Robot Wars

Synopsis

In each heat, six robots knock several different colours of engine oil out of each other in order to find a winner to go forward to the finals.

To do this, two robots are eliminated in the first two rounds and the other three are knocked out individually, leaving one left who is the winner.

Gauntlet

Round One sees the robots navigating a maze in the fastest time or - if they didn't complete the course - the furthest distance. There was a three-way choice of routes. Typically, one route would test speed, one manoeuvrability and the others would lead to a rumble with one of the House Robots. Who they, I hear you ask? Well, they included:

Dead Metal - perhaps the weakest, this was a giant scorpion. With pneumatic pincers!

Shunt - literally, a robot that shunts things. And a weedy axe.

Matilda - the one with personality, a robot dinosaur with attitude and a chain saw tail.

Sergeant Bash - had a flamethrower, handy for opponents of the cloth-covered variety.

Sir Killalot - he meant business, able to pick up robots in one hand and then crush them with his pincers using the other.

The Sentinel - a robot that sucked up power whenever it looked at you, although sadly it wasn't actually that tough because it was just a giant pneumatic arm which would generally just push the robot out of the way. Every single time.

The idea of the Gauntlet was basically to get as far down the 15 metre course as possible, intact, within the time allowed, while avoiding the House Robots (which were controlled by TV staff). Of the six robots, the one that travelled the least distance was out. On at least one occasion, a robot struggled even to navigate the starting turntable and managed to actually post a negative score for travelling backwards!

In between rounds we'd visit the pits to see how the teams were feeling and getting on. Whilst Jeremy or Craig would be larging it out the front, these bits were done with Philippa.

Trial

Mercifully, quite a lot of thought went into this round, for unlike the rest of the show, it was usually different every week and therefore provided a lot of the interest. Each different task would aim to test out a particular skill of a robot, however it was pure luck as to what department would be tested.

Sometimes it would be speed and manoeuvrability, such as racing round a track, through a maze, robot football or the legendary Pinball game (which started life as a trial and was used on later series as a mini-competition to break up the action). Other weeks it would be a test of pure power such as robot Sumo. It was a different game every week which livened proceedings no end.

Arena

Now it was time to rumble. The four left pair up for a knockout contest. The winner of each bout went through to the final, and the winner of the programme final went through to the Grand Final at the end of the series.

It's these fights that make the main core of the show. Using the weapons of the robot, they would have to outclass the other robot and beat them up. However, it wouldn't normally come down to that. Around the playfield were the House Robots and if a robot went into the Perimeter Patrol Zone (or "PPZ") all hell would break loose because the House Robots would start getting involved. This is always a good bit because the House Robots actually do some damage as opposed to the robots that the players themselves build, which generally don't actually do much damage at all apart from wave around a spike in a mincing fashion.

And that's what lets the programme down a bit, the fact that the majority of the damage isn't done by the players' robots themselves, it's down to the House Robots.

If the bout isn't finished within a couple of minutes it stops and the judges decide the outcome on the ill-defined criteria of "style, control, damage and aggression". Boring! What's more, this really affected the Grand Final of the first series where six robots fought it out until one was left standing. Or at least it should have been like that. What actually happened was that two were left when time ran out. WHAT! It's the Grand Final of a war! It really should have gone down to the wire but didn't and ruined it.

Luckily they rectified it for the extended 15 episode second series. The twelve robots that won their qualifiers advanced to the newly added semi-finals where the six qualifiers in each semi would have to go through the whole ordeal of the Gauntlet and the Trial again, the four robots that survived both rounds a second time would then go through to the Arena round again, but this time, there would be two bouts instead of three where the winner from each bout are advanced to the Grand Final where four remain. The Grand Final is just action all the way, no Gauntlets or Trials to worry about anymore, it's just fight, fight, fight until there is only two left to battle for the title.

This show regularly pulled in up to six million viewers for BBC Two every Friday night after a double bill of The Simpsons and rightly so because it's original and good, even if it doesn't have the bite of American Robot Wars Championships. Purists would argue that the original series with Smugmeister-in-Chief Jeremy Clarkson hosting was wittier than the loud-n-proud approach of Craig Charles, but the ratings didn't suffer for it.

But then came series three...

