The Energon Pub

[Sabrblade]

Great news! Everyone...

Too bad this move by Hasbro to have it on Paramount+ first (or the unfortunate "lock in" to Paramount+ from whatever contract obligations Hasbro might be in with Paramount... I don't know so I don't want to lay blame without knowing the behind-the-scene machinations) did zero benefit to create buzz for toys sales. And worse, the needless non-controversy about "gender woke-ness" hurt the show & sales even more.

The main Warrior & Deluxe ES lines got some pretty great figures, they were an improvement over Cyberverse over-all if you disregard the carry-overs imo. But many people just didn't bother because they couldn't see the show.

Cool story, bro.

[kevinblack]

Honestly this should've happened sooner.
After TF1 kids were looking for Transformers media, but rejected all the old stuff becuz [Megatron is a funny guy] - (not a joke, kids think Megatron is a good guy) - this is the only option but for most is trapped on the floopy Paramount+ never to be seen.
And it's like the only modern CG show.
geometry dash lite

[Quantum Surge]

Lol, being with Netflix could have saved this little show from underperforming with a streaming service few people care about

[Sabrblade]

Lol, being with Netflix could have saved this little show from underperforming with a streaming service few people care about

It aired on TV, too.

[Sabrblade]

As a heads up, I don't know when they were added or how long they've been there, but Netflix added the remaining eight episodes of EarthSpark Season 1, which were missing when the first 18 eps were originally added to Netflix. So now the entire first season is up and on there to watch.

[Sabrblade]

Hasbro is now uploading season 1 episodes of EarthSpark to the official Transformers YouTube channel. The first three episodes have been posted so far:

[D-Maximal_Primal]

It's still incredible how much of a drop in quality season 2 was from season 1. Season 1 was great and was setting up a great future. Season 2 killed all of that

[Sabrblade]

So, I was watching some YouTube videos from TJOmega in which he mentioned, in each video, that EarthSpark's cartoon had been canceled, and I'm like "When was this confirmed?" I've looked around and have found no such declaration from any credible sources. So then, why do he and so many other people think EarthSpark is over? Well, I think I may have found what's brought about the confusion.

----

Back in mid-May 2024, there was a rumor floating around that EarthSpark would be canceled after its second season, which was reported both here on Seibertron and on TFW2005:
https://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/rumour-transformers-earthspark-to-be-cancelled-replaced-by-new-transformers-animated-show/48175/
https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/05/16/rumor-earthspark-to-be-cancelled-after-season-2-replaced-with-new-tf-series-511669

However, this rumor was based purely on speculation, as there were rumblings of yet another TF cartoon being made (which we now know to be Cyberworld) and the people who initially spread this rumor were assuming that the new show might possibly be a tie-in with TF One, as said movie was still coming soon at the time and the true nature of Cyberworld being a YouTube show of short episodes was not yet known at the time of this rumor's initial spreading.

Near the end of May 2024, however, a follow up story was posted here on Seibertron attempting to clarify some things, as the rumor had grown exponentially and the staff wanted to clear up some misinformation, specifying that Paramount had indeed ordered two seasons of EarthSpark and there was no official confirmation of what, if anything, was to come of the show beyond that initial order:
https://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/clarifying-some-tf-earthspark-misinformation-whats-cancelled-whats-not-and-whats-exclusive/48193/

Still, despite this attempt to play damage control on this site, the rumor persisted elsewhere, as TFW continued to post doomsaying news posts about EarthSpark's imminent demise:
https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/06/19/rumor-earthspark-replacement-line-solicited-to-retailers-513855

And keep in mind that this one was made before EarthSpark's second season was even released! Meaning they were saying Season 2 was the end before the so-called "Season 3" (as Paramount+ labels it) was even known about!

This next one in particular made explicit claim that Cyberworld would be EarthSpark's "replacement", as though it were impossible for the two to coexist despite one being a Paramount+/Nickelodeon show with full-length episodes and the other being a YouTube show with short episodes (which, again, was not yet known at the time this post was made, so more assumptions were being made without any actual facts):
https://news.tfw2005.com/2024/08/25/earthspark-replacement-series-listings-found-transformers-cyberworld-519436

So, everyone who saw these kinds of news posts and didn't understand the difference between a confirmed fact and an unconfirmed rumor took them at face value and ran with the notion that EarthSpark is dead and canceled, long before it was ever made clear that Cyberworld is a completely different beast (so to speak) from EarthSpark.

----

As for the future of EarthSpark's cartoon itself, well, while it does seem that there were certain plans for the show that have since changed over time, it doesn't seem to be all doom and gloom as people are saying.

According to this now outdated (as you can see Reactivate featured here before it was canceled) annual quarterly report from Hasbro, the initial plan was to release Season 2 of EarthSpark in two batches in 2024 (which did happen), one batch in 2025 (which has yet to happen), and a fourth batch in 2026 (which... wait, why a fourth batch?):


But around August 2024, a new quarterly report updated these plans to instead say that we would be getting more EarthSpark stuff in the first quarter of 2025 (and, well, more toys and stuff were definitely on the shelves during that time) and that some "S2 Specials" for EarthSpark would be released later in the final quarter of the year after the launch of Cyberworld in the third quarter, coexisting with more Cyberworld stuff in the final quarter:


What's more, around the same time in August 2024, Nick Roche made a couple of tweets that said he was currently working on something for EarthSpark ("On the Earthspark treadmill") and, when asked which season of the show he was working on, he cryptically answered "Cannot confirm which season I'm working on... !" But that exclamation point at the end also made it sound like he was pretty excited for what this might be.

