A brilliant series, beaten only by Beast Wars in terms of story and character development.
It started off with a decent three parter that was turned into a movie. Optimus was the head of a repair crew, menial tasks, not the awe-inspiring leader. No-one was a war hero (bar the medic). It meant from the get go, the Autobots were seriously outmatched, even against a solitary Decepticon.
After the movie it slowed down and was a little repetitious (and focussed far too much on Bumblebee, before it became the thing for Transformers franchises to do). However as Megatron and more Decepticons were added to the mix to battle as opposed to human/sentient robots, it got better.
Come the second season the writers started getting their groove on, less silly humans, more characters from Cybertron arrived and changed the dynamic and scope of the series. this increased scope brought more Autobots including the one and only Sentinel Prime, a contender for "biggest jerk in TF lore"! Added to this Starscreams clones, Ultra Magnus being a higher rank and Omega Supreme!
Third season in and the writers pumped out great episode after great episode. Season 3 is one of those rare bits of TV where you could easily sit and watch the whole series back to back in one session.
As for episodes:
Season 1: Transform and Roll Out, Blast from the Past, Thrill of the Hunt, Lost and Found, Megatron Rising 1 & 2
Season 2: The Elite Guard, Mission Accomplished, Garbage in, Garbage out, Fistful of Energy, Autoboot Camp, A bridge too close 1, 2 & 3
Season 3: All of it.
Looking For: Wreckers Saga TPB Collection (with Requiem)