I saw this show on TV the other night -- "BattleBots," it was called. Two deadly machines were placed in a box made of transparent polycarbonate, then spent upwards of three minutes trying to destroy one another. It was very entertaining, though I have this vague feeling that I've seen something like it on TV in the past. But that can't be right -- if a sport as unique as this had been televised before, it'd still be around, right?
I kid, of course. Roughly thirteen years after its run on Comedy Central (where, let's face it, the show really didn't fit the network's profile), BattleBots has returned to television. In fact, it's been four years since robot combat itself has been televised ("Killer Robots" in 2011 -- and I still can't figure out why Science Channel didn't pick up more of that).
Most importantly, though, this is the first time robotic combat has been given a series on network television, with a six-episode run on ABC. Not surprisingly, it's during the summer, where networks, still wanting ratings but knowing those ratings won't be as high, experiment with all sorts of lower-cost programming options. And why not robotic death sports?
The new series begins with an announcer orating some gibberish about drive before talking about the various walks of life the builders come from. This iteration of "BattleBots" won't just be about the fights -- it'll also take a closer look at the builders. As somebody who has met many, many combat robot builders, I'm glad they're getting their moments in the spotlight (instead of always playing second fiddle to emotionless 220-pound objects). But as a viewer, I know that it's difficult to make pleasant, well-adjusted people seem interesting enough for television, so I'm wary of the fact that the show will be spending more time showcasing humans as opposed to armored machines crashing into one another.
Holy cow, this introduction is going on for a while. Now there's a lot of slow-motion footage of robots fighting, interspersed with slow-motion footage of the builders preparing for fights. After more than two minutes of buildup, the announcer finally says "This is ‘BattleBots,'" and we're on our way.
We're welcomed by Molly McGrath, standing in an expansive futuristic space located off of one side of the arena. She tells us that this will be "an event unlike anything you have ever seen," which of course is only true if you've never seen robotic combat before. If you're familiar with any of the robot combat competitions of the past fifteen years or so, then you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
Molly tosses to our two primary hosts, professional broadcaster Chris Rose and MMA star Kenny Florian. It will be their job to pretend that they know all about this sport that they likely had only the vaguest familiarity with until ABC recently offered them contracts to appear on this program. The fact that you've never heard of any of these hosts means that they were selected either because they are especially well-equipped to make this unique sport accessible for the layman or because anybody with "name" appeal turned ABC down. We'll find out which over the course of the next six weeks. Oh, and we'll probably see some robots fight, too.
Kenny says not a single word as Chris takes us through the tournament format. In fact, Chris phrases his explanation as if he's informing Kenny for the first time how this is all going to work. We'll begin with 24 robots and twelve one-on-one fights. The twelve winners will of course move on, as will four wild cards from the twelve robots that lost their initial fights. How those wild cards will be determined is a mystery at this point.
As in years past, fights will continue until knockout or until three minutes have elapsed, whichever comes first. If both robots are alive at the end of three minutes, then the judges will select a winner. Chris says that the robots will be accumulating points based on aggression, damage, strategy, and control, although the last time BattleBots held a tournament, while the judges were undoubtedly taking those factors into consideration, the score ultimately came down to each judge picking the robot that they thought was the winner, with the robot receiving the majority of those three votes claiming the victory.
Kenny finally starts talking to inform us that the BattleBox is absolutely littered with hazards. Spikes will rise up from the floor, doing no damage other than lifting a robot off of its wheels. The signature saws are back to do nothing but fling machines across the arena, since every builder now knows to armor the bottom of their machine if they're going to fight in the BattleBox. To my irritation, the screws are once again scattered across the arena walls, though it's been thirteen years and I forget exactly why I hated them so much. Finally, there are the sledgehammers. While the other arena hazards are controlled by some unseen force, the hammers are controlled by the drivers themselves (each team controls two hammers).
With that, we are introduced to two more people on the broadcasting team: Alison Haislip and Bobak Ferdowsi. They're reporting from the pits, and Alison assures us that no one knows more about what goes into one of these robots than Bobak. Personally, I would think that the builders themselves have a decent idea of what's inside these machines. Since the show isn't offering any additional elucidation on these sideline reporters' credentials, I guess I'll have to look them up.
