User blog:Hogwild94/Why I'm not that keen on Series 4 Semi-Final 1

OK, now you may remember last year, I did a list ranking the nine original UK series (if I was to redo that list now, I'd probably swap Ex1 and S7 round in the rankings, and maybe move S3 up a tad too). One thing I wrote was that I considered the first S4 semi-final to be a 'mediocre [episode] enlivened by the Chaos 2 fights'. Toast called me out on this, and so, in the light of the arena series we have going on at the moment, I feel I owe yous all a belated explanation for why I said that.

You see, it all goes back to when the series was first aired. When I first watched the show with S2, 5-year old me was obsessed with the Pit. I loved seeing robots end up in the pit and vanish from sight altogether in smoke. I was slightly disappointed when they replaced the smokescreen for S3, and then delighted when they bought it back for S4.

And, as a a result, now 6-year old me would judge how much I liked episodes in S3 and 4 by how often a robot ended up in the pit; multiple pittings made for a great episode, just one was disappointing but I'd take it, and none at all was frankly sacrilege. I would keep a mental note of how many we had, and took great pleasure in recalling ones not recorded in the magazine heat reports.

Thus, we came to the first S4 semi-final, which, objectively, is a great episode, with some great fights between well matched robots going the distance, and two fine performances from Chaos 2 alongside: very good, very strong, lovely stuff.

But 6-year old me was waiting for the Pit to come into play. And it didn't. And I was most unhappy with that. And so, as a result, instead of remembering the episode for what it is, one of the best of the first four series, I remembered it as a very dull episode. And, despite having since rewatched it and been able to re-evaluate all the fights for the excellent tussles they are, I just couldn’t change my opinion of the episode as a whole.

That’s why I can’t like the episode as much as everyone else does; I don’t think it bad, it’s just a lasting first impression that I’ve been unable to shake off. It’s not the same for other episodes though: a few from S4 with just one pitting, which I didn’t especially care for at the time, I do now consider decent enough. And, of course, I love almost all of S3, including the episodes with just one pitting, and the semis and final with none at all, albeit for reasons beyond their control.

So that’s why I claimed the episode to be ‘mediocre’. I don’t think that anymore, but it’s still not my favourite episode. Hopefully that explains everything.