Bill Seward was an American sports commentator who hosted and provided commentary over fights in the US dub of Series 8 of Robot Wars on Science Channel, owned by Discovery.
Robot Wars[]
A few alterations were made for Science Channel's airing of Series 8. Most notably, the original commentary provided by Jonathan Pearce was replaced for the US audience with equivalents by Seward, who also replaced the roles of presenters Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon for the most part. His commentary was largely word-for-word identical to that of Pearce, with noticeably few deviations from the original UK transcripts.
- "The big question here - who can beat the mighty Razer, coming out bottom of the picture and taking on Kill-E-Crank-E immediately. Ooh, out come the little clusterbots of Nuts - we've got mayhem here because Terrorhurtz is going after Nuts..."
- — Jonathan Pearce's original opening lines of commentary for the first Group Battle of Series 8, Heat 1
Seward's work expanded into providing voiceover work as well as closing each episode, which was a responsibility shared by both UK presenters in the original airings.[1]
- "40 robot fighting teams.. competing for the ultimate prize.. battling in this fierce, fiery and unforgiving arena. Each week, only the strongest will survive, taking on the group battles and going head-to-head, testing their machines to the breaking point. Fighting for the chance to become the Robot Wars champion. This is Robot Wars."
- — Bill Seward's introduction to each dubbed episode
Outside Robot Wars[]
Away from Robot Wars, Seward built his reputation within the sports industry, beginning his television career as a sports director at KVIQ-TV in California. After that, he worked for KATY-TV and then WNHT-TV in New Hampshire, before returning to his hometown to become a sports anchor at KCBS-TV and KNX-AM in Los Angeles.
On top of sports work, Seward has featured in several films and television shows, notably Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, ABC's Modern Family and FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He also lent himself to hosting SEGA's Virtua Fighter 5, the fifth installment of the popular fighting game series.
More recently, Seward has worked with NBC to provide coverage of the Olympic Games as recently as Rio 2016, as well as the 2015 Rugby World Cup. He has also provided commentary for figure skating, synchronized swimming, cycling and other sports during his time with NBC.
Trivia[]
- Seward erroneously referred to Razer's Ian Lewis as "John Lewis" in the first episode.[2]
- He is also the nephew of motion picture actress Billie Seward, who was credited in a handful of black and white films in the 1930s and '40s.