User blog:SpaceManiac888/Rusty Spanner of the Episode: Series 10, Heat 3 Results

With the voting period over and the new name for these awards decided, I have now totaled up the scores and detailed top three aspects of Heat 3 of Series 10 that were considered "Rusty Spanner" moments.

The scoring goes as follows; when a user lists three Rusty Spanner moments, the top pick gets six points, the second four points and the last one two points. These are totaled up to determine the highest scorers, which will be listed and detailed below. In the case of a tie, I will either put one moment ahead of another based on how many people voted, or if the same number of people voted for both moments, how many times it was their first or second pick.

With the rules on scoring out of the way, let's begin with some dishonourable mentions.

Dishonourable mentions

 * Lack of a third-place play-off (18): The fact that Vulture had to withdraw from the third-place play-off, all due to a snapped motor, is a massive shame in my opinion. Considering that its disc was relatively decent, plus the fact that Track-tion’s tracks were exposed, I think Vulture could have progressed to the Rumble had the play-off commenced.


 * Track-tion’s battles (10): Me and two other voters actually had no problems with Track-tion itself, nor its team. However, what does grind my gears is the fact that Track-tion did virtually nothing in its three battles, getting thrown out of the arena twice by Rapid, and witnessing Apex explode. Track-tion better do something in the Rumble, otherwise I have no idea how I am going to vote for or against it in Audited Series 10.


 * The Fog of War (10): You know what? The Fog of War did have one critical usage in one of the Group Battles, whereby it enabled Rapid to score an out of the arena against Track-tion, after the latter veered too close to one of the Trenches. Then it was used again, and again, to the point where it made parts of the Vulture-Terrorhurtz battle unwatchable. Could we just have Rogue Robots or the pit opening instead for a change?


 * No statement that Track-tion’s students were taught by Will Thomas (8): Yep, you heard right, the students that were on team Track-tion were actually taught by Team Shock’s Will Thomas. But for some strange reason, the broadcast of Heat 3 failed to mention this interesting piece of trivia. Why? Well, I have no idea. But what we do know, is that Track-tion has progressed further than Aftershock in Series 10.


 * Next-time previews (6): Diotoir, if you are reading this, if this Rusty Spanner moment occurs throughout remainder the series, save this nomination until a special Rusty Spanner awards page is created.


 * Apex’s bar smashing the inner wall (6): Although this moment proved to be quite scary for some of the people watching the battle live, apparently the audience were protected by polycarbonate that was four times thicker than the screens. Credit to Jimlaad43 for this explanation.


 * Bucky the Mascot (4): Now I know that Bucky the Robot’s team are not the first team to put showmanship over competition, but something about Bucky the Mascot made the showmanship less entertaining, but more cringe-worthy in my opinion.


 * Angela calling John Reid “daddy” (2): Please, never again Angela.


 * Dara O’Brian (2): I found him acceptable in this episode, but Toon Ganondorf compared him to Jeremy Clarkson in Series 1, meaning he gets a place on the dishonourable mentions list.


 * Timothy Sillery’s wi-fi (2): For crashing before the heat-final, which is completely unacceptable for any Robot Wars fan.

3: Apex (20)
Considering the hype that Apex had prior to Heat 3, I was surprised that its performance in the heat only gathered enough votes to rank it third in the Rusty Spanner moments in that episode. Still, the two Rusty Spanner moments that outscored it were notable in their own rights, so I guess this made sense in the end. Nonetheless, although Apex may not have been the biggest Rusty Spanner of this heat, its performance was still well below what most viewers were expecting coming in. As the largest bar spinner ever to compete in Robot Wars, one would think it would be an effective and entertaining glass cannon. Well, part of “glass cannon” came true, as although it managed to damage the arena wall in its Group Battle, the second hit against Terrorhurtz caused its spinner to become disabled due to detachments of vital components. This left it to be pretty much cannon fodder for Terrorhurtz to get some “good hits” in (yep, even John Reid referenced that meme), and cause an easy knockout.

