Robot Wars Returns - Sunday 8pm BBC2

[Plissken]

RW has always had a bit more of a "bloke in a shed" ethos though - that might be to do with it being on the BBC.  I'm pretty sure the winner of series 2 had sponsorship that might have been covered up.  RS Electronics.

 

There was some dark satisfaction this week with that bloke spending a fortune (£25k!), over-engineering his robot and not actually being able to fix it in time.

[Mentazm]

I never watch this live. I catch up on iPlayer and fast forward to the battles. I occasionally watch the contestants back stories. It really should be a half hour show. There were two really good fights, but jellyfish shouldn't have been allowed to enter.

[K]

11 hours ago, beenabadbunny said:

I do still love Robot Wars but I wonder how much of that is nostalgia for my childhood, to be honest. I really do think that Battlebots is better in every significant way. 

 

Main thing for me is that the Battlebots rules stipulate that every machine must have at least one offensive weapon, and it must be deemed by the BB judges to be capable of causing significant damage. 

 

Means every match is far more exciting. You don't end up with crap like Jellyfish - a "clamp bot" whose whole game plan is to grab hold of enemy machines and drive them into the pit (which is another RW fixture that I have no love for). 

 

I suspect they're a bit stymied by the teams that are available. I would be surprised if they're turning down viable, capable robots in favour of stuff like Jellyfish; they probably have to make do with what they can get.

[wev]

RW has always had a bit more of a "bloke in a shed" ethos though - that might be to do with it being on the BBC.  I'm pretty sure the winner of series 2 had sponsorship that might have been covered up.  RS Electronics.
 
There was some dark satisfaction this week with that bloke spending a fortune (£25k!), over-engineering his robot and not actually being able to fix it in time.

I was so happy they had to withdraw, especially with Jellyfish (as bad as that bot was) got to replace them. The moment they said "if we're eliminated it'll be down to our mistake" and then aftershock buckles their flipper was so sweet

[K]

Tonight's episode was extremely low-octane, apart from the bit where a middle aged man got beaten by a team of children, and stormed out in a fit of rage. That alone made it the best episode of Robot Wars I've ever seen, it was absolutely astonishing. They interviewed him afterwards, and he was so angry and bitter that he could barely speak. Just incredible stuff. 

[wev]

Not sure why the PP3D guy won't turn the power of his spinner down a bit, both last season and this season the power of the thing has been it's downfall

[jonathanhoey]

35 minutes ago, K said:

Tonight's episode was extremely low-octane, apart from the bit where a middle aged man got beaten by a team of children, and stormed out in a fit of rage. That alone made it the best episode of Robot Wars I've ever seen, it was absolutely astonishing. They interviewed him afterwards, and he was so angry and bitter that he could barely speak. Just incredible stuff. 

 

The children got everything given to them throughout the whole episode. I'm not at all surprised he was cross. 

[K]

12 minutes ago, beenabadbunny said:

 

The children got everything given to them throughout the whole episode. I'm not at all surprised he was cross. 

 

He was probably disappointed, but should maybe have resisted rage-quitting and giving an embittered speech to camera about how his idiot teammates ruined it for him in his pitched battle against some children, given that said children managed to take their subsequent loss in their stride, and displayed considerably more maturity and good sportsmanship than he did despite him probably being older than all of them put together. 

[jonathanhoey]

Oh absolutely. Walking off set in a huff mid-interview is something you might expect from a novice, not from an eighteen-year veteran. 

[Uncle Mike]

His fucking robot's shit anyway.

 

Whilst I didn't understand some of the judging decisions in that episode (the kid's team, I think, won two fights on questionable decisions?) the idea that you'd cry and piss and whinge and (presumably) damage your relationship with three of your longstanding friends over a silly radio controlled battle against children just astonished me.

 

What a loser.

[Eighthours]

Him walking off appears to be going viral. Good.

[Mentazm]

That was fucking hilarious. His team got way too cocky, and as usual when that happens in RW, they lost. Cherub was much more aggressive in the fight, even although it is shit, so they won fair and square. However they did not win the previous fight, the judges fucked up.

[Ste_S]

Didn't really matter in the end, Eruption was by far the best and deserved to go through. Showed what's possible when an excellent driver is in charge of a powerful flipper.

[merman]

21 hours ago, wev said:

Not sure why the PP3D guy won't turn the power of his spinner down a bit, both last season and this season the power of the thing has been it's downfall

 

Totally agree with you here. 

