So, Transformers Animated has returned for a third season. While it's probably not something that could strictly be called a retooling things definitely seem to have changed direction to some extent. Following the revelation that Sari is part machine, she basically becomes - through a series of events - an autobot/human teenager. Her role is notably dialled down and the show has a far greater focus on the robots and a more consistent focus on the conflict between the autobots and decipticons, particularly in regard to Cybertron.

It's a good direction for the show to move. Clearly, this is never going to be the G1 show and it's never really TRIED to be... and it's rather too late in the day for that now. The changes do represent a marginalising of the less interesting aspects... and a general improvement. Still not great... it's not in the same league as Spectacular Spiderman or Wolverine & The X-men... but it's better than it used to be.

DC has... a huge monopoly on characters that have become ingrained upon the collective cultural memory of the West. It goes without saying that Batman is probably only really in competition with Superman for the most ubiquitous... although, these days Batman is probably firmly on top in terms of popularity - not least due to the uber popular Chris Nolan Batman films.

Naturally, that was preceded by the Timmverse Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoon. Which are generally considered by fans and critics to be awesome. Even the somewhat weaker Gotham Knights is still pretty solid.

And then came THE BATMAN. Unashamedly aimed at the 5 year olds and mentally retarded. Mostly the mentally. Whatever the Timmverse was... was so quickly forgotten in this shameful embarrassment of that abortive nonsense. That well... uh.

Anyway, THE BATMAN finished. It was natural for fans to be apprehensive about Batman: The Brave And The Bold... It was pretty much proclaiming to be campy... but as it happens... it's pretty good. It's using some of DC's less known villains - but deliberately so... Blue Beetle is there, the Green Arrow and Batman have a rivalry. Not nearly as campy as one might think.

Batman is still kinda broody not the campy 60s Batman... or the pointless The Batman character... It was easy to see this as a futile venture but it has proven itself... It's rather enjoyable.

Not content with having alienated everyone over the age of 12 as far as Star Wars goes, George Lucas continues his relentless crusade to milk the cash cow.

Someone has said, "You can't ruin Star Wars"... in a sense, that's true.

Regardless of the loathsome prequels... we have (another) cartoon. This time, in CGI. For those who have stopped paying attention - and who can be blamed - this was all launched by a film, setting up the basic premise of Anakin with an apprentice... who, as with most things jammed into continuity is - naturally - never mentioned.

As with the previous - rather wonderful - Clone Wars cartoon, this is set in the eponymous conflict and so... action abounds. Unlike the cartoon, Clone Wars gives more prominence to the actual clones. They actually take off their helmets and demonstrate some personality here, which is good because they're sufficiently competent to be likeable.

The films demonstrated the rather monumental idiocy of the battledroids - here, it's turned up a notch and definitely played for laughs... it DOES humanise them a bit more but then, droids AND clones are both killed, so... we're reckless with all synthetic life, it seems.

The premise of the film is simple - if pointless - after a little introduction of Anakin and his new apprentice - Asoka - we find out that Jabba's son has been kidnapped. Why does this matter? The Hutts control a lot of trading routes. If the Jedi rescue the infant Hutt, they get access to those trade routes or something.

The most obvious thing to notice with the film - and cartoon - is that it takes some time to get used to these stringless marionettes. Their expressions are extremely limited and at times, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was just a game that you were playing... except that they're probably look less stiff and lifeless.

Despite that, the quality of acting is considerably better than pretty much everything in the prequel trilogy... not that that is particularly difficult. Regardless, the inexorable march toward being a purely eight and under franchise continues... There's pretty much no character development, there's the inexplicable pink R2 and of course, the plot is laughable.

Essentially, there's just a progression of the film from one action sequence to another... and yet, it all feels rather hollow. The battledroids are 10 times the fodder stormtroopers were and even the clones seem to be more than capable of taking out dozens of them with ease...

The cartoon is somewhat more interesting - although, unlike it's animated counterpart Grievous is again somewhat bungling and cowardly... One has to wonder how the Seperatists are really able to support their war effort. Or why... Oh, obviously the manipulations of Palpatine are behind it all but there's still little sense of underlying causes beyond "BECAUSE!" Which is rather too endemic in the Star Wars prequels, people are idiotic or gullible to forward the plot... so, it would probably be rather too much to ask the spawn of the prequel franchise to try and explain away the nonsensical war.

The action doesn't always focus on Obi-wan or Anakin. We've had episodes about clones, other Jedi... Jarjar (sigh) and so on. So, there's a diverse focus... but that's presumably because, there's only so much more than can be done in the Clone Wars period.

