Robot Wars is coming back!

Well presumably the hour can be trimmed to 45 minutes with the removal of such filler for when they eventually flog the episodes to a cable channel or whatever. I'll probably watch in future on iPlayer and just skip it all too.

Also the battles could really do with some background music like the original series, without it they feel weird like I'm watching the rough footage rather than a slickly edited TV show.

This wasn't a slow down - they use the high speed camera as part of the multi-camera "as live" battle edit, so it cuts between 50i from all the other cameras to 25p (frames culled, but running at the right speed) from the high speed camera. After the battle, they then replay some of the stuff from the high speed camera, this time slowed down to 50i.

Maybe they mix live, and there's a limitation on the high speed camera that means it'll out feed 25p out live.



No-one ever does

Anyway, I'll keep watching, it was a bit of fun. 45 minutes would be better, and I had no idea what was going in the last heat, but they managed to work out who won, I suppose. I found the arena battles a bit confusing thanks to the multitude of camera angles and tight camera work, or possibly I just wasn't paying attention.

Don't think so - there were a few DVDs made in later years about some of the household name robots - there were certainly DVDs made on Chaos 2, Razer and Hypnodisc (possibly others too?) and the links for these were filmed in the contestants' houses and garages - perhaps you're thinking of those?


I quite liked the VTs, but they could be more engineering-y, perhaps. I don't think they're human-interest in the X-Factor style per se, it's more the fact that they are demonstrating the engineering side to the robots. One of the criticisms thrown at the end of the previous run was that after Series 4 (the first Robot Wars Extreme series onwards) it became far too hyped-up WWE style whereas previously, Craig Charles was a bit more wry and it seemed more 'human' with more emphasis given to the engineering side of things. I think that the current series is trying to go back to that dynamic, and that's no bad thing. I don't think it's quite found its voice yet, but it's well on the way. I did find the segment with Noel Sharkey a bit cringeworthy, it was just so obviously 'we are going to talk about robotics in the real world now'. If they find a way to make that segment less shoe-horned in, then that would be better.

Of course, back in the old days, we had Technogames as a complementary series and that was far more educational in outlook (co-presented by Phillipa Forrester, Noel Sharkey and Simon Scott from the Razer team) and featured robots doing all sorts, and a far more varied outlook than just the fighting. My brother's still got a load of Technogames recorded from 2002 or 2003 on VHS - must try and get it up on YouTube at some point.

For me the lack of proper music - either in the titles or the battles - made it feel a bit flat. The original theme did the job and certainly built up the atmosphere. Also I used to really enjoy the obstacle course in the early years - they dropped it fairly quickly so I guess I was in a minority but it made the show feel a bit repetitive with just fight after fight after fight, certainly when stretched out to an hour.

I felt 45 mins was stretching it - it was 30 when it started out! I recall Friday early evenings on 2 in the Autumn of 1998 were pretty good - Simpsons double bill, Robot Wars, then premiere of Electric Circus from Saturday's L&K.

Yes! I enjoyed the first two series of Robot Wars, when it was half an hour - in a watch-it-while-having-your-tea way - but when it became 45 minutes in series three, as you say they dropped all the varied rounds and it became just a series of repetitive fights, and I more or less stopped bothering with it. But the show was at the height of its powers in that format, so seemingly it was only you and I who found it worse.

It sounds a bit odd to say it now, and I can't imagine what today's teenagers make of it, but both the Tuesday and Friday 6pm slots on BBC2 used to be required viewing, post-DEF II, the Tuesday slot featuring the Fresh Prince, Heartbreak High and a show I always enjoyed, The O Zone. In those days it seemed quite radical to have ninety minutes aimed at younger audiences. A bit like how the Friday night comedy on BBC2 in the nineties seemed exciting - THREE comedy shows back to back! And after the 6pm shows on Friday, over to BBC1 for Top of the Pops (I know Pops should never have moved to Friday, but it fitted into my schedule alright at that point, got rather stranded in later years when it was still there on its own).

The slot it has now, of course, is the one it had when it moved to Channel Five - for about three weeks, before C5 decided it was rating too badly and moved it to Saturday nights. And then after another month or so, to Sunday afternoons, and then finally to Saturday lunchtimes. It was suggested at the time that the mistake they made was simply making it a straight continuation, not bothering to try and broaden its appeal or work out why its audience was declining to the point the Beeb had dropped it.