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Have any of the other brits being following the revived series?

It took me a while to get into it but by the end of the episode I'm quite involved. There was lot of fun this week with the two flipping robots and luckily the one with the arsehole team captain lost in the end.

The robots I actually recognise from the old run seem to lose early. (looking at you, Razor) but the new ones are quite cool. Was sad last week when Thor suddenly failed in the heat final.

Is this on American TV by any chance? I loved Robot Wars when it was shown on TLC, back in the long-forgotten days when TLC showed anything of substance.

Not a clue I'm afraid. The wikipedia page doesnt say but they might put it on BBC America I guess.

Heh, yes, there was lots of action this week. Actually, I was half expecting one of those finalists, both powerful flippers, to have a go at one of the House Robots. Didn't that happen a time or two way back during the original run?

Battlebots is on ABC thursdays. I think they're getting down to the wire, but you can probably catch up online or on ABC's app.

I'm watching. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. I like it but I don't always like the camera work (I want to see the robots fighting, not constantly being interrupted by filming how the contestants hold their controller during the game). I also don't understand the crowds fascination with "In the pit" aka the most boring way to end a match.

SpottedKitty wrote:Heh, yes, there was lots of action this week. Actually, I was half expecting one of those finalists, both powerful flippers, to have a go at one of the House Robots. Didn't that happen a time or two way back during the original run?

I recall one special where the winners from previous fights went up against the house bots.

@Me2005 I plan to make some time to watch Battlebots. Thanks.

@CrazedWraith Thanks. I'll keep looking out for it.

I got to say that the vast majority of the robots are extremely well designed compared with what I remember from the first seasons. But in doing so the show also lost a bit of the charm the early seasons. Far less hilariously one sided battles or fun/mad designs like Granny's Revenge so far.

SpottedKitty wrote:Heh, yes, there was lots of action this week. Actually, I was half expecting one of those finalists, both powerful flippers, to have a go at one of the House Robots. Didn't that happen a time or two way back during the original run?

Yes on occasion the winners will have a go at the House Bots. Perhaps the most infamous occassion was when Razor beat their opponent then went after Matilda and wrecked it. IIRC the producers were not happy because Razor actually caused quite a bit of damage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEvV-BpXmQ

wautd wrote:I like it but I don't always like the camera work (I want to see the robots fighting, not constantly being interrupted by filming how the contestants hold their controller during the game).

Very this. There were way too many times in this week's programme where I was almost to the point of shouting at the TV to cut back to the action.

There have been a couple of crazy ones. Nuts did well in the first episode. A spinner thing with added microbots! And the latest episode had one with a casing made out of wood. Alas no-one thought to shove it on the flame grill.

The roboteers that have been building their robots for decades though are obviously going to be a lot more efficient.

Tribble wrote:

SpottedKitty wrote:Heh, yes, there was lots of action this week. Actually, I was half expecting one of those finalists, both powerful flippers, to have a go at one of the House Robots. Didn't that happen a time or two way back during the original run?

Yes on occasion the winners will have a go at the House Bots. Perhaps the most infamous occassion was when Razor beat their opponent then went after Matilda and wrecked it. IIRC the producers were not happy because Razor actually caused quite a bit of damage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEvV-BpXmQ

Razor mauled Matilda. More than it did Onslaught. Daaaamn.

wautd wrote: Far less hilariously one sided battles

I remember how hypnodisc fared in a later match: It's spinner couldn't damage the opponent, so the opponent flipped it out of the arena.

BBC have said so far they've only brought back four of the house robots. Hopefully for the next series they'll at least include Sergeant Bash, if for no other reason than that ironically, flamethrowers are cool!

And Growler was pretty awesome too

Speaking of House Robots. They took a battering this week. Apollo flipped all of them aside from Sir Killalot. The Judges say they don't score more for that. But it does create a seriously good impression of their aggression if nothing else.

