Robot Wars Episode One Review

I know it's been over a month since my last post and I apologise.  I have been kept very busy by the writing of my novel of which I have just hit twenty-five thousand words.  But as Robot Wars is one of my favourite television shows ever, I just had to review the first episode of the rebooted season.

If you've had the misfortune of knowing me for the last twelve years, then you know I love Robot Wars.  I've watched it countless times on Youtube and have been a vocal advocate for bringing it back, to the extent that I signed numerous petitions and had many people tell me to shut the hell up.  So you can imagine how vindicated I felt when I saw it would be returning July 24th 2016 at 8pm.

So was it as good as the original series which was cancelled in 2004.  No.  Not in the slightest.  But I felt it was a good effort in its own right.

From the off, it was obvious that this series would be smaller than its predecessor, which makes sense as the BBC was relaunching a show that had been off the air for twelve years.  The arena was smaller, the pit was shallower and the floor flipper had lost a lot of power.  Although they did bring back the house robots, they had retired Sgt Bash, Refbot, My Psycho, Growler and Cassius Chrome.

However, the biggest change were the new presenters.  Although Jonathan Pearce was quite rightfully returning as commentator, Angela Scanlon had replaced Jayne Middlemiss as pit reporter and Craig Charles had been replaced by Dara O'Briain.  Craig Charles' relentless enthusiasm was what made the old Robot Wars so watchable and the new series definitely suffered without him.  This wasn't to say that Dara O'Briain wasn't any good, but Craig Charles left some very big shoes to fill.

At times there was also too much talking which slowed up a show about metal mayhem.  True the same can be said of the old series, but I think that the new series really overdid this.  I say cut some of the talking and bring back the Pinball tournament or the Gauntlet.

I've seen other people criticise the show for its lack of music during battles, which I would agree with.  The same level of tension and enjoyment just wasn't there.

At times it felt like an episode of Top Gear, which is ironic for two reasons: firstly Robot Wars had taken over Top Gear's old slot on BBC Two and Jeremy Clarkson presented the first season of the original series.

LET THE WARS BEGIN

Another change was the structure of the competition.  Instead of entirely having straight knockout fights, there were two four-way melees.  The two winners of each melee would then fight each other in a one-on-one Round Robin system.  The robot with most points would then go straight through to the grand final.  Gone were the semi-finals of old.

The first four-way melee saw the return of two Robot Wars veterans: Razor and Terrorhurtz.  I was surprised to see Razor back.  After winning pretty much everything in the original series, they retired after a number of controversial battles against Tornado.

Meanwhile whilst Terrorhurtz, armed with a double-bladed axe, had come 4th in Robot Wars series 6, they achieved greater success in the years following the televised broadcasts having won two separate UK championships.

Their opponents were the massive underdogs Nuts and Kill-E-Crank-E.  Kill-E-Crank-E had pedigree as it was manned by one of the former members of the Pussycat team who placed second in Robot Wars Four.  They were armed with a vertical spinning disc.  Nuts was more of an...interesting...robot.  It was obvious that they were in it for the laughs.  The team was bonkers and reminded me of the Irish Diotoir team who always dressed their robot in polkadot fur, no matter how many times it caught fire.  Whilst they never achieved great success, they were fun to have around.  The same could be said for Nuts whose main weapon was a chain flail attached to a steel chassis designed to cause maximum damage when the robot spun in a circle.  The main body of Nuts also housed two smaller clusterbots which did little other than annoy and pester.

Now considering Razor's pedigree and its nine-tone hydraulic crushing beak, I think a lot of people expected them to annihilate the competition.  This was why it was such a shock went they inadvertently drove themselves into the pit whilst pitting Kill-E-Crank-E.  Personally I think they came back for one last swansong, not because they expected to do well.


The other four-way melee consisted of Robo-veterans Behemoth, newbies Carbide, the General and Bonk who was controlled by Adam Emmett who created the series 7 robot Mute who crashed out in the semi-finals.  Behemoth was armed with a lifting scoop, Carbide a wicked horizontal spinning hammer and the General a vertical spinning disc and Bonk an axe.

Now the stripy black and yellow Behemoth always underperformed on the original Robot Wars, so I wasn't expecting much.  However, they proved me wrong when they effortlessly flipped over and immobilised the lacklustre Bonk.  Far more impressive was Carbide who punished the General for having exposed tires by sending them flying across the arena.  Carbide's awesome destructive power reminded of Hypno-Disc.  Behemoth and Carbide convincingly won this heat.

However, Carbide suffered technical damage to their motor, which led to them losing very quickly to Terrorhurtz in their first knockout battle.

The much more entertaining was against Behemoth and Nuts.  Nuts were far more impressive with their chain flail ripping chunks out of Behemoth, but Behemoth was also on top form flipping Nuts' cluster bots around the arena.  It was flipping fantastic and great fun to watch.  Even though Nuts did well to take it to a judge's decision, Behemoth won in the end.

Next up was Terrorhutz vs Behemoth which Behemoth won easily after Terrorhurtz suffered from transmitter problems leading to them being shunted around the arena.

More spectacular was Carbide's next battle against Nuts.  Here we saw the power of Carbide's 2500 rpm spinning hammer, as it decimated Nuts.  The sparks flew as every collision between the two robots leading to one of them flying away.  There was very little left of Nuts by the end.  Its chassis and chain fail had been reduced to shrapnel and one of its exposed tires was sent into orbit after an assault by Carbide who won this round convincingly.

Next up was Carbide vs Behemoth and Carbide did to Behemoth what they did to Nuts.  They destroyed it.  Chunks were torn from Behemoth's scoop, which was left a buckled mess.  Poor driving led to them reversing into the house robot Matilda's flywheel didn't help either.  Behemoth was pitted and Carbide was through to the heat final.  In the post-match interview, Dara questioned the Carbide team about their so-called technical issues, but I think they were just lulling the other teams into a false sense of security.  "Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly," as Jonathan Pearce would  say.

The last battle before the heat final was between Terrorhurtz and Nuts.  Although it seemed doubtful that Nuts would make the fight, due to how much damage they sustained, they were able to repair their robot in time thanks to the Carbide team helping out.  It was great to see the old Robot Wars Team spirit.  However, this spirit wasn't enough to stop Nuts from taking a battering from Terrorhurtz. All credit to the Nuts' team, they put up a good fight and were great entertainment, but their Robot Wars dream came to an end when they lost their final battle.  As did Terrorhurtz' who despite beating Nuts, scored less points than Behemoth in the Round Robin leading to them missing out on a  spot in the heat final.

For the heat final, it was obvious that Behemoth hadn't fully recovered from their previous pummelling against Carbide.  A few good whacks from their spinning hammer led to them losing drive on one side and having even more chunks ripped from their machine.  In the end they committed suicide by reversing into the pit, which was probably the smart decision.  Carbide was through to the grand final and is one to watch I think.

So it is obvious that like its predecessor, this new incarnation doesn't take itself too seriously.  There were some funny moments and some truly thrilling moments in the form of Carbide, but it was missing Craig Charles.  Please BBC come to your senses and invite him back.  Dara O'Briain is many things, but Craig Charles.  He is not.