#would've solved a good chunk of my problems with Beast Machines

[metabad]

That's his pseudonym for this series

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OVERVIEW

September 1999.  The world is exposed to Beast Machines for the first time.  Following up on Beast Wars, the show took the familiar Maximal heroes back to their home planet of Cybertron, now under the totalitarian regime of Vehicon Commander Megatron.  The series began almost in medias res, presenting the viewer with an ongoing mystery of how the planet came to be completely occupied by hostile drones, and what could the Maximals do to retake an entire world from an omnipotent force?

The fans loved it.  The networks loved it.  And, judging by the show’s ratings, the audience loved it.  So much so that, in late 1999, before Beast Machines had even aired its first full season of thirteen episodes, Hasbro was already considering a third season.  Executives contacted the series’ story, Bob Skir, to gauge his interest in producing more episodes, but Skir was adamant that the story he wanted to tell would be at its strongest at its planned 26-eposode length.  Undeterred, internal discussions began at Hasbro, asking what direction the show could go in once granted an additional thirteen episodes.

April 2000.  As the Canadian broadcast of Beast Machines’ second season was wrapping up, Hasbro commissioned Toronto-based art studio Draxhall Jump to provide concept art for a reinvention of the Transformers brand, as they had previously done after Beast Wars.  The studio’s design team, always looking to push boundaries, presented Hasbro with a portfolio of not just redesigned Beast Machines mainstays, but also newly-conceived versions of classic “Generation 1” characters like Optimus Prime and the original Megatron – characters that many of the artists had grown up with.

Hasbro was bemused by the inclusion of their heritage characters among the concept art.  The toy company had previously made an attempt at bringing back vehicular modes and legacy characters with 1997’s Machine Wars toyline, but the execution was half-hearted and the results considered lacklustre.  But with Draxhall Jump’s artists expressing their nostalgia for the Transformers’ earliest exploits, perhaps the 21st Century would be the right time to reintroduce an Autobot versus Decepticon status quo to store shelves.

3rd May 2000.  Following the Canadian broadcast of “Endgame Pt. III: Seeds of the Future”, Beast Machines’ finale, representatives from Hasbro and animation company Mainframe Entertainment held a roundtable to discuss the show’s reception.  Viewers had praised numerous aspects of the show, from its high quality animation and vocal performances to its ambitious storytelling, heavy philosophical theming, and strong worldbuilding.  Criticisms came in the form of complaints about the show’s grim tone and continuity-heavy nature, with fans disparaging inconsistent characterisation and the show’s definitive conclusion: the revelation of a technorganic Cybertron.

In future, both parties were keen for a back-to-basics approach to any new series.  Hasbro expressed their interest in returning to their “Generation 1” characters and concepts, suggesting a prequel series or even a full continuity reboot.  The staff at Mainframe, on the other hand, had grown attached to the “Beast Era” characters they’d been developing for nearly five years.  At this stage, Hasbro’s only mandate that the prospective new series would involve a heavy focus on the “spark boost” abilities from the final episodes of Beast Machines.  These powers, an invention of the show’s writers, were granted to the Maximals by the collective sparks of Cybertron, and allowed the Maximals to exhibit enhanced speed and strength in order to hold their own against the horde of Vehicons.

Consequently, Mainframe put together a pitch document for a thirteen-episode arc about Cheetor and his Maximals becoming the de facto ruling party of a reinvigorated Cybertron, and the team’s struggles to keep the peace in this volatile political environment.  As a compromise to Hasbro’s ideas, the storyline would see the discovery of a buried Great War battleground, resurrecting the Decepticon commanders Megatron, Starscream, and Shockwave, who would use the social unrest to their advantage to recruit new soldiers.  Cheetor’s team would adopt the Autobot name, and would receive reinforcements in the form of the legendary Optimus Prime, who was to mentor Cheetor on leadership skills.  Optimus would also recognise the Autobots’ burgeoning special abilities as a Great War era technology by the name of “Transcendence” (named, out-of-universe, for Optimus Primal’s parting words – “Transform and transcend.”).

Hasbro gave the project the go-ahead, christening it Transformers: Transtech.

