Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015 cartoon)

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Now featuring more beast-hunting than Beast Hunters!

Transformers: Robots in Disguise is an animated television series that acts as the sequel to Transformers: Prime. Set three years after its predecessor, the show follows Bumblebee as he travels back to Earth after the prison ship Alchemor crash-lands on the planet. Charged with rounding up the escaped Decepticon prisoners, he reluctantly takes command of a new team of Autobots.

The show made its worldwide debut in late December 2014, with the first 13 episodes released as pay-to-view content on Chinese video streaming website M1905. The series subsequently debuted on Cartoon Network in numerous countries before the first 26-episode season finally premiered in the US on March 14, 2015. A second season of 13 episodes began screening on February 20, 2016, followed by a 6-episode "mini-series"/"TV event" later in the year. The third and final season was rebranded as Combiner Force, and ran for 26 episodes before concluding on November 11, 2017.

The Canadian broadcast of the series has been undertaken by Corus Entertainment, and the show aired on Teletoon from March 21, 2015 to November 26, 2017.

The mini-series has caused some confusion over how the seasons of Robots in Disguise should be counted. It was initially promoted as "season 3"^[1] before viewers properly understood it was only six episodes in length, but when "Combiner Force" was announced, it was also treated as the third season.^[2] There has been no obvious consensus; Amazon and Roku group it in with season 2, while Netflix and the Transformers YouTube channel have labeled it season 3. For bookkeeping purposes, TFWiki refers to it as "Season 2½."

Overview

CHEESE!

Three years after the end of the Great War, the Autobot prison ship Alchemor crashes on Earth near Crown City, sparking a mass Decepticon jailbreak. Meanwhile, on a rebuilt Cybertron, war veteran Bumblebee is now working as a street cop, mentoring Cadet Strongarm. Bumblebee is alerted to the danger on Earth by a vision of a ghostly Optimus Prime, who directs them to a nearby space bridge.

Bumblebee unwillingly finds himself accompanied to Earth by Strongarm, and the delinquent Sideswipe, where they encounter Fixit, sole caretaker of the former prison ship. They're joined by the ex-Decepticon prisoner Grimlock, human scrapyard owner Denny Clay and his son Russell. Although he's not confident in his leadership abilities, Bumblebee nevertheless pledges to round up the inmates of the Alchemor. Chief among the Decepticon threat is the charismatic Steeljaw, who seeks to organize the escaped prisoners into an effective cabal to conquer the planet.

The first season had a "villain of the week" approach, in which most episodes would follow a pattern: it would feature a new Decepticon foe, usually with an animal-motif, that would prove to be a threat to the Bee Team, only to be taken down by the end of the episode and be placed back into a stasis pod. Most Decepticons featured, barring those who became part of Steeljaw's Pack, had little-to-nothing to do with each other besides being Alchemor immates. Early episodes rarely deviated from this pattern, but this theme was effectively toned down in later seasons when larger, overarching threats came into play.

Most episodes also featured recurring subplots and running-gags focusing on certain characters: Bumblebee's trouble coming up with a rallying cry and trouble leading his team in general, Strongarm and Sideswipe's rivalry with each other, Grimlock's difficulty finding an appropriate Earth disguise (because being a giant metal dinosaur would attract a lot of attention) and Fixit's glitching problem. These smaller stories would often affect the main plot, causing Bee's Team to face additional obstacles in several episodes.

Over the course of the first season, new Autobots bolster the ranks of the team, including the bounty hunter Drift, his two Mini-Cons Jetstorm and Slipstream, the mysterious Windblade, and finally Optimus Prime himself, returned to life by the Thirteen to defeat Megatronus.

Season 2 sees Bumblebee's team split into two groups: an "away team" to search the world for far-ranging Decepticons while Bumblebee, Strongarm, Grimlock, and Fixit hold the fort near Crown City. Still recovering from his humiliating rout at the hands of Megatronus, Steeljaw allies with a mysterious group of Decepticons led by Saberhorn, Glowstrike and Scorponok, operating out of the crashed Alchemor, which they call "Decepticon Island". True to form, Steeljaw plots to rise through the ranks of this new army and seize control of the group for himself.