1999 saw a change in the proceedings. The show was increased to 45 minutes and the show was also shown not once, not twice, not even four times but THREE times over the space of three days. Twice on the same evening - that's some going! The format changed too, out go the qualifying rounds and in comes a complete knockout tourney with sixteen heats, two semis and a grand final. Each heat began with eight robots in the first round, four survive for the second round and the third round has the two remaining survivors go at it at each other until we end with just one as the victor for that heat. After all the heats, the semis would begin. It's basically the same format as the heats, but with only two rounds of battles instead of three. The first round is basically the same, but for the second round, the robot that won their bout goes through to the grand final so four from each semi having eight heat winners and then after four have been eliminated, the remaining four will decide which two robots are victorious enough to go through to the Grand Final where the four survivors remain. Also, once each episode a robot would play Pinball or Football in an ongoing tournament throughout the series.

The new style works well in that we concentrate on the hacking and slashing of the robots, but it still doesn't hide the fact that present regulations mean the robots (save for the excellent house ones) can't do anything very exciting other than a) flip someone over or b) turn themselves the right way up again. Instead, the usual rigmarole of pushing the other robot into the pit or into the house robots still applies. We want guns and good saws and dynamite and stuff! Still, everything looked better this year and the rules were changed to allow robots to wield fluffy cushions. Probably.

In the year 2000

Yup, another year, another series and yet another repeat viewing for those of us that can't catch it at it's normal Friday evening timeslot. This time it was on BBC Choice, so no one watched it anyway but there you go. In fact, the popularity being at its peak by this time, we wouldn't have been too surprised if one of the seven channels Greg Dyke was planning for the BBC's future was 'BBC Robot Wars,' with four showings of the show in the space of three days it was certainly something to think about, wasn't it?

What else was new this year? In Round One, three robots go head to head in a pitched battle with the battle finishing as soon as one of the robots is immobilised. Round Two will draw the four remaining robots against each other, facing off in twos and the final is, well, the final.

New robot this year too, and who's the bastard in the black? Why, it is none other than Refbot. He doesn't fight, he's just the Ref and he provides some of the pictures. Which is kind of nice.

Because Flip Forrester is preggers, we get virtual unknown (previous experience - .tv) Julia Reed to stand in.

In-between rounds the Pinball Warrior challenge returns with our Pinball Wizards using their supple wrists to control their robots to crash into some targets. There's also a Random Robot Sumo Fight where various robots try and stay in the ring with Shunt in an event called Sumo Basho (quite witty, actually, as a Basho is a bout in Sumo wrestling as well as being a play on a synonym for fighting).

Later years

In a surprising turn of events, the last few series with the Beeb premiered on the digital channel BBC Choice starting with its spin-off series Robot Wars Extreme. Remember the Attitude era from those WWE shows? You know, back when it was actually good? Robot Wars Extreme is basically that but with robots instead of wrestlers. Each episode contained five matches, all in various competition categories with the fifth and final match labelling as a "main event". Stripped across the BBC Choice schedules Monday to Friday for three weeks, it was eventually repeated on BBC Two in the old Friday night slot. While ratings were high for the first few weeks, viewers then suddenly realised that this was not an ordinary competition as the first four series were. For that, ratings steadily declined.

After the misstep of the WWE inspired "Extreme" series, it was back to basics for the fifth series. The knockout format was the same as the third series, but now with twelve heats instead of sixteen. The semis had three bouts for the first round and the three robots that lost their bouts in the first round would have to go through a "Losers Melee" second chance round to win their place back for the second round. And you can probably guess what happens next after that.

The sixth series started a few months after the fifth. This time, the first round in the heats were very similar to the fourth series' first round in the heats, but this time there were FOUR robots battling it out and the two that survive go through to the second round and you can probably tell what the heat format for the rest of each episode is going to be. Arguably, both Series 5 and 6 had some of the best bouts from the show's run, especially in the Semis and Grand Finals, but sadly at this point, an average of 1.2 million were still watching the show via its terrestrial premiere run on BBC Two.

To save whatever steam the show had left, they thought why not give Robot Wars Extreme another go, but this time, it was less WWE inspired with various competitions shown and more focused on just one competition for one or two episodes and then another competition for the next few episodes. This felt like a better flow for the spin-off's second outing, but after this run, the BBC decided in March 2003 that they were dropping the show.

