Beast Machines Transformers in my opinion has to be the most dreary and evil series stemming from the original Transformers to date. As a matter of fact the original series set the bar a little too high for the spin-offs to follow… that is until now. The in depth character building and references to previous shows is nearly flawless.

The concept of the show is that (if you remember) after Optimus Primal had captured Megatron, he was transporting him on the ship under his command (the Avalon) where he naturally assumed that the wars were over until the deadly mistake of losing his prisoner while traveling in transwarp technology. After that happened, Optimus chased Megatron to the planet of Cybertron. This is where he sees that Megatron has not only taken over, but has also destroyed everyone on the planet. Now the show liberally borrows concepts and themes from the film the Matrix, so there’s quite a few references to the Oracle, the Matrix and even "freeing your mind" to transform. So being that Optimus is the first to interface with the Matrix and talk to the Oracle he has learned the skill of his new transformation which he takes upon himself to teach to his few friends and fellow "soldiers".

The rest of his immediate crew to start consists of Blackrachnia who is a techno organic spider with the ability to utilize her paralyzing web, web roping, electric bursts, and web stars.Blackrachnia is a level headed warrior with more than enough fighting experience -the only time she loses her head is when it involves her love; the maximal Fuzor Silverbolt.

Another key member of the team is Cheetor, a techno organic cheetah that uses twin swords. Cheetor is one of the original crew members of Optimus Primal’s Avalon team. Although he was younger when they were fighting the Beast Wars before, he is now experienced and wise; his only downfall would be his brash indecisive decisions, especially in relation to battle situations.

Next there's Rattrap who has a whip like tail that can interface with nearly any computer. He is a techno organic rat who was a great warrior in the Beast Wars and now that he’s been transformed into his new body, that of a rat, he has some hang-ups with the big difference between his old powerful body that he commanded with and his new small body; nonetheless he is a vital part of Optimuses team.

These original group members eventually run into other creatures like themselves and welcome them into there fold such as Night Scream who has a back mounted sonic blaster and energy draining fangs (when he’s in beast mode he’s a techno organic bat). Night Scream is one of the few survivors of the Vehicons invasion of Cybertron. A built in DNA scanner found the remains of a prehistoric bat and applied it to Night Scream making him a robot bat and although he is a great warrior who has proven himself time and time again he often shows his youth and inexperience by making rash and rebellious decisions.

Another long lost ally the group came across was Silverbolt (the love of Blacharachnia). After the Beast Wars on the planet of Cybertron Silverbolt was captured by Megatron and turned into the Vehicon General Jet Storm. Now when he was Jet Storm I'd have to say he was my favorite character. Jet Storm's insane kamikaze ways mixed with his constant insane, smartass attitude made for a great amusing character. Nonetheless the Maximals realized that he was Silverbolt and eventually changed him back or rather into a new being altogether with explosive metallic feathers for weapons as he ultimately was a techno organic condor. Unfortunately all these changes he went through turned him into someone altogether different. What it did was turn him into an "angry bitter warrior". But being that the Maximals knew that Silverbolts original personality was in him somewhere they grew to accept him just the same.

Now as everyone knows the Transformers' biggest enemy has always been Megatron and that’s no different once they arrived on Cybertron. Because Megatron arrived on the planet first it gave him the time to release a virus that nearly wiped out the entire planet. It also gave him the time to build a contraption of wires and cables that not only gave him complete control of his mindless drone army of Vehicons, but it also gave him the ability to control the entire planet of Cybertron itself.

So basically what this 26 episode series breaks down to is you have two major contenders on one planet, Optimus Primus and Megatron. And these two major forces want two different things for the planet. Megatron believes that the planet should be completely technology based where as Optimus believed that the Matrix wanted the planet turned completely organic. But after his fanaticism finally erupted and some major changes happened Optimus Primal realized (with some help from the oracle) that the Matrix wanted all along was the complete balance of machine and organism to make for a perfectly equal and co mingled planet.

So I have to restate what I consider a fact and that is that Beast Machines Transformers is by far the best Transformers series in years. Although this is apparently aimed at children, I felt after watching it that this show is aimed at me or at least people in my demographic, which is 17-35 and for fans of anime or cartoons with an adult dramatic undertone. The best part of this series is definitely the CGI (computer generated imaging). When viewing this show it's insane how high and clarified the computer generation is. The other thing that makes this series a must see is the character building. We’ve all seen it before on these shows where a character grows and changes and there is no explanation before it (only a big blank hole left in the storyline). For fans of the show you’ll know that this long running series has seen many changes in its characters and luckily for us they didn’t leave us hanging one time; as a matter of fact half the show is dedicated to character building as well as filling in any newcomers to the show on anything that may be even the slightest bit relevant.