Crazedwraith wrote:Speaking of House Robots. They took a battering this week. Apollo flipped all of them aside from Sir Killalot. The Judges say they don't score more for that. But it does create a seriously good impression of their aggression if nothing else.

I reckon they should be awarded extra points for each one they take out

As a presenter though, Dara Ó Briain is just awful. He's about as bad as Chris Evans was on Top Gear

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:As a presenter though, Dara Ó Briain is just awful. He's about as bad as Chris Evans was on Top Gear

He can do better; I've seen him on various science shows like Stargazing Live and various Sky At Night specials. A bigger problem is the camera work — I'm getting tired of all the extreme wide-angle shots of the whole arena and half of the crowd, and reaction shots of the teams (right in the middle of a bout), when what I want are close-ups of the actual action.

SpottedKitty wrote:

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:As a presenter though, Dara Ó Briain is just awful. He's about as bad as Chris Evans was on Top Gear

He can do better; I've seen him on various science shows like Stargazing Live and various Sky At Night specials. A bigger problem is the camera work — I'm getting tired of all the extreme wide-angle shots of the whole arena and half of the crowd, and reaction shots of the teams (right in the middle of a bout), when what I want are close-ups of the actual action.

It doesn't help that the safety regs don't seem properly implemented- a few robots have ground to a halt because the removable link that they all have has become dislodged mid-battle. Hopefully as things progress these failures will become less common.

I noticed the robot Gabriel in the newest episode was in effect an inferior version of Stinger, its weapon was both inaccurate and so weak all it did was scratch the paint.

EnterpriseSovereign wrote: It doesn't help that the safety regs don't seem properly implemented- a few robots have ground to a halt because the removable link that they all have has become dislodged mid-battle. Hopefully as things progress these failures will become less common.

I noticed the robot Gabriel in the newest episode was in effect an inferior version of Stinger, its weapon was both inaccurate and so weak all it did was scratch the paint.

It was bizarrely survivable though. Only the spinners managed to get grips with it. But they did seem to benefit more from the opponent's robots failing than them having any effect.

The winner Pulsar was a good robot but also seem to benefit a lot from the judge's decisions. I certainly don't remember it doing much more in the group. Thermidor was more effective and aggressive getting flips in.

I hope Thor gets picked as the runner up wild card for the final. It was really strong throughout it's episode.

I think that was a great finale, both equally deserving of victoly

Crazedwraith wrote:

EnterpriseSovereign wrote: It doesn't help that the safety regs don't seem properly implemented- a few robots have ground to a halt because the removable link that they all have has become dislodged mid-battle. Hopefully as things progress these failures will become less common.

I noticed the robot Gabriel in the newest episode was in effect an inferior version of Stinger, its weapon was both inaccurate and so weak all it did was scratch the paint.

It was bizarrely survivable though. Only the spinners managed to get grips with it. But they did seem to benefit more from the opponent's robots failing than them having any effect.

The winner Pulsar was a good robot but also seem to benefit a lot from the judge's decisions. I certainly don't remember it doing much more in the group. Thermidor was more effective and aggressive getting flips in.

I hope Thor gets picked as the runner up wild card for the final. It was really strong throughout it's episode.

You called it- though Thor wasn't anywhere near as effective this time round.

Last fight was pretty cool, both robots lost the use of their weapons. Had Apollo been flipped at the end I'm not sure they would have had the means to self-right.

An ongoing issue with the whole tournament has been reliability- whether it was Pulsar's intermittent loss of drive or Thor's Axe/Hammer failing to hit its mark. Even Apollo was one of the Robots whose link was dislodged from an impact that otherwise did minimal damage- the number of such failures suggests some modifications are needed to prevent this type of thing from happening again in the future.

Come to think of it, Carbide's design was reminiscent of fluffy, with the invertible chassis and spinning bar-type weapon. IIRC Fluffy's Achilles Heel was reliability, it ground to a halt when it broke off Pussycat's weapon.

Good finale. I hoped that Carbide would win (he did the most damage troughout and I don't like flippers) but Apolla was a worthy winner.