Alison Haislip used to work for "Attack of the Show!" on the now-defunct channel G4, so she presumably has some familiarity with geek culture. Bobak Ferdowsi is a NASA scientist who gained fame through his association with the Curiosity rover. I don't know what specific aspects of the Curiosity mission he was responsible for, so I'll take Alison's word that he knows about the mechanical aspects of robots (because if his specialty is constructing sensors to analyze the chemical makeup of minerals found in the Martian crust, it probably won't do him much good here).
We inch closer and closer toward an actual robot fight by going to our first builder profile. We meet Marc DeVidts, the builder of Icewave. He started building combat robots as a hobby shortly after the turn of the century, and now he uses his skills to earn a living running a technology-centered company. It's a nice story, but my concern is that we're going to be hearing similar stories about fifteen more times during this series.
The "ice" in Icewave stands for the internal combustion engine that powers a spinning blade that extends past the entire perimeter of the robot's body. I've heard that engine, back when Icewave competed at ComBots in 2005, and that thing is noisy.
Also in 2005, Icewave was a middleweight. The show doesn't clarify, since there's only one weight class, but all of the robots in this tournament are heavyweights. I wonder how/if Marc added weight to his machine.
We go back to the "studio," for lack of a better term, where Molly tells us that Marc is a creative up-and-comer in this sport. Um, we just saw a video package in which he said that he's been building since 2002. That isn't very complimentary to Marc.
Chris and Kenny begin comparing Icewave to its opponent in this fight, Razorback, built by Zack Bieber. Zack only gets about ten seconds for his biography, where we learn that he's built robots that are used by soldiers in Afghanistan. I'll throw in that he was the creator of El Diablo back in the Comedy Central days -- I mention this primarily because I'm usually terrible with names and it's weirding me out that I knew that off the top of my head.
We're presented with what is supposed to be some kind of statistical analysis of the two machines, in which each robot is given a score in Aggression, Control, Weapons, and Defense. And instead of a reasonable, vague rating such as "moderate" or "weak," the show has decided to make each rating a numeric score (out of 100, presumably). Icewave's score in Control, for example, is 41. Not 40; not 42 -- Icewave is exactly a 41 when it comes to Control.
Come on, show. This isn't basketball -- I know that you're largely making these numbers up with no objective information on which to base them. For example, to the best of my knowledge, Razorback has never competed before -- how can anybody determine that it scores exactly 78 in Defense?
Kenny suggests that Razorback's best strategy will be to jam up Icewave's blade. You know, the way you "jam up" a bar spinner... by... um... using some illegal weapon like... rope, or... jam, I suppose.
We go to the BattleBox to prepare for the fight. Our ring announcer is Faruq Tauheed, who certainly would be well-suited to announcing WWE matches, I'll give him that. After telling us that it's robot fightin' time, he launches into pun-laden pseudo-intimidating introductions. Guys, you're not on Comedy Central now. You don't have to torture the intros like that anymore.
Speaking of introductions, we're moments away from the fight and still nobody's told us what in the world Razorback is supposed to do. I guess I have to figure it out for myself. Well, from the spinning image they showed us while they were telling us that Razorback is an 82 in Aggression, its weapon appears to be a set of Diesector-esque jaws set between wheels and armor on each side. However, when we see Razorback in the red square, we see that the upper jaw has been removed and the lower jaws have been armored with a wedge plate.
An electronic voice says "Robots activate," and we're treated to footage of the twitch tests that are traditionally edited out when it comes to televised robot competitions. On the other hand, this is the first chance the average viewers have had to figure out how Razorback works, so I guess that serves some purpose.
An extremely distorted robotic voice informs the teams to indicate that they are ready. Both teams do so, and after a fairly excessive light show, some LEDs near the arena ceiling flash yellow-yellow-yellow-green, indicating that it's time to fight.
The fight begins with several instances of Icewave getting its blade up to speed and delivering blows to Razorback, producing sparks. I guess putting accurate microphones inside the arena wasn't a top priority, as I can assure you that that isn't exactly what it sounds like when those collisions occur.
Icewave puts a gash in and eventually tears off Razorback's wedge. After a few more hits, Icewave damages one of Razorback's lower tines and right front wheel. The wheel eventually falls out of Razorback's body.
Icewave tears a chunk out of Razorback's side armor. Chris and Kenny react as if they're shocked by the amount of damage being caused. Which they are, because they have no prior experience with robot combat and are too busy being entertained to do their jobs of actually announcing the fight.
