CBS Transformers> The Second Draft part 9: Potential Episodes part 2

We’re almost to the end of this document and this discussion. This document ends today but there’s one more tied to the second draft that we’ll go over before my final thoughts…so long as we don’t have any more distractions, we’ll be done in the next few weeks.

Last time, we started looking at sample episodes for this second attempt at bringing the Transformers to CBS Saturday mornings. This time we have the rest of the list and the last few parts of the draft before looking at a full episode script. We did the first eight, but now we’re on nine of thirteen. At the time thirteen weeks of episodes made a full season for kids TV. I think it was longer for the family and grown-up shows. Nowadays you’re luck to reach even close to that number at any age group to call it a season. We did see that a few of those episodes could potentially have been recycled for the show we got while others would be a stretch to say that.

We’ll also be seeing the final bits of information for this series. As a reminder, the whole document was done as a series of files printed from a computer back in the 1980s, breaking the in-universe conceit to discuss these episodes and the show’s format. Kind of necessary. So what would these episodes have looked like as a first season of a Saturday morning take on Transformers?

NUMBER: 9
TITLE: THE ROBOT WITH A THOUSAND EYES

AS IN THE DAYS OF THE OLD WEST, THE AUTOBOTS GET WIND OF A SHIPMENT OF DECEPTICON ROBOT EYES {OPTICAL SENSORS} AND MAKE PLANS TO HIJACK THE SHIPMENT, DELAYING THE COMPLETION OF ANOTHER HUNDRED ROBOTS. UNFORTUNATELY, THE AUTOBOTS DISCOVER THEIR PLANS HAVE BEEN OVERHEAD BY A DECEPTICON SPY, DISGUISED AS
AN ABANDONED CAR. NOW THE AUTOBOTS  MUST ACT QUICKLY, PREVENTING THE DECEPTICON FROM WARNING NEGATOR SO THEY CAN “SEE” THEIR WAY TO VICTORY.

Kind of a misleading title. Unless the spy at some point attached to all those eyes, he’ll only have two and the story seems more about capturing the spy than stopping the shipment. It’s actually not a bad story idea and I’m kind of sorry it was never done. Even flipping things and having the Decepticons trying to stop an Autobot spy could have been interesting. I do like that they really wanted to play up the “robots in disguise” angle, something we didn’t get until the Unicron Trilogy and supposed Aligned Continuity. At least on television. The comics do that a lot.

NUMBER: 10
TITLE: NOT ON THE FIRST DATE

WENDY IS ABOUT TO GO ON HER FIST DATE WITH A NICE BOY FROM HIGH SCHOOL WHEN TROUBLE ARRIVES. IT SEEMS NEGATOR HAS DISCOVERED AN ELECTRONICS FACTORY IN JAPAN AND IS ABOUT TO TRANSFORM THOUSANDS OF COMPUTER CHIPS INTO ROBOT MINDS. WHEN MUFFLER {WENDY’S VW} TRANSFORMS INTO HIS ROBOT MODE, WENDY’S DATE GETS “STOOD UP.” BUT THERE’S NO TIME TO LOSE, SO WENDY AND EDDIE ARE DRAGGED ALONG ON THE DEADLY MISSION.

It might have been more interesting to have the date dragged along as well. As long as he doesn’t turn out to be another Decepticon agent like Kroll, seeing how he handles dating a girl caught up in the rebel movement might have been more interesting than bringing the Darwin award winning little brother along. Wait, was he going to sneak into the date? Seriously, what’s wrong with this boy?

NUMBER: 11
TITLE: A ROBOTS BEST FRIEND IS HIS DOG

MATT’S GERMAN SHEPHERD, BURT, THWARTS A DECEPTICON SCHEME WITH HIS SENSITIVE NOSE AND THE AUTOBOTS HAVE CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION. BUT NEGATOR IS TIRED OF THIS FOUR-LEGGED FLESH CREATURE CAUSING HIM TROUBLE, SO HE SENDS A BATTALION OF DECEPTICONS TO GET HIM. AND GET HIM THEY DO. NOW THE AUTOBOTS WANT TO RETURN THE FAVOR, ASSISTING MATT IN A RAID ON DECEPTICON HEADQUARTERS TO FREE THEIR “BEST FRIEND”.

I’m going to reserve judgement on this one until next time, seeing as this is the episode that we have the sample script for. The big question will be whether or not this is the right story to have a script for rather than the first episode as part of trying to sell CBS and Hasbro on this direction for the show.

