User blog:NJGW/Episode 2 - general thoughts

'NOTE: these are my thoughts off the cuff from watching the episode. As a result, my thoughts may change while watching the episode again.'

So, an interesting episode today. Funnily enough, it seems to have got a very, very positive reaction on social media. I thought it would be much more split. That's not to say I didn't like it, because I did; it just spiked and then fizzled out in the head to heads this week. The editing was much better this week, thankfully. The battles were probably easier to keep track of this time around, but the camera angles picked and the time between cuts was much better. There was no drops in framerate either, it seemed.

One major feeling from this episode is that it did lack battle music in some of the slower battles. Before, battles involving Foxic going after the House Robots in the older series could still be very entertaining just because of the general atmosphere, and although I didn't mind no battle music at all in the first episode, it did make the show feel flat when things such as Shockwave stacking Foxic against the wall and Foxic's general comedy attempts happened. Before, the battle music added tension - e.g. when X-Terminator was stacked against the arena wall for a small period against Tsunami with the Grand Final theme playing in the background, it was incredibly gripping, whereas here, it feels more like "oh, is that it?"/you're just waiting for a robot to drop back onto their wheels. There's much more emphasis on constant high tempo action without battle music, which doesn't always happen. Also, it puts extra strain on Jonathan Pearce to maintain the hype of the battle throughout - and although I did find him and the judges being brutally honest about the Foxic vs M.R Speed Squared battle amusing; Jonathan did seem to struggle to keep the tempo of battles going at times, and understandably so.

As aforementioned, the head to heads suffered much more this week. I still liked them, and watching Thor being so explosive was a treat, and Shockwave was durable and solid, but if there is going to be so many technical issues, the leniency I have for battles ending from technical faults will turn into frustration sooner rather than later. I'll wait to see the rest of the series of course, but so far, it feels like the head to heads may be one of those things that is 'nice idea, but not so smooth in terms of execution'. When you see M.R Speed Squared struggling with their weaponry in the second battle, it feels like you know that they won't be able to solve things for the next battle; and although it's good to promote being the most durable robot, it doesn't translate to always being great TV, and could easily make the Heat Final have a robot that breaks down, which could easily make the episode as a whole feel flat for the more casual viewing audience. Another concern, is that the Grand Final also follows the same format. By the time we have a whole episode full of incredibly powerful robots also going into head to head matches, I do fear that half of the head to heads and the Grand Final battle itself could be very underwhelming. Of course, this is just speculation right now, but it is something that could easily happen.

Overall, another very enjoyable watch, with editing improvements and the balance between filler and battles feeling better, but it did feel that Thor carried this heat at times - as much as I like Shockwave. Understandably, the heats are unbalanced with no seedings, and the rest of the heats should all be stronger overall, but even though I did enjoy the episode, I do hope that this is the 'lowest' things get in terms of battles. Sure, some battles were excellent, but, especially with no battle music, some battles felt very underwhelming, and made things fizzle out at times.