Smoke starts pouring out of Icewave, whose weapon is likely broken. Icewave gets its body under Razorback and begins pushing it toward the center of the arena. For no clear reason, the referee starts counting Razorback out, even though the only reason it isn't currently moving is because it's high centered on Icewave's body. You know what other robot isn't moving? Icewave.
Still, the referee reaches zero and the buzzer sounds. Marc DeVidts appears to be as confused as I am as to whether he won the fight. He's informed that he's the winner, and celebrations occur.
Okay, I'm going to hope that that isn't how the fight actually went down. I'm going to hope that, since both robots appeared to be stuck together, a timeout was called to separate the two. Perhaps during the timeout, Zack came to the conclusion that with no weapon, Razorback was a lost cause, so he subsequently tapped out. And since that would be a non-dramatic ending to the fight, the show edited it to be more exciting for TV. Because otherwise, this ruling doesn't make a bit of sense.
Alison tries to interview Marc DeVidts, who is more concerned about the fact that his robot appears to be on fire. Since he isn't paying any attention to her questions, Alison cuts the interview short. A few replays, Chris holds up Razorback's broken wheel, and Molly throws to commercial.
When we come back, it's time for a fight between Wrecks and Plan X. We're informed that Wrecks is a walking robot, but we're not told whether that means it receives any sort of weight advantage. It doesn't appear to be any larger than your average heavyweight, so I have no idea. Kenny begins talking nonsense about a top falling over and kinetic energy keeping the robot centered. Nobody pretends that what he says explains anything, so let me give it a try.
The weapon on Wrecks is a vertical spinning disk. As we've seen in the past, if a robot with a vertical spinning weapon tries to turn too sharply, the inertia of the spinning weapon will lift the side of the robot's body into the air. In Wrecks's case, the weapon will be deliberately tilted from side to side, causing the robot's opposing feet to lift at alternating times and causing the robot to amble forward.
The hosts take a look at the made-up rankings. Chris tells us that "far and away," Plan X has the advantage in this fight, even though both of the robots' scores total exactly 183! If you're going to compare statistics that are made up out of whole cloth, at least do it accurately!
Plan X is going to be accompanied by two smaller robots. Kenny suggests that the team may use those smaller bots as sacrificial lambs to "jam up" the spinning blade of Wrecks. Some piece of metal had better impede the motion of some other spinning piece of metal at some point during this tournament, or Kenny is going to be extremely disappointed.
In setting up the next builder profile, Molly informs us that Lisa Winter has been fighting robots longer than most of the other builders. I don't know who all of the other builders are yet, but I have noticed that many of them also date back to the Comedy Central "BattleBots" days. This statistic is either untrue or barely true.
After just one episode, I've noticed that this new "BattleBots" feels like a high school reunion -- I've been saying, "Hey, it's that builder!" a lot as I recognize people and robots that I haven't thought about in years. Remember Tentoumushi, the robot with the ladybug-shaped plastic sandbox cover that enveloped its opponents? Remember the middle school-aged girl who created and drove it? Hey, it's that builder!
Lisa Winter is an adult now, and she knows that if she wants to succeed in robotic combat, she needs more than an adorable design. So she's created a '50s-sci-fi-inspired robot with a light-up brain in a dome and a pair of spinning hammers.
In the BattleBox, Chris points out that the team has added a long bar to the back of Plan X, to be used as a defensive weapon. Kenny postulates that they're going to try to use that bar to try to do something to the spinning disk of Wrecks. Can you guess what verb he uses?
Faruq Tauheed tells us once again that it's robot fightin' time. Um, we know. We figured that out after the first fight. You don't need to tell us every time that robots are about to fight. That's the only thing that happens in the BattleBox.
Fight. Wrecks staggers out of its square. Plan X, not even spinning its weapon, stays just out of Wrecks's reach and waits until Wrecks has moved toward the center of the arena. At which point Plan X easily drives around to the back of Wrecks before Wrecks can turn around.
But Plan X is a very large machine, so Wrecks is able to take a couple of steps and take a bite out of one of the plates of Plan X's armor that's as much decorative as it is protective. Plan X backs off and tries again.
For a little while, the fight consists of Plan X pushing Wrecks from behind. Wrecks's weapon spends more time hitting the BattleBox floor than it does hitting Plan X. Eventually, one of its trips face-first into the floor causes Wrecks to flip upside down.