How does it compare to the highly acclaimed - and straight forward awesome - Clone Wars cartoon? It seems almost unfair to compare them. The cartoon was great, it actually managed to take the card board cutouts that Lucas hamfistedly stuck into a trilogy more geared toward shifting merchandise than telling a story and made them INTERESTING! In a couple of the episodes, we had more development of Anakin and his fall from grace than in the entirety of the prequels... the CGI fare is markedly more standard Saturday morning fare.

If you're even marginally interested in Star Wars - it's worth watching and it does include some pretty cool fights and action sequences but it lacks the characterisation and special X-factor that made the cartoon so enjoyable and memorable. That, coupled with the puppet-like CGI means that this may be fun but will struggle to rival it's predecessor in the affections of viewers.

Despite the somewhat questionable title of "Wolverine And The X-men", the new Marvel cartoon - featuring... well, the X-men (oh and Wolverine!) is actually rather good. The animation is slick and smooth... and it's really a cut above the rather insipid animation we've been seeing in the West for many years.

The story starts a year after Professor X and Jean Gray disappear and the X-men have pretty much disbanded. Wolverine is pretty much riding around, doing his loner thing. As one might guess, events lead him to realise that Xavier or no - the world needs the X-men.

Thus far we've had a good mix of foreshadowing, action, various mutant cameos - Boom Boom, Pyro, Colossus, Night Crawler and Dust just in the first episode. So, it certainly seems to have been worth the wait... and certainly far superior to the rather embarrassing X-men Evolution... Of course, where that show went wrong was that it made almost the entire cast about 14, except for Wolverine and the Professor... It seems that a more mature class (it's mentioned Bobby Drake is over 18) has thankfully prevailed this time.

It's clear that the series is building to the ever popular concept of X-dom, that of a conflict between mutants and humans... interestingly, although the title sequence includes Wolverine et al taking on a classic Sentinel, currently the anti-mutant forces are just guys with guns... although, the second episode introduces a scorpion like Sentinel prototype. One has to ask who thought that purple and pink would strike fear into the hearts of mutants...

Regardless, we've got plenty of elements at play here. We've got Rogue joining the Brotherhood, the lingering questions over the disappearance of Xavier and Jean... the still mostly disbanded X-men, the clearly oncoming war against the anti-mutant forces of the MRD and so on... there's just an awful lot that has been touched upon in just two episodes... but despite the fact they've introduced these elements - one doesn't feel overwhelmed, merely that things are building... some more quickly than others.

Definitely a show worth watching for any who had lost faith in Marvel cartoons, or just Western animation in general.

Spectacular, Spectacular Spiderman!

So, the Spiderman movies managed to make an already popular character even MORE so... as if Spidey really needed it. Naturally - it having been some time since the previous incarnation of an animated Spiderman - it was time for a NEW Spiderman cartoon - Spectacular Spiderman.

Another new cartoon, another beginning. Peter Parker has had a summer to hone his wall crawling skillz by the time things start and wouldn't you know supervillains have started popping up, just as high school begins.

Unlike other rehashes, this remains fairly similar to the general Spiderman mythos. Spidey is the smart, fast talking webslinger whenever the city needs him and of course, struggling to balance that with being in the far more hostile environment of high school and also, helping his Aunt May help ends meet.

Somewhat surprisingly, Gwen Stacy is centre stage - in terms of potential love interests - and Mary Jane has only been mentioned in passing... although, it seems inevitable that she will turn up as she's been mentioned several times... not that Spidey really seems to have much time for fraternising between his crime fighting, school, the Bugle and so on.

Currently - and as one might expect of a new series - the show has very much revolved around the creation of Spiderman's well known rogue's gallery. This translate to roughly a villain a week for Spiderman to defeat - just as well he doesn't have much of a social life, eh?

Stylistically, it favours the more... facile animation style that is ever more prevalent in cartoons. That said, while it may be somewhat less detailed than the 90s, the animation is very slick - so the trade off is fair.

We have some interesting development of characters and relationships, the foreshadowing of the Kingpin (who has been behind half of the villains that Spidey has faced) and so on. It's not exactly Earth shattering stuff but thus far, it's proven to be entertaining. Again, it's not a show that should be compared to it predecessors because, while Spectacular Spiderman is much closer to its roots than, say, Transformers Animated - it's simply not executed in the same way. One to watch.

Fresh from the rape of Michael "SFX aren't plot?" Bay, the Transformers franchise rolls ever onward, battered and bruised... but still massively profitable because it will take more than one hack director, inexplicably hired time and again to ruin good films - forget 9/11, THAT is a conspiracy.

Anyway, as proof that Michael Bay failed in his mission to sink one of the most awesome franchise ever created to the briny deep - we have a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated.