Somewhat bizarrely, in the same month that the BBC dropped Robot Wars, Channel 5 poached the programme for a 22 episode run filled with a 19 episode knockout competition and three specials. The heat format from the sixth series was retained, but the semis was reverted back to the third and fourth series format. The side events returned for this series after being absent for Series 5 and 6 where there were bouts for weight classes and qualifying rounds for the World Championship at the end of the series. The seventh series originally debuted in a new time slot of 7pm on Sundays, but after the first episode debuted with a million viewers and the second with 1.1 million, it quickly declined to 800,000 for the third episode. The remainder of the series from the sixth episode onwards moved to a Saturday night slot at 8pm, and it promptly disappeared into the crusher without much of a fuss.

Oh, and you can read a book. You can ride a horse.
But Craig Charles still insisted on doing crap poetry,
At the end of Robot Wars.
Goodnight.

Revival

The BBC revived the show again in 2016 with Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon as hosts with Jonathan Pearce returning as commentator.

This time, with a condensed six-episode run, the heats started with the first round being exactly the same as Series 6 and 7 where four robots in each bout competed and the two that survived that bout went through to a mini league second round called "Round Robin" where the four survivors faced their three opponents that qualified from the first round and they have to score points by either knockout for three points or a judges decision for two and the top two that scored the most amount of points went through to the final round and then the winner of that heat went through to the Grand Final.

So, we have a six-episode run, the first five have all been heats, so will the last episode be the same as the very first series where we have our sixth heat winner to have a six-robot Grand Final battle? Nope, we don't get that, instead it's just a Grand Final the same as the heats, but they're missing one robot, so the judges get to pick which one of the five runners-up from the heat final battles at the end of the show is the most deserving. EXCUSE ME??? Why couldn't they have the five runners-up battle it out for that one remaining place?

The revival was an absolute hit for the BBC, airing in the 8pm slot on Sundays, which was previously called the Top Gear slot and another series of six episodes was commissioned, but this time an hour early at 7pm and...it's the exact same format as the previous series. OH COME ON!!! You had all this time to rework the format and you couldn't even be bothered. Plus, it happened on numerous occasions that the arena itself was given a battering and the producers had to stop the match entirely to fix the arena. Oh, and remember when flipper robots were all the hype in the original run to the point where in the seventh series we've lost count on how many robots with flippers took part? Well, thanks to Carbide, robot spinners were now the new hot thing for robots are other robots didn't stand a chance against them to the point where a plastic robot in the round robin had to retire and they had to get someone who was eliminated from that first round battle to replace them. Unsurprisingly, the ratings declined...again.

However, they did another series only a few months later, again with six episodes, but this time the first round in the heats was reverted to the fourth series where three robots battle each other, but only one goes through to the second round, which means that the round robin mini-league score has been removed. YAY! Instead, the two robots that lost in that bout go through a redemption round and the winner goes through to the second round and as always, the winner of the second round bout goes through to the heat final and for the two robots that lost their second round bouts, they would then go through to a third place play-off round where the winner of that wins a place in a 10 Robot Rumble in the Grand Final, the heat final is where we have two remaining robots and the winner goes through to the Grand Final while the loser doesn't get eliminated, but gets a complimentary place in a 10 Robot Rumble.

This format works so much better than the round robin format because we not only get to see the losing robots given a second chance to prove themselves worthy, but a ticket to the greatest redemption battle ever, The 10 Robot Rumble, we were so happy they added this element because not only did we complain about the show not having this in the past two series, but we get to see absolute carnage with no time limit. Pure. Bliss. Not only does the new format work, nearly every single battle was a must watch, in fact, we might even call this the best series out of the whole lot. Yes, even the original run. But the sad thing is, the viewing figures didn't recover from the round robin mess

The BBC decided that after three series, they have axed the show again, which is a shame because we could've seen at least one or two more series with this format.

Key moments

The gabbling commentary, by Channel 5 football's Jonathan Pearce, really adds a sense of occasion to the event.

The Hypno-Disc vs. Splinter match from the second semi-final in the fourth series where Splinter's plan of ramming straight into the spinning disc of Hypno-Disc to slow the disc down seemed to have worked...for all of 35 seconds and they were left in splinters from the disc's speed of Hypno-Disc and bits were scattered all of the arena thanks to Sir Killalot spinning Splinter around and throwing them.

Anthony Pritchard storming off over a disagreement with his team in series nine (his team, Behemoth, had elected to fight with an untested weapon).

Catchphrases

"Let the wars begin!" (replaced by "Let battle commence")

"Roboteers, stand by!"