NUMBER: 12
TITLE: A NEW MUFFLER

MUFFLER IS CAPTURED DURING A FIERCE BATTLE BETWEEN THE AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS. OPTIMUS AND THE OTHERS GO TO HIS RESCUE, BUT GETTING HIM BACK SEEMS ALMOST TOO EASY. THEY WRITE IF OFF TO THEIR OWN GOOD FORTUNE. BUT WHEN THEIR FURTHER BATTLEPLANS KEEP FAILING, THEY BEGIN TO SUSPECT SOMETHING IS AMISS. ONE OF THEM MAY BE A TRAITOR. THEY BEGIN TO SUSPECT ONE ANOTHER, AND EVEN START TO SUSPECT MATT AND WENDY. BUT MUFFLER’S LACK OF PROBLEMS IS WHAT GIVES HIM AWAY. THE ONCE AUTOBOT CLUTZ HASN’T MADE A BLUNDER SINCE HE WAS CAPTURED BY THE DECEPTICONS. NOW THAT THEY’VE GOT THE IMPOSTER THEY HAVE TO GET BACK THE REAL MUFFLER.

Yes, they were going to expose the fake because he was competent. Bumblebee’s replacements got screwed over royally. Parts of this idea would show up elsewhere. Mirage was once accused of being a traitor. Optimus Prime got replaced by a duplicate in another episode. The Autobots even did this themselves by disguising themselves as the Stunticons. In one episode of Beast Wars Megatron got his hands on a Maximal communication decoder from one of the stasis pods and listened in on Maximal communications. That last one was definitely a coincidence, but maybe one or two of the others were someone thinking back to this plot idea?

NUMBER: 13
TITLE: A DEADLY DECISION

AFTER A SEVERE BATTLE WITH THE DECEPTICONS LEAVES SEVERAL OF THE AUTOBOTS WOUNDED, FIRECYCLE MUST SURGICALLY PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER. BUT THERE ISN’T ENOUGH POWER AND SUPPLIES. ONE OF THE WOUNDED WILL DIE- OPTIMUS, BEING THE LEADER, INSISTS IT WILL BE HIM. NONE ARE HAPPY WITH THIS DECISION: FIRECYCLE BECAUSE OF HER DEEP FEELING FOR OPTIMUS; MATT BECAUSE OF HIS FRIENDSHIP; ETC. THE QUESTION: HOW TO GET THE NEEDED SUPPLIES IN TIME TO SAVE OPTIMUS PRIME WITHOUT ENDANGERING THE OTHERS?

Now this is a story we should have gotten somewhere. Yes, there were episodes where Optimus was near death prior to the movie. (Nowadays being called Optimus Prime is a death sentence with an almost immediate “get out of the All-Spark Matrix free” card.) One of them required a special part that meant going to Cybertron, while all the Earth based Transformers nearly died because they needed Cybertonium. This particular plot, possibly with Ratchet standing in for Firecycle (minus the romantic interest, of course), we never got but would be interesting. With this version and Firecycle, this could be a risk for Sat AM even with the robots.

While this is the end of the episode plots, there is one last page to this draft document, which has the computer requested to show a summary of the series format information.

TRANSFORMERS IS THE STATE-OF-THE-ART IN HI-TECH, ACTION-ADVENTURE FORMATS, BASED ON THE STATE-OF-THE-ART IN HI-TECH ACTION TOYS.

“State of the art”? Granted, transforming robot toys were still new in America and the flood of knockoffs and various other smaller company attempts at original figures were just Tonka having the same idea with a different toyline. I wouldn’t all them hi-tech by any means. It wasn’t until Generation Two that we even got sound effects in the toys or anything lighting up. There’s some great engineering, but hardly hi-tech.

THE SERIES WILL COMBINE THE CHILLING OPPRESSION OF “1984” WITH THE ALIEN INVADING POWER OF “WAR OF THE WORLDS,” AND THE DOWN-TO-EARTH HUMANITY OF REAL LIFE HEROES AS PORTRAYED IN “STAR WARS.” FOR THE FIRST TIME WE WILL SEE ROBOTS WITH AS MUCH OR MORE EMOTIONS AND PATHOS AS HUMAN CHARACTERS. ALIENS WHOM WE WILL GROW TO KNOW AND TO CARE ABOUT, AND OTHERS WHOM WE WILL LOVE TO HATE. THIS, TOGETHER WITH A BRAND NEW LOOK OF AWESOME, TOWERING ALIEN WARRIORS WHOSE WEAPONS AND ABILITIES HAVE NEVER SEEN ON THE SCREEN BEFORE, WILL LAUNCH THE SERIES INTO A NEW ARENA OF ANIMATED PROGRAMMING.

THE TRANSFORMERS WILL LITERALLY “TRANSFORM” WHAT THE SATURDAY MORNING VIEWING AUDIENCE HAS COME TO EXPECT IN AN ACTION-ADVENTURE SERIES.

A bold statement, and given their history one they could have pulled off. Before I do a final judgement on this attempt however, we need to look at the one episode we have a script for. Join me next time as we take a look at “A Robot’s Best Friend Is His Dog”, which you can prep for via the Sunbow Marvel Archive.