As seems to be the trend these days, all previous history of the show has been summarily disregarded and the only thing that has remained is the basic premise and a few of the core characters... well, actually - just the basic premise. Giant sentient robots from Cybertron come to Earth and defend it from the evil forces of... THE DECEPTICONS!

It's best not to talk about Transformers Animated in terms of the original (Generation 1 aka G1) cartoon because they're very different animals... Transformers Animated has a sexy teen Optimus Prime (well, a somewhat inexperienced and scrawny Optimus at least) along with Bumblebee (essentially a hyperactive 6 year old but still the noob of the group), Rachet (who is essentially Kup from G1), Bulkhead (the heavy hitting sensitive one) and Prowl (NINJA ROBOT!) stranded on Earth, protecting the All Spark.

The differences in design and style are big and owe more to Teen Titans and The Batman than G1. ALL the robots - although, more the Autobots - are far more humanised. Pretty much everyone has a face, is capable of gesticulating and body language and even the massive Bulkhead is still extremely human. This is a far cry from the huge, blocky, monolithic very robotic designs of G1 where few concessions were made in terms of anthropomorphism.

The Autobots don't just LOOK more human, they ACT more human. There is a lot of talk about emotions, friendship... They seem entirely capable of feeling pain and are far more prone to damage than their G1 counterparts ever were. In fact, few episodes have passed where damage hasn't been incurred upon our brave robot defenders... which brings us to the next point.

While in G1, humans were... at best, an after thought, in Transformers Animated - they're very much a part of the show. Hell, the Autobots are based IN Detroit. Ok, they're in an abandoned factory... but that beats G1 where they were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting Decepticons in the middle of nowhere and so on. No, the cityscape of Detroit is full of people. The most important of whom is Sari.

Sari gets a key charged by the Allspark - allowing it repair/heal the Autobots and do all manners of mischief to anything with a keyhole. Given the propensity of the Autobots to get totally schooled - this is a fairly skill and probably why they keep Sari around. She also helps acquaint the Autobots with Earth customs and her father happens to run a major robotics company - Detroit is now heavily automated by his robots, to the point where there are robotic police drones - the success of which is predicated upon... MEGATRON! Or rather, the disembodied head of Megatron.

Yes, another BIG difference is that there isn't a weekly smack down between the Autobots and Decepticons. In fact, at the start we don't really have any and even by the end of the first instalment we've only got four, I suppose five if we count Black Arachnia... which we shouldn't. So, instead of Megatron's weekly plan to get enough energon to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE, we have various villains of the week - some of whom are orchestrated by Megatron remotely, Sari's father is totally unaware of this... mostly because he's a putz but he's also the second of three main human characters.

The third being the bumbling, technology hating police chief. As one might guess, in a city where technology is so prevalent - especially in the police force - he's something of a comic relief character, prone to a short fuse and slapstick comedy... although, occasionally effective at his job, or at least as effective as one can expect a meatbag to be against a race of hyper advanced alien space robots.

The effect of human characters and the lack of persistent Decepticon threat makes the show dynamic entirely different. G1 was essentially robots! Humans may have been there but they were along for the ride... Sari and a variety of rather less friendly homo sapiens prove to be far more in the driving seat in terms of plot. Sari driven by her inherent need for fun and mischief - the villains mostly by money and/or revenge. It allows for more variation than G1 and the introduction of characters has been far slower - it's only by the end of Megatron Rising Part 1 we have a full team of Decepticons... although, thus far the Decepticons have generally been shown to be far more powerful individually than the five Autobots.

Megatron and Starscream are very much unchanged from their original incarnations. Even though Megatron might be sans body, he's still the consummate schemer, planning and manipulating for his own ends - even if that is just a new body, mostly. Starscream remains the powerful, underhanded, backstabbing and opportunistic turncoat that everyone loves. Even if he's often sporting a cutesy sneer now, he's still quite menacing in his single mindedness to lead the Decipticons.

In terms of the Autobots... Prime is unrecognisable. He's a leader but not the confident, powerful one from G1... he's unsure of himself, dependent upon the advice of the rest of the team and hesitant... Not to mention angsty. Bumblebee is more hyperactive but in many ways, that's in keeping with the younger feel of the show... Ratchet is Kip, there's not much more to say.

As the constant references to G1 should illustrate... while the basic idea of robots that become vehicles is still there - the execution, structure and style are a world away and while the end is still to get children to buy the merchandise, they go about it in very different ways. While the G1 team would be happy to smash some Decepticons, let Spike think he'd helped and go home... Transformers Animated is more interested in plots and lessons. Not only that but the characters are substantially more human in all senses and humans play an infinitely bigger role - it makes it a far more relatable show...

