The Transformers: Season 2, Vol. 1 (2009)

25th Anniversary 4 Discs DVD

As a child of the 80s, there were several shows that I "grew up" on. Along with live-action classics like The A-Team and Dukes of Hazard, I have to count the classic animated series Transformers as one of those shows I would never miss as a kid. 25 years after the creation of this fantastic animated series, some new DVD boxed sets from Transformers are being rolled out, with Transformers: Season 2, Volume 1 being the latest, and it's a sheer joy to watch.

This four-disc set gives us the first 28 episodes of this second season, and it's still a bit flabbergasting that 28 episodes is the FIRST part of any season. We certainly did get a lot more bang for our viewing buck back in those days, didn't we... Anyway, this new set of episodes, of course, continues on in the epic struggle of the Autobots and their leader Optimus Prime battling the Decepticons and their nefarious leader Decepticon. This season brings their intergalactic fight down to the Autobots new home, Earth, as the good-guy robots are aided by the quaint humans Spike, Sparkplug, Chip and Carlee. The main through-line of this season is that the Autobots are trying to find enough fuel to get back to their home planet of Cybertron... but the Decepticons get their first and now, of course, the whole solar system might have to face the wrath of the evil Megatron. That is, unless the Autobots and their new human friends can find a way to stop them first. This set features some of the most popular episodes of the whole series like Enter The Nightbird, The Master Builders, The God Gambit and the highly-popular two-part episode, Dinobot Island.

I have to tell you, watching these episodes now, decades after first watching them, is just such a sheer delight. Every now and then, I'll come across a TV series or a movie that I loved when I was a kid, and there's that wonderful feeling of familiarity that you get, almost transporting you back to that original time and place that you were when you first watched the show or movie. I got the same feeling from watching these episodes again. Just hearing Peter Cullen and Frank Welker's voices as Optimus Prime and Megatron are enough to take me back to my childhood days as I watched these episodes in awe, reminding me about how I would then wonder what my dad's Reliant K might transform into, under such circumstances...

Transformers: Season Two, Volume 1 is a wonderful journey back to my childhood and likely any other thirtysomething's childhood who grew up on this fantastic animated series.

Sadly, we got nothing but the 28 episodes in this four-disc set.

There is definitely more than meets the eye to this wonderful four-disc set that, if you were a fan of the animated series as a child, you will truly enjoy even more now.