Robot Wars Episode Three Review

So before we go into a battle breakdown, there are two things I would like to address.

Firstly, the new structure of the competition.  As we have already seen, it has changed from a straight knockout to a round-robin all vs all competition.  Whilst the earlier incarnation tested pure power and strength, the Round Robin tests the robot's endurance and stamina.  I think this is better.  it gives a chance for, not only the most destructive robot to take centre-stage, but the best engineered.  it doesn't matter if you can flip robots around the arena or smash them up and leave them in pieces, if your robot isn't good enough to last more than one battle, you're not going to win.

Secondly, the house robots.  The house robots answer to no-one.  If you get too close to them, they will soon punish you for your mistakes.  In the days of old, there were nine house robots patrolling the CPZ, now, due to the BBC, there are only four: Shunt, Matilda, Sir Killalot and Dead Metal.  It is their job to inflict as much damage as possible on any robot fool enough to enter their territory.  Matilda, which looks like a demonic pig, but don't tell her I said that, is armed with lifting tusks and a 27kg vertical flywheel.  Dead Metal, which I've always thought looks like a scorpion, is armed with pincers and a vertical saw.  Shunt, looks like a JCB with his bulldozing and lifting scoops, as well as his diamond edged axe.  Finally, there is the leviathan 750KG Sir Killalot, who is nothing like the knights of the round table.  He is armed with a lance and cutting pincers fashioned from the jaws of life.

Let the Wars Begins

Glitterbox Vs Dantomkia Vs Overdozer Vs King B Remix

This heat was dominated by returning teams and robots.  The two in this battle were Dantomkia (DTK) and King B Remix.  DTk reached the S6 and S7 semi-finals and King B Remix reached the semi-finals way back in S2.  However, whilst DTK was the same old robot with the same powerful flipping arm, they had a new team.  Meanwhile, King B Remix armed with lifting forks an the same team was the same old box on wheels.

The new-boys were the Welsh Glitterbox an the Scottish Overdozer.  Glitterbox was controlled by the Baker family team.  Its predominantly pink and feminine design was engineered by the wonderfully sassy nine year old girl April Baker.  They were armed with a deadly axe.  The Overdozer team made the amazingly fantastic, intelligent idea of entering a robot that was made from wood.  To top off their previous intelligence, they decided to use a petrol engine instead of an electric one.  Their weapon- a glorified petrol strimmer was another work of genius.  Can you tell I'm being sarcastic yet?

So whilst nobody expected Overdozer to do well, I think everyone was expecting them to last longer than 23 seconds.  One flip from DTK and they were immobilised.  Further flips turned their wooden armour into sawdust.  DTK also quickly flipped over Glitterbox which were unable to self-right.  DTK went through with King B Remix who just stayed in the shadows allowed DTK to do all the work.

I didn't like the DTK team.  Like the Foxic team last week, they were arrogant and giving it "Charlie Big Potaters." However, unlike Foxic, and all credit to them, DTK shone in this battle.  All credit to Overdozer too.  Whilst their robot was rubbish, they were good fun.  

Big Nipper Vs TR2 Vs Arte Vs Supernova

So the three returning robots/teams here are Big Nipper, Arte and Supernova.  Big Nipper with an interchangeable spinning disc/crushing/lifting claws, competed in S7 with little success, but has since won competitions outside of Robot Wars.  Supernova was runner-up in the third world championships an Arte, whilst a new machine, was captained by the veteran Ian Watts of the old Bigger Brother team.  Supernova had a horizontal flywheel and Arte a pneumatic flipper.  TR2, a family team from Gateshead also had a pneumatic flipper and an axe protecting the rear of their machine.

Going into the battle, Arte confessed antenna problems, which Supernova soon took advantage of.  Just one blow from, Supernova's disc ended Arte's dreams.  In the old wars, the problem with Supernova was that it's too powerful for its own good.  Whenever, its spinning disc hits another robot, both machines fly out of control.  This is exactly what happened in this fight.  After Supernova took out Arte and traded blows with Big Nipper, it then took on TR2.  But the power of their own disc sent Supernova spiralling into the pit.  After starting as early favourites, they bowed out to TR2 and Big Nipper.

Head to Heads

DTK Vs King B Remix

The first of the head-to-heads was dominated by DTK.  They took full advantage of King B Remix's high ground clearance flipping them all over the place.  King B Remix eventually ended up on the side of the arena, but not for long as Matilda soon flicked them out with her tusks.  DTK won this fight.

TR2 vs King B Remix

In TR2's first battle, we saw little of it, as their pneumatics system failed.  However, they came into their own here.  Again King B Remix was tossed around the arena before eventually being immobilised.  An early win for TR2.

TR2 vs Big Nipper

TR2 continued going strong in their fight with Big Nipper who had changed their weapon back to their crushing jaws.  However, their crushing jaws didn't stop them from being sent into orbit multiple times.  They ended the battle by taking a suicide run into the pit of oblivion.

DTK vs TR2

The battle of the flipper.  A veteran robot against the new kids on the block.  For those who thought DTK would storm it, you'd be wrong.  TR2 continued to dominate by flipping DTK until their pneumatics system failed and they were unable to self-right.  So other than excellent driving and use of their flipper, how did TR2 take out DTK, who in their hay-day trashed and bashed previous champion Chaos 2.  The answer is that TR2 was able to get under DTK much more and use their flipper offensively, whilst DTK used their flipper defensively.  Three wins to the very impressive TR2.

King B Remix vs Big Nipper

This fight was King B Remix's last chance to stay in the competition.  Initially they were on top, pushing Big Nipper around the arena, but Big Nipper, who had changed back to their vertical disc, managed to wallop them a few times.  This led to King B's removable link (essentially a kill-switch) falling out rendering them immobile.

DTK Vs Big Nipper

For their next battle, Big Nipper kept on their spinning disc.  However, this did little good against DTK's powerful flipper, which sent them flying around the arena.  But they were unable to finish them off and in the dying seconds of the fight, Big Nipper ended up on top by tearing off DTK's flipper.  But they still lost the fight on a judge's decision.

DTK vs TR2

The heat final was a rematch between DTK and TR2.  TR2 once again took advantage of DTK's high ground clearance and flipped them around the arena.  DTK, whilst getting one or two flips in, just lacked the same power.  They were out despite a valiant run.

However, this meant that TR2 was through to the grand final undefeated.  Whilst aiming all of their battles, they also won their heat and I'm rooting for them in the final.    They're a good robot with a wonderfully close knit family of engineer dad Clive Brown, driver son Alex Brown and tea-maker mum Wendy Brown.  Alex was rendered bashful and embarrassed as Clive beamed about his son's driving skills.  It was great to see this kind of love and affection.

Overall, another good episode.  Whilst I think Angela Scanlon is pretty generic, I'm warming to Dara O'Briain.  Although, I never disliked him, I didn't think anyone could ever live up to Craig Charles.  But Dara O'Briain, as he always is, is witty and funny, especially in the post-match interviews where he was teasing teams for building robots made of wood *cough cough* Overdozer.  And best of all, he isn't Jeremy Clarkson.