User blog:ToastUltimatum/Top 18 Series of Robot Wars

In this blog, I aim to rank every single series of Robot Wars from every different region, into one collective Top 18. Although I'd like to think it's relatively objective, my opinions on the show tend to... differ, from the rest of the field. So I mean to say, while I think this list is as accurate as I could make it, treat this as my opinion, first and foremost. Looking at my order, I certainly wouldn't call it conventional.

...Now then, doesn't this list seem a little familiar? You would be correct; I started drafting my Top 18 a few days ago, and after telling Nweston8, he revealed that he had been planning the exact same blog on the exact same day. For these reasons, we're going to publish our lists alongside each other! Our planned schedule is to release two new series per update, as close to daily as possible, and then we'll be equally surprised by the other writer's wrong opinions. Towards the end of the list, it'll likely be one series per update. The key positive and negative points in each section are bolded for convenience. With that, let's get started with my end of the list!

18: UK Series 1
I didn't want to do it to him. I really didn't want to put Series 1 at the bottom of the list, as believe me, it still has redeeming qualities. There's a really positive feeling when watching a series where literally everyone who showed up got to compete, and Series 1 paved the way for what was to come. Heat A of Series 1 is one of the strongest opening episodes to any series, and really made its mark as the first ever episode of Robot Wars. Right on the other end, the Grand Final is still one of the best fights in Robot Wars, as seeing an almost-weaponless wedge pave through four different opponents until only one remained was eternally memorable and brilliant to watch, even now. The competing blogger really underrated it in this "Top 100" series I have heard he's making.

Sticking with the positives, I even hold the belief that one of the typical 'bad' points of the series, Jeremy Clarkson, is much an underrated factor. Yes he would disparage a lot of competitors, but is that strictly a bad thing? Clarkson was clearly portraying a character, one which sided with the House Robots, and that's a perfectly valid approach - especially when it was only for one series. It's not as though he would never praise competitors, he actually praised them more often than not, it just didn't stand out as much. Knocking Prince of Darkness was genuinely funny, the team laughed along with it, and Philippa Forrester made the truly harsh comments. Clarkson as a person, I won't defend, but as a Robot Wars host he was not bad.

Ultimately though, this is at the bottom of the list for a reason. The short version is it's the first series. It would be nice to just leave it at that, but in order to justify it being below the next few entries on the list, we have to delve into the negatives. The stock robots are an obvious target; no other series has ever had robots forced to lose. The combat was the most primitive of any series, which is to be expected, but in an objective ranking that has to be used as a counterplay. There's unique appeal to the Gauntlet/Trial era episodes, so it's not strictly an awful thing that the combat took up so little of an episode, but when all of the Gauntlet and Trial runs were less enjoyable than Series 2, it makes Series 1 as an overall package... just a little dull.

The main problem with Series 1 for me was its overall balance of competitors. I don't even mean this in the sense of "there was an episode of only lightweights and featherweights", I mean that even within the heavyweights, if you put the Series 1 heat draws on a set of balancing scales, the scales would fall apart. Heat A, while necessary to create an opening impact, contained:
 * The eventual champion
 * A future Grand Finalist which would win absolutely any other heat in the series
 * A recurring all-star which won the Sumo
 * An unremarkable robot in this heat, but could be a Heat Finalist elsewhere
 * The best stock robot by a country mile
 * A genuine super heavyweight

Follow this up with Heat B, where you have the greatest weapon in Series 1 and the greatest robot in Series 1 within the same heat, yet other episodes leave us with an unremarkable Robot the Bruce vs Cruella Heat Final, and in the worst instance, REALI-T vs Bodyhammer. With a slight swap of the draw, Killertron or Mortis would have made a much more honourable runner-up than Bodyhammer, no doubt about it.