupidity around him. Okay, so the reveal for him being alive showcased that he still had his original personality. Then he's reverted back to himself from Jetstorm and all of a sudden, he's this angsty angry guy.

Goody goody gumdrops, another angry person with interchangeable dialogue from the majority of the cast.

I read that this was because his original personalty was like Silver Batman and they wanted to do a thing where he becomes DKR Batman, but that's completly stupid.

Also, the reveal he was Jetfire was stupid. All of the hints pointed to him being Thrust and with no foreshadowing it's revealed that Waspinator was Thrust and Silverbolt was Jetstorm.

We saw Thrust having flashbacks of hanging out with the other Maximals. What? Was Waspinator just really popular at the neighborhood barbeque?

I liked Savage Nobel fine. He was basically a wild animal after Megatron leaves him, but his stuff with Nightscream was nice.

The villains have the best character stuff. Megatron is still every bit of the magnificent bastard he was in Beast Wars.

I do think they should have stuck with Silverbolt being Thrust, because Jetstorm is just a delight to watch onscreen.

Tankor being Rhinox is also a bit of character assination. I've heard it said that they imply that Tankor messed up Rhinox, but I don't really recall any dialogue or actions that imply that.

It's just frustrating to watch.

There are these two other generals, but they're so unimportant that I don't even bother remembering their names.

Okay, I've talked about the big elephant in the room. Anything else?

Oh yeah, there's also that stupid retcon that Cybertron used be organic. The Beast Shows take place in the far future from G1. In G1, it was revealed that Cybertron is a mechanical planet created by the Quintessons. And while yes, there were them sealing organic cyborgs away on the planet, it's nothing like how Machines present it. Like there were plants and rocks and such.

It's just a baffling retcon that's connected to Primal's character assination.

Speaking of G1, they took the Hate Plague, from one of the best episodes of G1, and reduced it to people being angry. I'm honestly amazed Primal could tell the difference considering that everyone is always pissy with each other.

Even the animation has its issues. While it is of higher quality from Wars, it loses the charm and what really made the animation work there.

Because it's higher quality, the characters look uncomfortably uncanny. Leaving aside how bad their designs are in this show, they're just hard to watch at times.

There's also how bad the lighting is in this show. It suffers from that DCEU problem of being hard to make out what's going on at times because the lighting is so bad.

Also, they use flying colors and it's absolutely obnoxious. I don't like the trope and it's just bizarre when it happens.

"Is there anything about this show you liked?"

Yes, actually. The first episode does a great job setting up the mystery of what happened. Like I said, I loved the villains. The fight scenes are hit or miss, but they hit good when they do. And the finale is a high note.

But I do feel that this series is bad and a poor continuation of Beast Wars. It does have it's good stuff and if you like it, I'm happy for ya. It's a series that's not without merit and I can see people enjoying it binged.