Still, in its Robot Redemption battle against Track-tion, surely Apex could not mess up this opportunity, especially when its opponent’s tracks are heavily exposed. However, this battle truly earned Apex third place in the Rusty Spanner moments of this heat, when after just two collisions with Track-tion’s Vulture wedge, the pulley system and bar spinner collided, causing Apex to explode! Whilst this moment was a highlight in Robot Wars, with everyone from the teams, to the judges, to the presenters, to Jonathan Pearce and the audience being in total shock over what just happened, it condemned Apex to losing to Track-tion via its own design.

Overall, Apex’s performance was a massive shame, even though it did provide that truly scary moment. It must have been a huge disappointment for Team Terrafonics, and the Danbys overall, since they still have been unable to better the Series 8 Foxic in terms of results. Therefore, Apex no doubt deserves the third Rusty Spanner spot.

And speaking of the Danbys…

2: Craig Danby/editor’s representation of him (32)
Yeah, I think this joint-Rusty Spanner moment speaks for itself. I have never met Craig Danby, but based on the general consensus of those that have, he is a nice man and so I respect him. But in all honestly, I do think this nomination represents a problem in recent series of Robot Wars, because I feel like some serious competitors take their desire to win too far. We saw similar moments to this, including Ian Lewis in Series 4 and Anthony Pritchard in Series 9, and Craig Danby’s attitude in Series 10 is just as cringe-worthy in my opinion and no doubt deserves the second Rusty Spanner spot in this heat.

I do not really think there is much more to say about this Rusty Spanner, apart from the fact that this may have been one of the few times that swearing has occurred in Robot Wars (although the Series 3 version of Vercingetorix having a slogan that proclaimed ‘’Julius, futue te ipsum’’ on its side may have been the first case of swearing on the show). Still, Danby swearing actually had nothing to do with his reaction to losing to Terrorhurtz in the Group Battle, which is why I have decided to combine the votes against the editor’s representation of him into one Rusty Spanner moment.

This is because the reaction from Danby was actually due to Thor’s Jason Marston taping Terrafonic’s equipment onto their workbench as a prank, but the editing made it seem that he was instead getting angry following that loss in the Group Battle. Not to mention, why was it that the editor and voice-overs insisted that Apex was Craig’s robot when CHRIS Danby is the team captain of this robot? These two editing moments in my opinion tried to make Craig Danby seem like a villain, when he just being passionate about competing in Robot Wars. Therefore, since I believe this representation was unforgivable, the editor gets joint-second place in the Rusty Spanner moments of this heat.

1: The Semi-Final draws (38)
And finally, we come to arguably one of the strangest and worst decisions made by the producers in Series 10 thus far. After Vulture defeated Bucky the Robot, and Track-tion benefited from Apex’s explosion, it seemed pretty clear what the Semi-Final draws would be. After all, Track-tion had already competed against Rapid, whilst Vulture faced off against Terrorhurtz in their respective Group Battles, so the Semi-Final battles, based on the format thus far, should have seen Rapid battle Vulture and Terrorhurtz compete against Track-tion. So how comes that in spite of already facing each other beforehand, two re-matches occurred? This no doubt deserves the biggest Rusty Spanner award for Heat 3 for several reasons. Firstly, we already saw that Rapid and Terrorhurtz dominated Track-tion and Vulture respectively, so unless there was a clear sign that the previous losers could avenge their defeats, who could possibly care now about these battles? And sure enough, the second reason it deserves the award is because although Rapid broke the quickest battle record by throwing Track-tion out of the arena again, and Terrorhurtz once again got “good hits” against Vulture, I would argue that the entire heat (and possibly series) could have changed. After all, Rapid suffered a leakage in its flipper, which providing that Vulture does not get flipped, could have enabled the latter to win the battle. And who knows, maybe Track-tion could have pulled an upset against Terrorhurtz (unlikely, but the possibility remains). Finally, had the battles been different, the third-place play-off may have actually took place, another reason why the real Semi-Final draws were such a Rusty Spanner moment for this heat. All we can hope for is that the Semi-Final format used for Heats 1 and 2 is utilised again for the remaining heats. Otherwise, the quality of Series 10’s battles may generally decline as a consequence.