As part of their back-to-basics approach, Mainframe hired Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio as story editors, as they had been for Beast Wars.  The duo not only injected Transtech with their trademark levity, remedying Beast Machines’ tonal problems, but they also sought to give a fitting coda to the hero’s journey they’d set Cheetor on four years prior.  The writing staff was bolstered by returning contributors Marv Wolfman, Christy Marx, Len Wein, Ian Weir, and prolific television writer David Wise; as a show of good faith, Beast Machines’ story editors Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg were invited to provide an episode each.

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While Beast Machines was about the division between nature and technology, settling on a balance between both, Transtech’s writers strove to emphasise the conflict between potential and stagnation.  The show tried to embody this not only in its plot – with the youthful Autobots harnessing the energy of unlimited possibility in their Transcendence, doing battle with ancient Decepticon warriors, enemies with immortal sparks, and an army of soulless machines – but also outside of its fiction: each standalone episode was treated as having infinite story potential, and there were conscious attempts to inject new life into the previously steadfast “Generation 1” characters.

Casting took its lead from the previous two shows, with Ian James Corlett (Cheetor), Scott McNeil (Rattrap, Silverbolt), Venus Terzo (Blackarachnia), Alessandro Juliani (Nightscream), and Kathleen Barr (Botanica) all returning.  With their characters deceased, Garry Chalk and David Kaye were recast as Megatron (as in Beast Wars’ “The Agenda”) and the Immorticons respectively.  Paul Dobson now voiced new Decepticon Scavenger; he and Patricia Drake were contracted to provide additional voices before the two reprised their respective roles as Obsidian and Strika towards the end of the series.  The cast was rounded out with returning Beast Wars actors Doug Parker as Starscream and David Sobolov as Depth Charge, alongside ReBoot alumnus Tony Jay as Shockwave and newcomer Peter David (Gargoyles) as Optimus Prime.

Draxhall Jump’s portfolio provided a jumping off point for Mainframe’s character designers, though the concepts were streamlined and simplified for easier modelling.  Series art director Ken Henderson enforced a dichotomy whereby the Autobots had round and curved bodies, while the Decepticons were lankier and more angular.  Facial designs and colour schemes harkened back to each character’s previous toy and media appearances.  To bridge the gap between Maximals and Autobots and Decepticons, the majority of characters gained bestial styling in their vehicle modes.

Once the character designs were finalised, they were sent off to Hasbro and Takara for mech engineering. 

The main criticisms of the Beast Machines toyline were its inaccurate representations of the characters, including their relative heights.  Hasbro and Takara worked closely with Mainframe to ensure more show-accurate appearances and scale.  The Transcendence aspect that Hasbro had pushed to include was immortalised in plastic in the form of Spark Crystals, small LED units that caused the figures to glow from within.

Summer 2000.  Production commenced on both the cartoon and toyline.  With such an all star cast and crew at Mainframe, and their mech designers pushing the envelope for the toys, Hasbro were sure they would have a hit on their hands; nothing could convince them that Transtech would be anything other than a bona fide success.

18th November 2000.  “Endgame Pt. III” aired on Fox Kids in the United States.  The response, to put it mildly, was less than positive.  A vocal contingent of US-based fans was unceasing in their criticism compared to their earlier Canadian counterparts.  Newsgroups and message boards lit up with vitriol: Beast Machines was the show where a team of unlikeable protagonists had gotten together to destroy the metal planet of Cybertron.  The show had, almost completely literally, killed the Transformers.  Executives were taken aback; to them, this was a red flag that Transtech might not become the successful series they had hoped.

As production went on, Hasbro representatives became increasingly evasive to Mainframe’s queries.  The toy company refused to commit to any more than Transtech’s thirteen initial episodes.  Both parties agreed that with the amount of time and money gone into production already, to not go ahead with release would be a sunk cost.  While Mainframe finished off their final batch of episodes, Hasbro had begun talks with Takara about the co-creation of a new franchise with a new direction.

16th June 2001.  With little fanfare or advertisement, and after suffering several delays, Transtech snuck onto Fox Kids, taking the same airtime slot as their Beast Machines reruns.  It broadcast uninterrupted for thirteen consecutive weeks before it disappeared from the airwaves, never to be seen again.

17th August 2019.  After collating research from outdated newsgroups, production documents, and circulated VHS tapes of off-air recordings, the first copies of Transtech: An Unofficial Guide to the Forgotten Franchise are distributed.  Now, revealed outside the US for the first time, is the complete story of Transformers: Transtech…

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