Well, ok, I lied. You'll still be confused. Ostensibly, this piece of work serves to sort of bridge the gap between the end of the second season and the beginning of the third (this is referred to as an entirely separate series, "2010," in Japan, however). This is important, given that the events of "Transformers the Movie" do not occurr in the Japanese timeline. The premise is pretty simple: Convoy tasks Ultra Magnus with overseeing the construction of a secret superfortress (alternately referred to as Scramble City and Metroflex) to combat the Constructicon combiner Devastar. Megatron catches wind of this and dispatches multiple Destrons to destroy it. Hilarity ensues. As the other reviewer mentioned, this doesn't fit into the American cartoon continuity. What he did not mention, however, is that it also fails to fit in with the Japanese continuity for which it was made. With the exception of "Transformers The Movie," everything that happened in the US cartoon continuity up until the 4th season 3-parter "The Rebirth" happened in the Japanese continuity. This means that Starscream would have no reason for being totally unaware of the Stuntron unit as he was very much present for the construction of it in season 2. Likewise, how is that Dinosaurer is present in the timeline before his own creation which occurred in "2010?" This one-shot video does not do much to clarify anything. Quite frankly, it's a showcase for the third-year figures like the Aerialbots and the Combaticons.
As a one-off episode, however, Scramble City is pretty decent. Fair characterization and great original animation make it come together really well. Not counting continuity, the only major gripe I have with this episode is the voice work. If you can get past the fact that a lot of the voices sound exactly the same, then you're confronted with the fact that many of them are really, really annoying. The combiners have these incredibly low voices that make their words virtually indistinguishable. Convoy is far too melodramatic. Bumble sounds like a 4-year-old child. This is a good introduction to the Transformers mythos, but I honestly can't see myself recommending this to someone who doesn't have at least a little knowledge of the original Transformers series.
As a one-off episode, however, Scramble City is pretty decent. Fair characterization and great original animation make it come together really well. Not counting continuity, the only major gripe I have with this episode is the voice work. If you can get past the fact that a lot of the voices sound exactly the same, then you're confronted with the fact that many of them are really, really annoying. The combiners have these incredibly low voices that make their words virtually indistinguishable. Convoy is far too melodramatic. Bumble sounds like a 4-year-old child. This is a good introduction to the Transformers mythos, but I honestly can't see myself recommending this to someone who doesn't have at least a little knowledge of the original Transformers series.