Centuries have passed since the wars between the Autobots and the Decepticons for control of their homeworld, Cybertron. In the time since, old affilations have given rise to the new: Maximals and Predicons. In the farthest reaches of space, a Predicon raiding ship attacks a Maximal scout, and the resulting battle forces both ships to crash on a primitive world. Finding themselves trapped on a world overflowing with raw Energon, both the Maximals and the Predicons are forced to imitate the natural life forms of the planet to protect themselves, transforming into robotic warriors to do battle.

Initially panned by fans of the original Transformers for both the characters being originals, not the "G1" characters, and for transforming into animals instead of vehicles. Eventually Beast Wars won over all but the most jaded of Transformers fans with its critically acclaimed writing, respect for the original Transformers series, and it’s enriching of the Transformer’s mythos. Airing as a weeklong special event in 1998 (March 9 - 13 at 5:30 pm) Beast Wars premiered the final five episodes of its second season on Toonami. Despite the hopes of Toonami viewers, Beast Wars remained a one-time special event.

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.:Episode Guide

Season 1 1: Beast Wars (Part 1) 2: Beast Wars (Part 2) 3: The Web 4: Equal Measures 5: Chain of Command 6: Power Surge 7: Fallen Comrades 8: Double Jeopardy 9: A Better Mousetrap 10: Gorilla Warfare 11: The Probe 12: Victory 13: Dark Designs 14: Double Dinobot 15: The Spark 16: The Trigger (Part 1) 17: The Trigger (Part 2) 18: Spider's Game 19: Call of the Wild 20: Dark Voyage 21: Possession 22: The Low Road 23: Law of the Jungle 24: Before the Storm 25: Other Voices (Part 1) 26: Other Voices (Part 2)

Season 2 27: Aftermath 28: Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1) 29: Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2) 30: Tangeled Web 31: Maximal, No More 32: Other Visits (Part 1) 33: Other Visits (Part 2) 34: Bad Spark 35: Code of Hero 36: Transmutate 37: The Agenda (Part 1) 38: The Agenda (Part 2) 39: The Agenda (Part 3) Season 3 40: Optimal Situation 41: Deep Metal 42: Changing of the Guard 43: Cutting Edge 44: Feral Scream (Part 1) 45: Feral Scream (Part 2) 46: Proving Grounds 47: Go With the Flow 48: Crossing the Rubicon 49: Master Blaster 50: Other Victories 51: Nemesis (Part 1) 52: Nemesis (Part 2)

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.:Misc.

• Episodes #35 - 39: Code of Hero, Transmutate, and The Agenda (parts 1 - 3) were the five episodes to make their world premieres on Toonami.



• Beast Wars marks the first time that Gary Chalk (Optimus Primal) and David Kaye (Megatron) were cast as the opposing Transformer leaders.



• Beast Wars’ sequel, Beast Machines was funded for and aired on the (now defunct) Fox Kids programming block.



• When dubbed for Japanese audiences, Beast Wars was re-written as a show for very young children, resulting in personality changes for many of the show’s characters. Older Japanese fans who followed the series as it aired in North America were not amused by the changes.



• Because of the extended breaks in-between production of each of the thee seasons of the show, two Japanese only Beast Wars series were created: Beast Wars II (taking place between seasons 1 and 2) and Beast Wars Neo (taking place between seasons 2 and 3).



• In one of the show’s running gags the character Waspinator was either shot, crushed, or blown up in almost every episode.



• Because of the word "war" in the title, Beast Wars was renamed "Beasties" for Canadian broadcast. This included re-dubbing the opening theme song, of which the only lyrics, the chanting of the show’s title, "Beast Wars," was replaced with "Beasties."

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