User blog:CrashBash/Random Musings 1 - Were Bigger Brother and Major Tom doomed to fail?

Now, as I'm sure you're all aware, I'm usually not afraid to speak my mind when it comes to my opinions, for better or for worse. However, as a general rule, I'm not usually fond of posting thoughts on my own little theories I may or may not have with little to no evidence to back them up. The simple reason being I've seen first hand what clinging to a belief can do to people. However, this time, I feel I must make an exception, to try and sort out something that has pretty much puzzled me since the day I first watched the fifth episode of the first series of Robot Wars Extreme, all the way back in the early 2000s. The result of one particular battle has never made sense to me, and after checking all the facts, watching the fight again and again and going over everything I've known about Robot Wars at that time, it still doesn't make sense, or rather perhaps it shouldn't make sense.

Members of the Wiki, I hope you've prepared yourself and not set your standards too high, as I prepare to mull over the oddity of a single battle which involves what I believe to be an ill-fated partnership of Bigger Brother and Major Tom, which was destined for failure no matter what.

Lets just refresh ourselves on what happens. In the first round of the Tag Team Terror, Bigger Brother and Major Tom fight Comengetorix and Spawn Again. During the battle, whilst Bigger Brother manages to hold its own, Major Tom eventually becomes immobilised and is promptly counted out and eventually pitted. The fight is then stopped the moment Major Tom is pitted and Comengetorix and Spawn Again are declared the winners....but the question is, why? Bigger Brother was still moving as Major Tom was being eliminated, so there was no real reason for the fight to be stopped. I know Joe Watts mentioned radio interference, but it still seemed to me like Bigger Brother was still moving...actually, no, Bigger Brother was the only robot still moving. Spawn Again had broken down not long after Major Tom, and Comengetorix certainly didn't appear to be moving. So, what's going on here?

Well, lets look at it this way...when it comes to Robot Wars Extreme, it's pretty much common-knowledge that not all of the battles were filmed together. In fact, they were filmed over a span of four months which also took the Fifth UK Series into consideration. Even if you weren't aware of this, there are actually quite a few clues, namely in the robots themselves. You may of course notice that a few of the robots, such as Pussycat and Behemoth, change designs across the series. Compare their appearances in the All-Stars to their appearances in the Challenge Belt, and you'll see they appear in their S5 incarnations in the latter, whilst the former features them in a sort-of halfway point between their S4 and S5 incarnations. Hence it's quite clear that the All-Stars was held long before Series 5 was, and the Challenge Belt was one of the last tournaments held, after or maybe during Series 5.

Another example comes in the form of the two annihilators, which both take place after Series 5. We know this because neither Atomic or Bulldog Breed could take part in one of them, due to damage caused in Series 5. The Vengeance and Mayhem battles are a mixed breed, with some taking place before Series 5 and some afterwards, and even then they were before certain events (note that the Stinger team claim in their Mayhem that they'd never fought Thermidor 2 or Behemoth before, despite it having been seen fighting the latter in an earlier episode in the Challenge Belt - this suggests the Mayhem was filmed before the Challenge Belt). But what of the Tag Team Terror? Well, I think it's pretty clear from looking at the robots that it takes place before Series 5. One only has to look at Pussycat, Spawn Again and Napalm to see this, and also consider that Mega Morg had to drop out, and was thereafter replaced with Mini Morg in Series 5.

But with that in mind, something doesn't make sense.

There is another way to tell whether an Extreme battle was filmed before or after Series 5, and that's by observing Refbot's counter when it's counting out an immobilised competitor. Before Series 5, his counter went down extremely fast, the numbers flashing up every half second or so. During and after Series 5, it becomes much slower, actually taking a second to flash up. This is a very easy and reliable way of telling when a battle was filmed, and indeed, in every Tag Team Terror battle, Refbot's counter is shown counting down at a fast speed...with the sole exception of Comengetorix & Spawn Again vs Bigger Brother & Major Tom!

Seriously, watch the battle again. Clearly the robots that are fighting are before Series 5 - Spawn Again has its purple colouring and Major Tom is twice as big as it was in Series 5. And yet, as Refbot counts Major Tom out, he is undeniably doing so slowly, as he would in Series 5. And yet, when Comengetorix and Spawn Again next fight, against Diotoir and Pussycat, look at when Refbot counts out Spawn Again, and he's doing it quickly, just like the other Tag Team Terror battles. And the obvious question at this stage should be, "why is this happening?" It seems very strange...

...almost as if Comengetorix & Spawn Again vs Bigger Brother & Major Tom was filmed AFTER the other Tag Team Terror battles.

I know it sounds crazy, but the facts do add up. Refbot's counter does genuinely suggest that this battle was filmed in a little period between what I've been calling "before Series 5" and Series 5 proper, and that it was done so after the other Tag Team battles, or at the very least after Comengetorix and Spawn Again's semi-final battle. And it would explain why exactly the fight was stopped prematurely, and why Bigger Brother lost despite being the only robot still mobile. Basically, what this suggests is that this battle was purely an exhibition and that regardless of what happened, Bigger Brother was never going to win that battle.

The only thing this doesn't answer is why this happened the way it did. We know that Bigger Brother had originally been paired with Plunderbird 5, but after some shenanigans with the arena door, Plunderbird couldn't continue and hence was replaced with Major Tom...or at least, that's what we see on the show. And yet the fact that Refbot's counter is inconsistent with the rest of the tournament suggests something different. Almost as if that whatever happened meant that Comengetorix and Spawn Again actually won the battle by default, hence why it seems like a separate battle was filmed later...presumably to fill in the gaps. And if, big if, my speculation is correct and this is indeed the case, then what on earth did actually happen that day?

What this doesn't explain is how come the creators of the Official Guide for Robot Wars Extreme knew that Major Tom would be competing in the Tag Team Terror alongside Bigger Brother, when they couldn't "forsee" V-Max replacing Onslaught in the guide for Series 4 previously...even now, this fight remains a mystery.