’80s toys are a genre that just keeps on giving. Two new animated Transformers shows are in the works, and My Little Pony is also back again—in a series tied to the mysterious movie Netflix plans to air later this year. Saddle up? Get ready to transform? Can transforming robot ponies be that far off?
But wait! G.I. Joe is also back—this time in a live-action series centered on Lady Jaye.
One of the Transformers shows is coming to Nickelodeon; this one, an “action comedy,” focuses on a new species of Transformers as they struggle to find their place among Autobots, Decepticons, and humans. The series is about family, which means that someone needs to create a Transformers/Fast and Furious crossover moment immediately. Dom Toretto would absolutely fight bad guys over a transforming Dodge Charger and I am absolutely certain I’m not the only person who would like to see that happen.
Meanwhile, Kevin Bruke and Chris “Doc” Wyatt’s Transformers: BotBots is being developed for Netflix. The also-comedic show is set in a mall, where the BotBots live quietly in disguise as regular “mall objects” until nighttime, when they presumably wreak havoc, like any good ’80s teenager trapped in a mall would.
The new My Little Pony show is being referred to as My Little Pony G5, presumably short for “generation 5,” as that’s how many versions of the ponies we’re up to. Earlier this month, Netflix picked up the rights to a My Little Pony film, and the series will follow the events of that feature-length story, in which a new character named Sunny Starscout works with a unicorn to bring magic back to Equestria.
As for Lady Jaye, Deadline reports that Amazon will bring us a live-action series about the character who was originally introduced in the 1984 G.I. Joe animated series. The covert ops specialist was last played by Adrianne Palicki in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The new show is created by Erik Oleson, the showrunner for Carnival Row, who has also worked on Arrow, Daredevil, and The Man in the High Castle. It’ll be a standalone, but also connect to the G.I. Joe universe—which suggests it’s linked in some way to the upcoming Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins movie starring Henry Golding. Another as yet unnamed G.I. Joe spinoff movie was also announced last year.
None of these series have release dates yet; the My Little Pony film will stream on Netflix sometime this fall.