So Wrecks starts walking around the BattleBox on its disk, which is a comical sight to see. I don't know whether it's deliberate control or blind joystick manipulation, but Wrecks wanders into a screw and nearly gets flipped right side up again. The timer pops up in the corner of the screen, and suddenly there's only a minute left. Thirty seconds of this fight just disappeared into the ether.
Wrecks is still upside down and struggling to move. Plan X finally spins up its hammers (spinning downward, opposite of how most vertical spinning weapons operate) and hits Wrecks.
The screw finally flips Wrecks right side up, so we go back to fighting, now with each robot having a functional spinning weapon. As Wrecks stomps around the arena, Plan X has stopped moving. Lisa announces to her team that she's stuck on a piece of debris and requests that one of the mini bots push her free.
The mini bots are fairly pokey, though, so the final seconds of the fight tick away as all of the mobile machines in the arena slowly approach Plan X. With four seconds left on the clock, Wrecks finally connects with the side of Plan X, tearing the armor off of one side of the robot. The hit knocks Plan X free, Plan X escapes, and time is up. It comes down to a judges' decision, which will be revealed when the show returns from commercial.
After the break, the hosts recap the situation and introduce the three judges: Leland Melvin (a NASA astronaut), Jessica Chobot (from Nerdist News), and Fon Davis (credited as a visual effects wizard, though more relevantly, he was the builder of Mouser Mecha-Catbot). As Kenny looks offscreen and smiles at someone, Chris reviews the four categories that the judges will consider. Of course, each judge only has one point to award, so it's announced as a unanimous decision. The judges correctly choose Plan X as the winner. It may have received some significant damage at the end of the fight, but Wrecks spent a lot of time being upside down and useless.
We move on to the robot that the show has been hyping the most this evening: Warhead. You all remember Warhead from the late Comedy Central days. The robot remains unchanged -- it still has the spinning dome mounted at an angle to the front of the body, a pair of articulated wings/arms, and a mechanical tail that serves no battle function but looks really cool. It's always a pleasure to see a robot from those Comedy Central days make a return appearance, but from what I've seen at various tournaments over the intervening years, designs from ten years ago don't often fare well against more modern competitors.
The show takes a trip to England to profile Ian Lewis and Simon Scott, the builders of Warhead. I like that this new "BattleBots" is willing to show footage from its past when appropriate -- they show a number of clips of Warhead beating up Nightmare. Not so much clips of Warhead being defeated by OverKill, though.
Molly enthusiastically tells us that we're about to see a modular bot take on a modular spinning robot. Wait, how is this show defining the word "modular"? Because Warhead, as far as I know, is not capable of replacing parts of its weaponry or armor with other weaponry or armor. It always consists of a spinning dome, wings, and tail.
Chris ignores Molly's statement to examine the ratings that I'm sure were calculated using only the most powerful computers based on data supplied by the most complete historical records. For example, Warhead scores a whopping 94 in Weapons! Which means that Warhead's spinning weapon is 1.08 times more powerful than Icewave's spinning weapon. You can't deny this!
Warhead's opponent is Bite Force, built by Paul Ventimiglia. From the spinning still image of the machine, it would appear that Bite Force's offense consists of a set of jaws that may or may not be able to clamp onto opponents and lift them in the air. Kenny suggests that Bite Force's best strategy will be to push Warhead into the walls, so perhaps it can only lift one side of its opponent at any given time. I'm just surprised that Kenny didn't suggest that Bite Force could try to jam up Warhead's spinning weapon in some way.
We move to Faruq and his introductions, which unfortunately use the hosts' studio as a background. So in the span of five seconds, Molly, Chris, and Kenny have all vanished. During Warhead's introduction, Kenny speculates that Warhead is the most famous robot in the competition. That will be proven untrue when we move on to the next fight.
During Bite Force's introduction, we see that the team has wisely removed the upper jaw and instead mounted a sturdy wedge to the rear of the robot's body. This is an observation that the viewer has to make for him or herself.
As the hosts gush over shots of Warhead moving its wings and tail before the fight, the show goes to commercial. And to prove how invested I was when this initially aired, it wasn't until watching the episode again in order to write this recap that I noticed that the first commercial of the break featured three of the competing BattleBots teams (and their robots) in an ad for Pizza Hut's new Hot Dog Bites Pizza. The narrative of the advertisement makes as much sense as... well, as lining the perimeter of a pizza with hot dogs. I am happy to see the builders earning some extra money, though. NFL stars needn't receive all the endorsement deals.