 

To be fair to the guy from the Behemoth team, I think he was angrier with his team's decision than being beaten.

But then the team have a long history of "almost making it then snatching defeat from the jaws of victory".

 

Bizarre how it ended up with two restarted fights AND a judge's decision on a melee fight in the same heat.

 

[Nathan Wind]

Cherub was a tough little thing, to be fair.  After it got propelled through the arena shield at a million miles per hour and squashed under the flipper I was sure it'd be a goner.  If they stick a decent weapon on it, it could do well.  The Behemoth guys were stupid to stick a weapon they'd never used before on the machine in a crucial match.  The dude storming off and having a massive nerd-rage was absolute gold!

[JohnC]

The retractable bits on the Expulsion spinner seems like an unnecessary twist with potential to go wrong.

[wev]

Really not surprised the one made at a school was crap, likewise the one from Bedfordshire

[JohnC]

The pit cover kind of ruined that match. Nice turnabout at the end though.

[merman]

Getting bored with spinners now.

[JohnC]

At least they do something. Did the weapon on Heavy Metal do anything at all? Crushers seem to do very little too.

[T Pot]

On 3/12/2017 at 20:02, K said:

Tonight's episode was extremely low-octane, apart from the bit where a middle aged man got beaten by a team of children, and stormed out in a fit of rage. That alone made it the best episode of Robot Wars I've ever seen, it was absolutely astonishing. They interviewed him afterwards, and he was so angry and bitter that he could barely speak. Just incredible stuff. 

 

Yeah. We were at the filming. It was actually different to what happened. When he jammed the kids robot under the flipper he was declared the winner. Then there was about a 2 hour wait while they decided what to do, the whole time a shitty comedian rocked about the place taking the piss out of the bloke for struggling against a bunch of kids.

 

When the crew decided to restart the fight the entire crowd were booing to fuck. Edited out obviously.

 

It's a shame really, as I don't think the kids should have got through anyway, they were the weaker bot in the fight that went to vote beforehand, they got the sympathy vote.

[Pete]

That old middle aged geek storming off was a joy to behold. I really like robot wars, the characters and crap robots give it soul and obviously the nostalgia factor for me is big.

[Mike1812]

I think Battlebots has ruined this for me. It just seems a bit dull in comparison. 

[Ste_S]

4 hours ago, GMass said:

Its utter pap and makes robots fighting each other deathly dull.

 

The most recent episode was certainly that. Either Robots falling apart by themselves, or Robots not really doing anything.

I suppose they're limited by the rules and the Robots that enter, I'd imagine it takes a chunk of time and money to build one ?

[Gotters]

1 hour ago, Mike1812 said:

I think Battlebots has ruined this for me. It just seems a bit dull in comparison. 

 

absolutely this

 

Battlebots just was so much more fun and interesting to watch, the arena was way better too - this week on Robot Wars competitors were seemingly getting caught on a badly fitting trap door in the arena.

 

The ruleset seems to also encourage a lack of diverse entries - oh look another flipper, another indestructible box that will just out survive the others and like Floyd Mayweather keep getting by on points.

 

Whole thing is very tedious and needs a shot of excitement, start by getting rid of Dara O'Brien 

[Mentazm]

The reason I love Robot Wars more than battlebots is BECAUSE it's really naff. Boxes on wheels cobbled together by a kid or a binman in a garage. It's less interesting when it's a team of engineers who've done it all with precision. Three of Sundays fights were ruined by the arena flipper not being flush to the floor. They weren't fair fights, although Thor getting flipped was good.

[Gotters]

Battlebots is back on now too - they only show live in SD but goes up on demand in HD

 

I missed ep1 but ep 2&3 on demand now on sky - ep 2 has 4 fantastic fights, every one better than anything in robot wars this series (and most of last)

[GoblinUK]

The problem with Battlebots is all the guff. Isn't it 4 matches per episode? Could easily be 6. 

[merman]

This week was dominated by spinners, and while the carnage of flying pieces was good it was followed by interminable footage of "can we put it together again in time?" And that includes the spinners, which are just too powerful for their own good.

[Gotters]

There was about 3 minutes (being generous) of good stuff in that latest episode and the rest as you say was tedious 'will we fix it in the 2h' filler.

 

The robots were all way too powerful for their build quality so couldn't survive or operate for multiple battles, which made a very dull programme.