The second season features more frequent references to predecessor series Prime in an effort to forge a stronger sense of continuity between the two. Coinciding with this, the season sees the return of multiple regulars from Prime in special guest appearances: Ratchet, now partnered with a silent Mini-Con named Undertone, and Soundwave, still accompanied by Laserbeak. This season also begins to drop the "villain of the week" theme, though it is still present, in favor of having a larger overarching threat in the form of Decepticon Island.

This season was also very toy-driven in that it featured several returning Decepticons from the first season, as well as new Mini-Con and Deployer characters, who had newly received toys. As such, Mini-Cons were also a big focus of this season, with at least one (besides Fix-It) appearing in every episode. Following the Season 2 proper, this trend would continue into a "mini-series" of sorts, referred to as "Season 3" by several official sources before the announcement of a full third season. This six-episode run sees the return of Starscream, who seeks the mysterious Mini-Con Weaponizers, who have reluctantly partnered with a group of Decepticon Scavengers searching Earth for abandoned Cybertronian relics.

The actual Season 3 is titled "Combiner Force". Bumblebee and his crew must harness the power of combination and form Ultra Bee in order to defeat the Stunticons. At the same time, Soundwave has sent a group of Minicons to steal the Bee Team's Decepticon Hunters, with this subplot playing a small background role until the Stunticons are captured and returned to Cybertron by the end of the first half of the season. In order to keep the "Con of the Week" theme present after the Alchemor's departure, caches set up by Windblade after her arrival on Earth contain Decepticons who end up getting free and require recapture. Some filler episodes feature Decepticons who managed to escape the Alchemor before it left Earth. Others feature Decepticons or others coming to Earth due to connections to members of the Bee Team or other reasons, the one exception being Flamesnort who was left on Earth during the Great War. This season also does a first and ties in with the Rescue Bots series by featuring the Rescue Bot Blurr for a few episodes.

Corruption on Cybertron, which had been building up conflict in the background for the entire series and has generally served as a way introduce new characters, seems to finally take the center stage during the second half of the season where mysterious benefactors on Cybertron free Steeljaw and his pack and grant them full pardons. They are sent back to Earth, where they ally with Soundwave and are tasked with capturing the Autobots. Steeljaw and the others make a grand return to Earth by nearly destroying the Scrapyard and forcing the Autobots and Clays to find a new base. By this point, the "villain of the week" approach is only used a few more times, but is otherwise abandoned in favor of having the Autobots face off against recurring teams of enemies such as the Stunticons and then Steeljaw's Pack. The tail end of the season also features the return of Bulkhead from Prime as a temporary ally to the Bee Team.

The two-part series finale features the Bee Team returning to Cybertron to fight Steeljaw's benefactors, the new corrupt High Council, who are revealed to be a group of Decepticons disguised as Autobots, led by Cyclonus. The Autobots once again form Ultra Bee to take down the Council's combined form, finally freeing Cybertron. Optimus decides not to lead Cybertron into this new era as he "is a leader of warriors", and decides to leave Ratchet in charge of the new temporary High Council, which is now to be composed of Bulkhead, Windblade and Jazz, while the Bee Team returns to Earth as "ambassadors" to the planet.

Main cast

(Recurring characters only, in order of appearance.)

Episodes

Main article: List of Robots in Disguise (2015) episodes

Season 1

Season 2

Season 2½

Season 3: Combiner Force

Shorts

Production

Crew members returning from Prime include executive producer Jeff Kline and writer Steven Melching, now story editor, and Mairghread Scott, serving as Script Coordinator/Writer's Assistant.^[3] Adam Beechen serves as the producer. Kevin Manthei and Kevin Kiner serve as series composers.^[4] Once again, Polygon Pictures handled the animation,^[5] with 2D animation duties handed off to GONZO and drop.

Reception

As a sequel of sorts to the critically acclaimed and largely-beloved Transformers: Prime cartoon, Robots in Disguise initially debuted with some fanfare amongst the older segments of the Transformers fandom, particularly those who had joined the fandom because of the Prime cartoon. While some aspects of the show—including an artstyle that allowed for more flexible and dynamic animation, a decreased focus on the Autobots' human sidekicks, and the creative designs and personalities of the animalistic Decepticons—were well received by the fandom, fans hoping to see the majority of the Prime cast return found themselves disappointed by the first season's general disinterest in referencing anything related to the Prime cartoon. The lighthearted tone of Robots in Disguise stood in stark contrast to the darker direction of Prime.