Combine this with the Specials revealed in the updated annual report and it seems that Roche was hinting at the forthcoming release of said EarthSpark specials.

And while I cannot find anything else to support it, this Instagram post by Cartoonempire25 claims that Paramount+ renewed EarthSpark for a "Season 4" back in November 2024, with more episodes to come in 2025 (but we'll see if this is the case or if it's instead just the specials):
https://www.instagram.com/cartoonempire25/p/DB7LmUMP_en/

[Sabrblade]

Well, this certainly flew under the radar.

Back in June 2024, Greg Weisman participated in the following interview on YouTube in which it was casually mentioned multiple times over and over throughout the video that he had spent six months doing work for Nickelodeon on the Transformers: EarthSpark cartoon.



At the time this interview came out, Season 2 had recently premiered on Paramount+, so it wouldn't have been those episodes he had worked on. But the thing is, looking over the credits for the "Season 3" (or "Season 2 Part 2") episodes released later that October reveals no sign of Weisman's name anywhere, yet he insists that he worked on the show.

A reminder that Season 1 was three batches of 26 episodes total, while the "Season 2" and "Season 3" batches have so far only totaled to 18 episodes. It's been speculated that there ought to be another batch coming, and/or a couple of specials that were previously mentioned in a Hasbro report (and which Nick Roche possibly alluded to on Twitter). Could Weisman's statements in this interview that he worked on the show be sign that at least something more is still coming to finish off this show more properly? Here's hoping.

[o.supreme]

I'm sure that last batch of 8 episodes (whatever season you want to call it), will drop at some point unceremoniously on Paramount +. Its kind of an odd parallel to TF Animated. Although Animated was extremely popular with fans when CN killed it for no good reason. Earthsparks final batch of episodes probably very few but the most hardcore fans will seek out, since Cyberworld and WildKing are already in full swing.

I guess the only thing that kind of comes close would be the original RiD not getting to air all its episodes at least on Fox Kids in the US (mostly due to a mix of 9/11 and poor ratings due to inconsistent air times) Reruns unceremoniously stopped airing in on Fox August of 2002 (I remember because I kept hoping to record episodes that hadn't aired) when CN came along with Armada that same month. At least RiD all episodes can be found if you know where to look.

[Sabrblade]

I'm sure that last batch of 8 episodes (whatever season you want to call it), will drop at some point unceremoniously on Paramount +. Its kind of an odd parallel to TF Animated. Although Animated was extremely popular with fans when CN killed it for no good reason.

Hasbro killed Animated. CN had made preproduction plans for a fourth season, but Hasbro ultimately pulled the plug on the series because A) they wanted to move forward with their then-new ambitions for the Aligned continuity, which Animated didn't line up with since it wasn't "gritty realistic" enough like the 2007 live-action movie (which Hasbro had originally wanted to be the cornerstone of the Aligned continuity that all major TF media going forward would revolve around, before they realized how impossible it was for them to control or steer the course of the stories made by Paramount for the live-action sequel films), and B) Hasbro was trying to become a media brand with its own TV network, The Hub, which would directly compete against CN, and didn't want to keep producing a show made by one of their competitors.

Before they canceled it, Hasbro even put in requests for the fourth season to have more elements based on the 2007 movie, such as replacing Bulkhead with Jazz and Ironhide, keeping Megatron as the main villain instead of switching to Blackarachnia, and moving the story back to predominately being on Earth instead of originally splitting the focus between Cybertron and Earth. But once their plans for The Hub went forward, Hasbro wanted a shiny new Transformers series to be the flagship centerpiece of the network made especially for The Hub, which led to Transformers: Prime.

In other words, Animated was killed by Hasbro's own hubris.

I guess the only thing that kind of comes close would be the original RiD not getting to air all its episodes at least on Fox Kids in the US (mostly due to a mix of 9/11 and poor ratings due to inconsistent air times) Reruns unceremoniously stopped airing in on Fox August of 2002 (I remember because I kept hoping to record episodes that hadn't aired) when CN came along with Armada that same month.

RiD was airing on Fox Kids as a production of Saban Entertainment, and Fox Kids died on September 7, 2002, replaced by the Fox Box (later 4Kids TV) run by 4Kids Entertainment. RiD stopped airing because every Fox Kids show stopped airing at that point (minus Power Rangers and Digimon, whose productions continued to produce new episodes on Jetix and ABC Kids under Disney's ownership after they had acquired Saban's programming library, RiD included).

At least RiD all episodes can be found if you know where to look.

It's incredibly easy to find on YouTube.

Even the pre-9/11 version of Episode 4 that only aired once and never aired again before it was further edited into a second dubbed version post-9/11.