I feel you, but I mean the generall thing was like:
1. Bad aliens travel to earth and want to destroy it.
2. Poor earthlings die and/or Earth is destroyed.
3. Our intrepid heroes/illegal alien immigrants fight back and a major character dies/is gravely injured.
4. The heroes fight on and transform to the next level of Super Saiyan-ness…
5. …But only after many episodes, long periods of charging up, much explanation, and hours of floating battles.
6. Bad guy(s) vanquished in grand fashion.
7. The dead good guys are brought back to life via the power of the dragon balls. Yay!
8. Brief period of happiness/celebration
9. Return to Step 1.
...and I just found that online. But it pretty much sums up the general plot, you know?
Still DBZ was my ish when I was kid, so I can't hate on it. Still remember the day I discovered they had the VHS at my local library and I borrowed damn near all of them