For fans coming off the back of the heavily arc-driven storytelling of Prime, the more traditional episodic format of Robots in Disguise was a disappointment: though later seasons did eventually experiment with various multi-episode story arcs, most episodes were self-contained "monster-of-the-week" stories involving a rogue Decepticon and the Bee Team's efforts to recapture the villain. In particular, the show's final season descended into the use of extremely rote kids' cartoon stock-plots (like mind-swaps, characters getting superpowers, and "teleporter accident" doubles), and often incorporated a heavy-handed B-plot involving one or more protagonists having to learn a lesson about teamwork, cooperation, or self-control (sometimes drawing strange equivalencies between them and the villain of the week), which did little but lower the show's already wobbly standing with the adult fandom.

Ultimately, while the reception of Robots in Disguise in the adult fandom was largely informed by comparisons to Prime, it was still a success with children and (when taken on its own terms) has come to be regarded as a decent show, if not a particularly ambitious one. Several original characters such as Strongarm and Steeljaw have proven popular enough to make the jump into other Transformers media.

Awards and nominations

2016 Daytime Emmy Awards

• Outstanding Special Class Animated Program

Japanese release

Robots in Disguise was released in Japan as two separately branded series. The "Combiner Force" arc was not dubbed in Japan.

Transformers Adventure

Transformers Adventure (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー Toransufōmā Adobenchā) aired on the satellite network Animax with a Sunday, 9am timeslot. Adventure was the first Transformers cartoon to be relegated directly to satellite since Beast Wars Returns. It premiered on March 15, 2015... only a day after the US premiere.

The localization for the series was headed by Keiichirō Miyoshi, who headed the localization of the live-action Transformers films for Japanese markets. This also makes Adventure the first American Transformers cartoon to be released in Japan without the oversight of Yoshikazu Iwanami since Generation 1. While an effort was made to emulate the dubbing style of Iwanami, which has become synonymous with Transformers cartoons in Japan, the adlibbing was not nearly as extensive and fourth wall-breaking humor was non-existent.

Since Adventure aired on a satellite network and not a broadcast network, it was not edited for time like previous Transformers cartoons. The episodes were fully uncut and featured extended opening and ending sequences. The title sequence was composed mostly of clips from episodes, but new animation (mostly group shots) was provided by LandQ Studio. The end credits sequence featured a newly animated "stage performance" from the cast (which really must be seen to be believed), animated by Nakano Design.

Transformers: Prime did not complete its run in Japan, ending at 52 episodes and excluding the Beast Hunters episodes and the Predacons Rising film. The Adventure series does not alter the scripts to account for this, although it mostly plays as a separate entity from Prime.

Animax aired the episodes using the Australian broadcast order rather than the US order, which is actually the incorrect continuity sequence. As a result, "Sideways" is placed before "Out of Focus".

The theme song for the series is "Save the Future!!" by Mitsuhiro Oikawa and the ending theme is "Try☆Transformers Adventure↑↑↑" performed by the primary cast of the show (Bumblebee, Strongarm, Sideswipe, Fixit, Grimlock, and Optimus Prime).

Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron- (New Enemies)

The season 2 and "season 2½" (or "miniseries") episodes of Robots in Disguise were combined into a newly branded sequel series which began airing on July 3, 2016^[6] under the title Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron- (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー -マイクロンの章- Toransufōmā Adobenchā -Maikuron no Shō-). Incidentally, the "Maikuron no Shō" portion of the Japanese title actually translates to "Micron Chapter", but nobody tell them that. Like the previous season/series, it aired on Animax with a Sunday morning, 9:00am timeslot.

In November 2016, the "season 2½" episodes of Robots in Disguise were given a special distinction under the modified title Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron- New Enemies (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー -マイクロンの章- 新たなる敵 Toransufōmā Adobenchā -Maikuron no Shō- Aratanaru Teki). The title which appears on-screen does not display the "New Enemies" distinction, with the phrase instead appearing in broadcast schedule listings for Animax.

The rebranding for this sequence of episodes to include the word Prime in the title was likely a measure to create stronger ties with the continuity of the previous series, Transformers: Prime, as the season 2(½) episodes begin making more direct references to the events of the past series. While the continuity is maintained, the guest characters from Prime are not played by their previous voice actors in the dub and are instead substituted with sound-alikes.

Prime of Micron includes a newly cobbled together title sequence (composed of clips from episodes), but maintains the same theme song as Adventure. Likewise, the end credits sequence and song are the same.

