Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

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joey_picus
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by joey_picus »

terminaldamage wrote:I think the games should be brought back. Watching Series 1 and 2 on Youtube recently made me realise just how much it had changed. It felt more like a game show in the early days (small things like Phillippa standing on the pendulum while explaining how each round worked etc) whereas the latter series' were more competition-intensive. Repetitive one-on-one fights became boring, even to me!

Having an assault course with ramps forces everyone to increase their ground clearance to cope with driving over them, which in turn allows for the more 'interesting' weapons (that would perhaps struggle to be effective against ground-scraping wedges) to come in to play, which in turn (hopefully) keeps things varied and prevents monotony from setting in.

I think there would need to be more focus on the technical side of things, but not so much that it bamboozles people. Something like Scrapheap Challenge, where they provide animations to help clarify the slightly more complex aspects of whatever was being built, would be a good mid-ground, along with some home-made footage of the build progress/tests etc. As an 11-year-old watching the first series, I would have loved some footage of the more technical stuff thrown in. And while I'm mentioning Scrapheap, get Robert Llewellyn on presenter duties!
...I think Jamie has it spot on really, can't add anything to this :)
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by bitternboy »

Although I think Robert Llewellyn is the last person I would choose... :)
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terminaldamage
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by terminaldamage »

Who would you choose? I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts :)

My thinking behind Robert Lleweylln was that he has an interest in techy stuff and a background presenting it, is a 'big' enough name and has an energetic style. Alternatively having Richard Hammond would be cool, but I'm not sure if his presenting style would suit the nature of the programme. I think having a mainstream presenter wouldn't work, it needs to be someone in the geek/technology niche, but there aren't any other obvious names jumping out at me. (oh, maybe Jason Bradbury, with Pollyanna Woodward/Suzi Perry as pit reporter :wink: )
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Jonny »

Robert Llewellyn or Mark Evans
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Rhys
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Rhys »

Funnily enough I was also thinking Bradbury, I think he'd be great at it. Not Hammond though, he's an idiot.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by joey_picus »

Personally I didn't like Jonathan Pearce's commentary much - although he's retired now, Barry Davies on Technogames was a far better commentator in my opinion.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

Jason Bradbury on Twitter has said he'd love to do it if anything ever happened. He said that after the robot combat episode of The Gadget Show got such a great reaction. He'd be brilliant.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by bitternboy »

maybe Jason Bradbury
This I agree with
Not Hammond though, he's an idiot
This I also agree with

I think Llewellyn is just a little bit too silly and enthusiastic (not that I don't think that's a bad thing) and someone more similar to craig Charles' original attitude and less like his later stuff (more jokes, less dramatics). And BTW I think Jonathan Pearce was quite suited to it.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by terminaldamage »

bitternboy wrote:someone more similar to craig Charles' original attitude and less like his later stuff (more jokes, less dramatics). And BTW I think Jonathan Pearce was quite suited to it.
That's another thing I loved about rewatching the earlier episodes of Robot Wars. Craig Charles always had a funny little anecdote to start the show off with. And I still remember a comment he made when introducing the Pinball Warrior tournament that I didn't pick up on at the time, but would probably provoke an outcry in today's politically-correct, molly-coddling world:

"The Who sang that all you needed to be a pinball wizard was a supple wrist. But being a teenage boy won't give you much of an advantage in this competition" (or words to that effect)

It's dry and subtle humour like that that was lacking in the later series as Charles' approach became louder and more dramatic. I also think Jonathan Pearce was well suited to the commentary, although there were times when something sudden would happen, and Pearce would be sounding surprised or puzzled, while I was shouting at the TV screen about how obvious it was what happened etc. But I can't think of anyone else who would fill the commentary role as enthusiastically.
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Re: Who wants Robot Wars to come back to TV?

Post by Orac »

It felt more like a game show in the early days (small things like Phillippa standing on the pendulum while explaining how each round worked etc) whereas the latter series' were more competition-intensive. Repetitive one-on-one fights became boring, even to me!
It's funny but after series two most of the teams lobbied them to change the format to remove the games, maybe we were the authors of our own demise :D
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