People who cut their teeth on Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe may well baulk at the changes but this is not attempting to be Transformers G1 any more than the live action film. If you watch it, not expecting G1 - you may be pleasantly surprised by some of it... if you're hoping for G1... you'll hate it unconditionally.

Futurama always somewhat smacked of Matt Groening wanting to show the world that - yes, he COULD be more than the Simpsons... even if it wasn't really that different but then, there are various archetypes that permeate the sitcom genre.

Futurama was always somewhat more confused than the Simpsons... while the yellow family have occasionally "tackled issues", comedy has always been the alpha and the omega of the show... even if it's been ever more scarce in the past decade. Futurama sometimes liked to toss in some poignant aspects that were ill at ease with the comic and whimsical nature of the show.

Regardless, like Family Guy, it was cancelled and yet, has been born again... this time, as a film - Bender's Big Score. Despite the name, the film doesn't really feel "big"... as can happen with film outings of TV shows, it felt much like an episode... just one that happened to last five times as long.

Unlike the Family Guy movie which shamelessly broke into episode sized acts, this is really more one single story and it works quite well. It's not exactly epic in scope or laughs but it's enjoyable and if you've missed the quirky show since it was cancelled, this will certainly fill the Futurama shaped hole in your life.

The plot involves that perennial sci-fi favourite, time travel - Fry has a tattoo with a key to time travel on his ass - ... and actually plays upon the existing show continuity for plot. There are never any really big laughs but there's a consistency. You won't go more than a few minutes without a joke or just a moment of inanity to bring a smile to your face. Even in the actiony ending, there are still very Futurama moments that will make you laugh to yourself.

All in all, it's a good reminder of the show and an enjoyable effort on several levels.

Perhaps even more lumped together than things that fall within the huge umbrella of "science fiction" are cartoons. Since the rise and rise of The Simpsons, cartoons directed toward adults have been increasingly prevalent... however, despite the fact many of them are totally different - they're all just kind of assumed to be the same and often looked down upon because, obviously cartoons are just for children.

Anyone acquainted with the likes of The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park - probably the three best known cartoons in the West - will know that while there are some similarities (they're all cartoons, aimed at an adult audience with the intent of being funny) they are three very different shows. These days, The Simpsons favours wacky acomedic adventures... but then, I guess if you'd done over 300 episodes you'd struggle to be funny. Family Guy is mired in pop culture references and cut-aways... And of course, South Park - never far from controversy and easily the most offensive and funniest of the three.

South Park tends - especially these days - to be rather topical. Totally irreverent, not afraid to make fun of itself and there is often a message in there... beyond the one that is hammered home with all the subtly of a sledgehammer. In many ways, this is the kind of counter-culture The Simpsons had in its earlier years, before it lost sight of its roots and simply became a bland, inoffensive kid's show.

Admittedly, if you'd been going for 18 years it would be hard to have the same set of characters go and do something new and exciting every week and probably about the first 7-8 were (well, after season 1/2) extremely enjoyable, well written, clever and not afraid to be satirical and comment - albeit rather backhandedly - about various social situations in the USA. Now though, just wacky adventures... which is rather sad. The only way in which the new episodes are an improvement is that they happen to have a far more polished quality of animation... outside of that, this is a shadow of the original show.

Family Guy started out being rather edgy... and relied a LOT less heavily on pop culture references that are probably lost on most people who don't keep up with contemporary American celebrities and far less of the cutaways, which -as South Park pointed out several times - mean that all the jokes are interchangeable. It's a valid point - Family Guy episodes seldom have any plot of merit and ever since it returned from televisual oblivion many of its episodes have been hit and miss. Not to mention that - by and large - the show has been far more bland and inoffensive since it returned, presumably after the episode with the Jews in it - they got told to cool their jets.

South Park is probably the most consistent of the three... although, admittedly, it's got half the episodes of The Simpsons. It has become more topical - and somewhat more preachy - lately but it's aware of that and it's still as offensive and funny as ever... and while Family Guy had some implausible or surreal elements, South Park uses them with such regularity, it can go pretty much any direction and still be South Park.

Amusingly, Matt Groening has recently said that he thinks that The Simpsons could go on forever... One assumes that means he hasn't watched it in the last ten years or he's just keen on getting the bags of cash that being an executive producer on a cash cow like the The Simpsons entails. Ironic that the words of one of the show's own characters summed it up... "Who knows how long there is between now and when the show stops being profitable."

In any event, they're three rather different programmes and simply because they're all cartoons does not mean that they are instantly analogous to one another... Far from it. Simply because Frasier and Friends were both live action sitcoms, they didn't warrant being lumped together... why should cartoons be any different?