Home video releases

Main article: Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015 cartoon)/home video

United States

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - A New Autobot Mission (2015)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Mission Discovery (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Season One (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Overloaded & Decepticon Island (2017)

United Kingdom

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - A New Mission (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Rumble in the Jungle (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - The Champ (2017)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Optimus Returns (2017)

Australia

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Collect 'em All (2015)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Complete Season One (2015)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Rumble in the Jungle (2015)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - The Champ (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Battlegrounds (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Overloaded (2016)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Misdirection (2017)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Decepticon Island (2017)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Combiner Force (2018)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - King of the Hill (2018)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - The Golden Knight (2018)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Combine & Conquer (2018)
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise - Freedom Fighters (2018)

Notes

• "TF2" was an early working name for the series.
• Robots in Disguise did not have the most successful record when it came to premiering new episodes, with most of the show airing through various international venues before being broadcast on U.S. television, including the entire first season.
  • The first 13 episodes of the series were released, dubbed in Mandarin Chinese, on December 31, 2014 in mainland China, but not Hong Kong, several weeks in advance of their US broadcast. The episodes were made available on website 1905.com, with five-minute previews being free and the whole episodes available until January 15 for CNY/RMB ¥19.5, which is around US$3–4. You could even win a "fabulous" assortment of Hasbro toys (legion class) and a RMB¥30 digital coupon if you paid for the episodes!
  • The show went on to premiere on Canal J in France, Biggs in Portugal, and Cartoon Network in Hungary before the U.S. airings began. In particular, the English-language version of the show premiered on Cartoon Network in Australia and New Zealand about a month before the US airing; the channel aired two episodes a week instead of one, and so quickly tore through the first thirteen episodes of the season.
  • The fourteenth episode debuted on Singaporean television two months before its US airing.
  • The final twelve episodes of the season were then released in two six-episode chunks via Australian iTunes in the first two weeks of June, 2015, allowing viewers to see the season finale three months before it aired in the US.
  • The first six episodes of season 2 premiered on US television, but Cartoon Network UK—airing two new episodes a week instead of just one—quickly caught up to, and overtook, the US broadcast. The full remainder of the season premiered in the UK, with the season finale around a month before the US.
  • The "season 2.5" mini-series aired in its entirety on Teletoon in Canada before a US premiere date had even been announced.
  • The first four episodes of season 3 aired on French channel Gulli on the Tuesday before the US premiere.
  • Episodes 11-13 of Combiner Force premiered on Cartoon Network UK weeks before they premiered in the US.
  • Episodes 14-17 of Combiner Force premiered on Teletoon several weeks before their US release air dates.
  • Just pipping the US to the post, the final two episodes of the series aired in the United Kingdom a week in advance of their American broadcast dates.
• Further to Shout! Factory's DVD release of the complete first season of Robots in Disguise in 2016, Shout! only released one further DVD featuring both two-part stories from the series' second season before dropping the series. This makes Robots in Disguise one of the few US-produced Transformers television series to not see a complete release on home video in the US. The series was granted a complete release on home video in Australia, across individual volumes, by Beyond Home Entertainment.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Transformers Adventure (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー Toransufōmā Adobenchā, season 1), Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron- (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー -マイクロンの章- Toransufōmā Adobenchā -Maikuron no Shō-, season 2), Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron- New Enemies (トランスフォーマー アドベンチャー -マイクロンの章- 新たなる敵 Toransufōmā Adobenchā -Maikuron no Shō- Aratanaru Teki, "season 2½")
• Czech: Transformers: Roboti v utajení ("Transformers: Robots in Disguise")
• French: Transformers Robots in Disguise : Mission Secrète ("Transformers Robots in Disguise: Secret Mission")
• German: Transformers: Getarnte Roboter ("Transformers: Disguised Robots")
• Mandarin: Biànxíng Jīngāng: Lǐngxiù de Tiǎozhàn (变形金刚：领袖的挑战, "Transformers: Leader's Challenge")
• Russian: Transformery: Roboty pod prikrytiyem (Трансформеры: Роботы под прикрытием, "Transformers: Robots in Disguise")

References

External links

• Complete Transformers: Robots in Disguise playlist on YouTube
• Variety: Hasbro to Launch ‘Transformers: Robots in Disguise’ Show in Spring 2015
• SDCC footage