User blog comment:SpaceManiac888/Rusty Spanner and Golden Wrench of the Decade (2010s)/@comment-2118191-20191215080115

Rusty Spanners for Robot Wars

3: It's like Mars - there's little atmosphere. This may seem like a strange one, but it always felt like there was something missing from Robot Wars. I would say the lack of music was at least part of the problem, but it was missing from BattleBots as well, and for me, that was hardly an issue. Even in moments where Robot Wars was doing things clearly superior to its classic run, something always just felt a little off about it, and I don't really know how to explain. I can give an example - Jonathan Pearce. He just never really grabbed me in the same way as he did in the classic series, and clearly his being older hasn't really helped him here. It's like how I think James Earl Jones of all people has the worst performance in the 2019 Lion King, and it's not even his fault. Does this make any sense to you?

2: Same but Worse. So, you know how I've said that Series 9's heat finals are the worst of any series? You know how I've said my favourite of both Series 8 and 9 combined was Pulsar vs Gabriel? Well, that pretty much highlights a MAJOR issue with Series 8 and 9 - the head-to-head format was fundamentally flawed. The robots just ended up getting too badly damaged overall, and the rematches (which were guaranteed to happen except under one circumstance) generally ended up being worse than the initial fight because invariably one of the robots was too damaged to fight back. Aftershock vs Sabretooth's first fight was a brilliant destuction-fest...but then they had to fight each other again, and by that point it was an untouched machine against a dead robot rolling.

'''1: Where's the love? (Baby don't hurt me)'''. Sadly, Robot Wars just didn't last. It feels like the BBC just didn't really care for it as much as it initially seemed. Rebooting Robot Wars was certainly a great idea of theirs, but they never seemed to give it the care that they should have done, and in truth that's an issue I'd say the BBC has ALWAYS had. Even in the classic days, BBC were happy to just sideline Robot Wars completely if they thought they could put on something better like random-sport-X, and frankly, the reboot was no exception.