User blog comment:DeltaSquad5/So, what di you think of the first Battle of the Stars episode?/@comment-35435623-20161229004757

Well that was utterly disastrous in terms of fighting. Never really the best idea to put spinners in with robots that aren't durable and with everybody having the same exposed wheels in hindsight. The flashbacks were longer than the fights and the Dara vs Angela fight was the best battle in the episode. This wasn't a good portrayal of the show to casual viewers in the slightest. Yes, it's extra battles and meant to be fun for the most part, and I still enjoyed that, but to draw in casual viewers, it feels such a shame with basically every battle being the same.

Thankfully, for what we're concerned about i.e. the 2017 Series, we've been shown that the production values look much better - I like the lighting and graphics and the editing and camera shots are very good. I didn't like the constant use of replays are the 10 second timer returning either though, but that was probably due to the battles needing padding.

Obviously I take this episode with a pinch of salt, but I just hope tomorrow's episode has a much better balance and some actual fighting. If not then there may as well have just been the celebrities controlling competitor robots like in the old Celebrity Special. At least those fights drew on and were fun, even if it was in a silly 'anything goes' way, whereas this was just rinse and repeat and predictable as to what would happen after about battle 3.

Overall, extremely disappointing fights with too much filler, but the fundamentals in production are much better, and given that the actual competitor robots should give us much better fights, then nothing is a worry. I still enjoyed it for the positives and the parts that were good fun, but I'm not sure casual viewers will feel the same way. Let's hope this doesn't deter them from watching the main series.