Transformers: Animated (Cartoon Network)

The Transformers characters have been around since the 1980s, first as a popular line of toys (kids loved the action figures), then as a hit cartoon TV series. Other animated iterations followed (including Transformers: Cybertron), as did, of course, Michael Bay's movie blockbuster. In this series, the Autobots (the good guys) and the Decepticons (their sworn enemies) return to the small screen. The series' basic idea is pretty simple: The Autobots have a powerful object called the Allspark, and the Decepticons want to take it. That's enough of a story to justify the many mechanical combat sequences that are the series' central element.

Fans of the live-action 2007 movie Transformers -- about a race of living robots that have the ability to change themselves into a variety of vehicles and other mechanical objects -- may be disappointed to know that TRANSFORMERS: ANIMATED serves up the same fare as so many other cartoons. Sure, it's kind of cool to see the robots' arms and legs start to flip around, changing from a humanoid shape to a car, but the effect is less impressive in the cartoon version of the franchise than it was in the big-screen film.

Transformers: Animated is simple enough entertainment for kids -- not too complicated, easy to follow, and the good guys always win. It doesn't win any points for originality, but young viewers are often comforted by the familiar.