Beast Wars

Mainframe's Beast Wars CGI series debuted in 1996 and ran for 3 seasons (with over 50 episodes). The Beast Wars series was, without doubt (and in my humble opinion, of course!) the best Transformers animated series ever produced. Its standards surpassed all that came before it, and nothing produced since has ever matched it. In terms of storylines, characters, plots, themes, soundtrack and animation, nothing else else in the Transformers universe comes close... except maybe its sequel series, Beast Machines.

A major facet of the success of the Beast Wars series was the intriguing and slow-to-unravel backstory that the creative team subtly weaved into the episodes. Many questions were posed as the first season progressed: What planet had the Maximals and Predacons become stranded on? What happened to Cybertron? What was the meaning of the signs of intelligent life that already populated the planet? What was the mystery behind the Golden Disc? Answers to these questions were not forthcoming until much later in the series; a risky storytelling formula not usually used for animated series with a younger core audience.