User blog:CrashBash/Random Musings 3 - Extreme 1, before or after Series 5?

''Hello everyone. My name is Crash, and I'm here today to go over some random thingamajig that's stuck in my head and won't come out. And no, this isn't an excuse for me to not finish my latest list. Honest.''

Robot Wars Extreme. It was a bold take on the classic Robot Wars formula, and was basically Robot Wars meets Wrestling. OK, sure, the acting only really worked with certain teams, and made some teams in particular look like utter douchebags (the impressionable kid I was at the time), but looking back at it and knowing what I know now, I can ignore that, the fights were awesome. But one of the things I know now that I didn't at the time is the fact that not all the fights were filmed together. Some of them were held before Series 5 and some were held either during or after Series 5, often with a gap of several months between them.

But the question is, which events were filmed before and which after? And indeed, which robots appeared before and after? Well, this may be a little pointless, but having made the effort to at least watch every single episode again (for rewriting the battle summaries on their pages way way back), I feel I might as well try. Keep in mind, I'm only covering the fights held over Extreme itself, so I won't be mentioning either the Second World Championship or the Forces Special...but in that case, the former was held before Series 5, the latter was held after.

So, what does one look for in terms of figuring out when a battle was filmed? There are three things to take note of.
 * 1) The competitors. Some of them, such as Behemoth, Napalm, Pussycat and X-Terminator, changed shape significantly before and after Series 5, so often it's easy to tell from their presence.
 * 2) The house robots. In particular, Matilda and Refbot. Battles before Series 5 show Matilda with a grey flywheel rather than a pink one, and Refbot's counter is a lot faster.
 * 3) The arena. This may just be me, but the arena seemed a lot brighter in battles before Series 5.

So, with this in mind...

Before

 * All Stars. There's reason to believe that these were amongst the first battles held for Extreme, since most lacked the pit tyre.
 * Tag Team Terror. One fight in particular had me scratching my head, but you can read about that in another blog.
 * German Melee, on virtue that the winner qualified for the World Championships, which I established was held before Series 5.
 * House Robot Rebellion, purely on the presence of Plunderbird 5.
 * International Inferno, based on what we know about Maximill.

After

 * Annihilators. Effectively they spoiled a little bit of Series 5, what with Bulldog Breed and Atomic.
 * Challenge Belt, as clear by how Behemoth and Pussycat appeared.
 * Wild Card Warriors, again clear by looking at Behemoth in particular.
 * Armed Forces Melee. Hard to tell, but the arena is slightly darker.
 * Flipper Frenzy. Check the House Robots.
 * International Mayhem, based on what we know about Alien Destructor.

Both

 * Mayhems. Pussycat's, Hypno-Disc's, Atomic's and Bulldog Breed's were held before Series 5, whilst Arnold A's, Thermidor's, X-Terminator's, Panic Attack's, Steel Avenger's, Napalm's and Disc-O-Inferno's were held after. Splinter's is difficult to judge, as Refbot's counter is slower, but given it was Killertron 1, not 2, who appeared, and that the arena was a lot lighter, I'm gonna guess it was at the tail-end of the first "block" and held before.
 * Vengeance. Most were held before, but Razer vs Pussycat was definitely held after, and I have reasons to suspect that Bigger Brother vs Comengetorix was held after too.

Not sure

 * UK vs Germany. This is an oddball. Matilda's flywheel is grey (before), but Refbot's counter is slow and the arena is much darker (after).

Before

 * 101
 * 3 Stegs to Heaven
 * Aggrobot 3
 * Ansgar
 * Atomic 2
 * Behemoth
 * Bigger Brother
 * Bulldog Breed 3
 * Cerberus
 * Chaos 2
 * Comengetorix
 * Diotoir
 * Dominator 2
 * Fighting Torque
 * Firestorm 3
 * Flensburger Power
 * Gemini
 * Golem
 * Hypno-Disc
 * Judge Shred 2.5
 * Killertron
 * King B Powerworks
 * Major Tom
 * Manta
 * Maximill
 * Mega Morg
 * Ming 3
 * Mousetrap 2
 * Napalm
 * Nasty Warrior
 * Panic Attack
 * Plunderbird 5
 * Pussycat
 * Razer
 * Scorpion
 * Sir Chromalot
 * S.M.I.D.S.Y.
 * Spawn Again
 * Spirit of Knightmare
 * Splinter
 * Stinger
 * Suicidal Tendencies
 * Sumpthing
 * Thermidor 2
 * The Steel Avenger
 * Tornado
 * Wheely Big Cheese
 * Wild Thing
 * X-Terminator

After

 * Ajjay
 * Alien Destructor
 * Anvil
 * Arnold A. Terminegger
 * Axe Awe
 * Behemoth
 * Bigger Brother
 * Cataclysmic Variabot
 * Chaos 2
 * Comengetorix
 * Disc-O-Inferno
 * Diotoir
 * Dominator 2
 * Draven
 * Fighting Torque
 * Fluffy
 * Gemini
 * Hypno-Disc
 * King B Powerworks
 * Mega-Hurts
 * Napalm 2
 * Panic Attack
 * Panzer Wraith
 * Philipper
 * Pussycat
 * Razer
 * Rhino
 * Shear Khan
 * Spirit of Knightmare
 * Splinter
 * Stinger
 * Thermidor 2
 * The Executioner
 * The Spider
 * The Steel Avenger
 * Tornado
 * Velocirippa
 * Wheely Big Cheese
 * Wild Thing
 * X-Terminator