User blog:NJGW/Ranking the Reboot

After a three-series revival from 2016 to the very embryonic stages of 2018, the Robot Wars reboot was cancelled by the BBC. Despite the sadness, it was still a fun ride with a good amount of content to make revisiting the reboot in its entirety worth it.

It's been a good six months since the BBC's announcement. The reboot itself never really gave fans room to breathe: recording of Series 8 was followed by constant rumours and then the filming of Series 9. Once Series 9 was over, the rumours and filming of Series 10 was up on us before we knew it too.

Now, we've had half of a year of silence. Plenty of time for relaxation, and also plenty of time to let every episode of the reboot settle down and have their place in our memories. But what do I actually make of those memories?

Yep, with this blog we're going to be ranking each show from the Robot Wars reboot, episode by episode. The time gap we've had means there will be no recency bias. This will be down to the quality of each episode to try to finish as high up on this list as they can.

Criteria
Each episode will be judged on an open-floor-style criteria. Things such as filler, narrative and humour are all crucial factors to an episode that will be judged, but those aforementioned things are also hard to consistently rate out of 10. Some of the very best episodes can have slightly weaker filler or humour, but that doesn't mean the episode doesn't stack up as a whole.

So yeah: those things will be critiqued, but the only real thing I'm going to actually rate out of 10 from each episode is all of the fights. The reboot has so many of them, so its going to be one of the main things from an episode to judge. An episode can still be beaten out by another if it doesn't get the higher in-the-arena score, but it'll prove harder.

Each entry will also end with an Episode Highlight and Episode Lowlight - to give us a general summary, and to give even the poorest episodes their redeeming factors.

So, 22 through to 1 - what will the order be? Let me know your thoughts, predictions, and memories in the comments. Now, time to get started!

Number 22. Battle of the Stars, Episode 1
In late 2016 the Robot Wars fanbase was teased for the newest series. With Series 9 upcoming in early 2017, the BBC still wanted to satiate the viewers' tastebuds for more robo action after the successful Series 8 Grand Final.

They shouldn't have bothered.

The Celebrity Special was present on the show in the past - during the Series 4 Christmas Specials. Despite these 'stars' taking control of several veterans from the show, the action in the arena wasn't the best to say the least.

Here, it got even worse.

Episode 1 of 'BotS' kicks off with a decent lineup of celebrities. With the likes of Radio personalities in Scott Mills and Chris Stark, and the endearing Brownlee Brothers, this episode looked like it could be decent from the 'people' side of things. Unfortunately, the arena didn't agree:

Bots, Episode 1 - Fight Ratings: Arena Cleaner vs. Interstellar: MML (6/10) The Cat vs. JAR (1/10) The Cat vs. Arena Cleaner (4/10) JAR vs. Interstellar: MML (3/10) Interstellar: MML vs. The Cat (1/10) Arena Cleaner vs. JAR (1/10) TR2 vs. Behemoth (6.5/10) Arena Cleaner vs. The Cat (3.5/10) OVERALL: 21/80 The episode opens with promise. A generic, but fun destruction fight sees some good damage from Arena Cleaner, a little bit of House Robot involvement after the shortcomings in that area from Series 8, and some vintage JP commentary.

Things quickly go downhil.

The Cat vs. Jonathan and Alistair's ReallyBadName is over in the opening 10 seconds, with little-to-no contact before a breakdown. The only reason this fight reaches a 1/10 is because Sir Killalot knocked one of JAR's bottle tanks out.

The Cat vs. Arena Cleaner steadies things a little, with a solid piece of driving on the turn takes out Arena Cleaner's left tyre with a visually-pleasing hit. JAR vs. Interstellar: MML is a draining Judges' decision fight, with only two glancing 'blows' from JAR being 'notable' moments before Interstellar: MML lost drive on one side. At least Maggie Aderin-Pocock's "it's a she actually" line provided some late humour.

Interstellar vs. The Cat is another quick breakdown. Interstellar does get a flip in eventually. Albeit after cease... with Shane Swan taking over the controls... yeah...

Then we have the second of two 1/10 fights in a row, with a minor tickle from Arena Cleaner enough to knock out JAR.

Thankfully, after enduring some awful fights, we're treated to some comic relief from Angela and Dara, as Behemoth and TR2 face off. Some great laughs, some awful driving, some great JP commentary. It's great fun in general, and gains an extra half point for Dara achieving TR2's highest-ever flip.

The episode closes with a brief, but acceptable-enough fight (I guess) from Arena Cleaner and the Cat. Arena Cleaner gains revenge, and then there's some fun with Sir Killalot - including his traditional sit-spin-and-throw attack.

So an overall-awful score of 21/80 in terms of fights, but does the episode make up for it at all in other area?

It doesn't.

The fights are so short that we have an unbearable amount of extra filler - which is just stuff we already saw in Series 8. The potentially-decent celebrity lineup falls completely flat, with most of them looking very uncomfortable and lacking in personality. Even poor old Craig Danby looks like he's running on one-hours worth of sleep. It's just disastrous stuff.

Episode Highlight: TR2 vs. Behemoth is the obvious one here. Honourable mentions go to Maggie Aderin-Pocock and her great chemistry with Shane Swan, and a nice general introduction to the Series 9 visual style.

Episode Lowlight:

3/4s of the fights are not just bad but nearly offensive with how poor they are. These awful fights, mixed with the extensive filler would certainly paint the show poorly to casual viewers tuning in.

Conclusion: The first episode from the Celebrity Special couplet is the worst episode of the reboot in my opinion. Worthless fights, a lack of celebrity personality - which was meant to be one of the appeals of the episode in the first place - and pointless filler all combines to give a poor product. This isn't just the worst episode from the reboot - it's one of the worst episodes in the show's history.