"3...2...1...Activate!"

"Cease!" (which replaced the less catchy "Stop, and deactivate robots")

In the second series, silly phrases were introduced to Craig, such as: "...the man who thought that a kamikaze was a Japanese toilet", or "...the man who thought that a Magnum 44 was the world's most powerful ice cream" From the third series onwards, this was replaced by the much more memorable "...the master of mayhem"

Inventor

Based on a US competition.

Trivia

For the record, and to help avoid confusion, here are the BBC Choice and BBC Two transmission dates for Series 5, 6 and both series of Robot Wars Extreme:

Robot Wars:

	BBC Choice	BBC2
First World Championship special	16 November 2001	28 December 2001
Second World Championship special	14 December 2001	30 December 2001
The Forces special	21 December 2001	3 January 2002
Series 5	6-27 May 2002	24 May to 1 November 2002
Series 6	16 September to 4 October 2002	8 November 2002 to 7 March 2003
UK vs. Germany special	10 January 2003	4 April 2003

Robot Wars Extreme:

	BBC Choice	BBC2
Series 1	8-26 October 2001	26 October 2001 to 8 February 2002
Series 2	13 January to 7 February 2003	9 May to 19 September 2003*

• Towards the end of the second Extreme series' BBC Two repeat, the Robot Wars franchise announced its move across to five. Not wanting to promote a rival, the BBC pulled its repeats. Those who hadn't caught the premiere on BBC Choice in early 2003 had to wait two whole years to see them, when the Sci-Fi Channel bought and broadcast the series in 2005.

The reason for Clarkson's departure was revealed in a 2007 blog post by Tom Gutteridge, the head of Mentorn:

Ten years ago, I very nearly killed Jeremy Clarkson. I’d created a television series called Robot Wars and Jeremy was the first presenter. I knew the robots were dangerous. They had real axes, saws and other weapons of mass destruction and they were given names like “Panic Attack”, ”Razer” (sic!), and “Chaos”. Because members of the public had built them from second hand wheelchair motors and radio-controlled toy cars, they were notoriously unreliable. So, in order to stop stray robots running into the audience, we put up some Perspex screens round the stage. I asked Jeremy to host the first series because his support for motorized metal mayhem was pretty close to the Robot Wars ethos. So he stood high above the carnage on a rostrum, making facetious comments about the little boxes below, which had taken grown men months to build, and less than two minutes to destroy. The first day of shooting went fairly well, despite the fact that a lot of the robots had technical problems and we had to pull them onto the stage with fishing wire. The second morning, just as we were getting into our stride, disaster struck. A robot being driven by a tearful eight year old was being carefully carved into tiny pieces by one of the house robots. Suddenly a circular metal blade (from a robot appropriately called “Dead Metal”) flew into the air at more than 200 miles an hour and embedded itself deep in a solid concrete wall just behind where Jeremy was standing. When we studied the recording in slow motion, we found that the blade, rotating at a more than 6000 rpm, had missed the Clarkson scalp by less than two inches. With only a slight adjustment to the trajectory, the person now being proposed as our country’s leader would have been decapitated. Of course within minutes the entire show had been shut down and it took a week for us to find enough bulletproof Perspex to seal off the auditorium from danger. The rest is history, except that Jeremy wisely decided his life was more valuable than our second series, and went back to abusing Skodas.

Champions

Winners of the "Domestic series"

1998	Roadblock
1998-99	Panic Attack
1999-2000	Chaos 2
2000-01	Chaos 2
Spring 2002	Razer
Autumn 2002	Tornado
2003-04	Typhoon 2
2016	Apollo
Spring 2017	Carbide
Autumn 2017	Eruption

Merchandise

Robot Wars has to be one of the most merchandise-friendly gameshows ever. Here's just a selection:

Robot Wars - The First Great War (video)

Robot Wars - First World Championships (video)

Robot Wars (DVD boxed set)

Robot Wars Official Robot Guidebook (paperback)

Robot Wars Technical Manual (paperback)

Radio-controlled Sir Killalot toy (bric-a-brac)

Web links

Official site

Watch the show on streaming service Mech+: Classic Series, Extreme Series, Revival Series, Miscellaneous

BBC programme page

Robot Wars wiki - a truly comprehensive fan site

Wikipedia entry

TV Tropes discussion

H2G2 write-up

Opening titles from 1998 and 2002 in the BBC Motion Graphics Archive

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