When this show came out the internet reacted very poorly due to the awkward animation choices, strange superhero premise, and drastic changes to the continuity.
After the premiere many fans were pleasantly surprised, and some even regard it as one of the better series made.
This is not the case. The show is just not very good.
I suspect the reason I, and many others liked it initially is A) the expectations set the bar very low and B) the show masks most of it's problems with fan service. Fan service is when you use references and callbacks to tie something to nostalgia. This show has a lot of that. Probably the biggest is getting Corey Burton to reprise his role as Shockwave - which almost seems odd in retrospect - since Cullen and Welker do not reprise theirs. They also get John Moschita to reprise Blurr, but again, it retrospect this has less impact since few of the other movie characters are present. These characters basically show up to say hi, to try and give the show some life support.
The superhero premise is quite silly as the show has to contrive circumstances where humans would ever be a threat to massive robots. They disarm the Autobots as well, which doesn't seem to make much sense, considering these people recently beat a race of much stronger, well armed Decepticons, all of whom are still at large. It gives the Autobots "superpowers" - which is not new - but also adds very little to them. The animation also does not hold up in current era. It seems like they were just trying to do this show on the cheap rather than picking a style that suited it.
The humor is very flat and some of the characters - like Bumblebee - are quite annoying and not in the "charming because it's a cartoon" way - but more the "that's intentionally how this character was written" way. Also the "adult" Transformers behave more like teenagers. Although they are suggested to be "young", they are not that young.
Is the show irredeemable? No, absolutely not. It has certain quirks, but it's also not particularly well made especially when compared to what came before it. It came after the haphazard and often terrible (especially because of the terrible translations and dubbing) Unicron Trilogy, so it probably seemed a lot better than what it was.
After the premiere many fans were pleasantly surprised, and some even regard it as one of the better series made.
This is not the case. The show is just not very good.
I suspect the reason I, and many others liked it initially is A) the expectations set the bar very low and B) the show masks most of it's problems with fan service. Fan service is when you use references and callbacks to tie something to nostalgia. This show has a lot of that. Probably the biggest is getting Corey Burton to reprise his role as Shockwave - which almost seems odd in retrospect - since Cullen and Welker do not reprise theirs. They also get John Moschita to reprise Blurr, but again, it retrospect this has less impact since few of the other movie characters are present. These characters basically show up to say hi, to try and give the show some life support.
The superhero premise is quite silly as the show has to contrive circumstances where humans would ever be a threat to massive robots. They disarm the Autobots as well, which doesn't seem to make much sense, considering these people recently beat a race of much stronger, well armed Decepticons, all of whom are still at large. It gives the Autobots "superpowers" - which is not new - but also adds very little to them. The animation also does not hold up in current era. It seems like they were just trying to do this show on the cheap rather than picking a style that suited it.
The humor is very flat and some of the characters - like Bumblebee - are quite annoying and not in the "charming because it's a cartoon" way - but more the "that's intentionally how this character was written" way. Also the "adult" Transformers behave more like teenagers. Although they are suggested to be "young", they are not that young.
Is the show irredeemable? No, absolutely not. It has certain quirks, but it's also not particularly well made especially when compared to what came before it. It came after the haphazard and often terrible (especially because of the terrible translations and dubbing) Unicron Trilogy, so it probably seemed a lot better than what it was.