We return from the break, and it's time to start the fight. Chris says, "Let the BattleBotting begin." Nice try, but no.
Bite Force leads with its wedge and succeeds in repeatedly getting to Warhead's side and pushing it around the arena. Eventually, Warhead is pushed into one of the screws, which briefly lifts it up toward the Lexan in front of the hosts. Chris reacts as if Warhead could come jumping out of the arena at any moment. I'm not saying that I've never been startled by a combat robot being pressed into the wall directly in front of me, but I am saying that that particular collision didn't warrant jumping back in your chair two feet. You'll learn over time, Chris.
After a few more hits, Warhead's disk stops spinning. Bite Force continues to use its wedge to shove Warhead around the arena. Eventually, Bite Force maneuvers Warhead under a sledgehammer, which delivers some satisfying blows. Then over to the other hammer.
Well, now Bite Force is trying to dislodge Warhead, whose disk is stuck on top of the wedge. Some shots of the drivers obscure whether that happened with or without the aid of a timeout, and now Bite Force is using its lifting forks to try to flip Warhead (now that the disk has stopped spinning and things are safer).
Bite Force can't flip Warhead, though it does get a fork stuck underneath Warhead's disk, and its attempts to dislodge Warhead are interpreted as aggressive attacks by the hosts. Bite Force finally knocks Warhead free and goes back to chasing Warhead with the wedge. With no offensive weapon, Warhead just tries to retreat.
Time is up, and it's never explicitly stated that the judges' decision went to Bite Force, although it's a pretty easy inference. The hosts speculate that Warhead could be a candidate for a wild card position. Since nobody has told us how a robot might qualify for a wild card position... sure, why not.
A brief interview with Paul Ventimiglia, and then it's back to the studio, where the hosts have now acquired a table and chairs. They briefly discuss the competitors in the upcoming fight, and then it's off to Wisconsin for a look at Team Whyachi. Hey, it's those builders!
Terry Ewert tells us that after this tournament, he'll be retiring as team captain and turning the reins over to somebody else in his family. Son of Whyachi is too heavy to compete as a heavyweight, so the team has built a brand new robot in Warrior Clan. It's a multibot -- the main robot has a spinning weapon around the perimeter of its body, but also has a flipping wedge mounted to one side. It will be accompanied by a pair of what the team calls "nuisance bots" -- small wedges that can shoot flames.
Warrior Clan will be facing Nightmare. Ah, it wouldn't be a BattleBots tournament without Nightmare. The wheel guards have been fortified and the spinning disk has been changed to more of a bow tie shape.
The hosts talk about how this is a fight between two legendary teams. But let's take a moment to realize that this was an invitational tournament. All eight of the teams competing in tonight's episode have had years of experience in combat robotics. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the other sixteen teams in the tournament are veterans, too. After all, BattleBots isn't going to risk its first shot at network television by inviting a team that may not be able to build a reliable fighting robot.
After a commercial break, the fight is on. The spinning weapons spin up and Warrior Clan's bots scatter. Nightmare naturally focuses its attention on the largest member of the team. The presenters are so excited about the sparks produced when the two spinning weapons meet that they don't notice Nightmare delivering a hit that sends one of the nuisance bots across the arena floor.
Another weapon-to-weapon hit, and Nightmare finds itself near the remaining nuisance bot. The nuisance bot stops to activate its flamethrower. At the same time, Nightmare backs up, sharply turns to align itself with the nuisance bot, and winds up dropping its spinning disk directly on the top of the nuisance bot's head. So with a gorgeous stream of flames, the nuisance bot is torn into pieces and flung into the opposite wall. That was a beautiful sight.
Now there's nothing left for Nightmare to do but go after the large robot. Nightmare attacks the wedge. As it does so, the flipping wedge activates, tipping Nightmare onto its head.
Nightmare needs to get back onto both wheels, and given its design, that won't be easy. It spins the disk to crawl across the floor, with one tire barely touching the floor for guidance. But it's really just a strategy of clumsily careening across the arena, hoping to hit something in just the right way to flip the robot back over.
Nightmare propels itself into one of the corners containing a sledgehammer controlled by Team Whyachi. So their hammer operator uses the hammer to pin Nightmare's tail against the floor. In short time, Nightmare is released, and it goes back to hoping to be flipped back over.
Nightmare drags itself over to one of the screws. As the screws always do, they start to pull Nightmare up. Unfortunately for Nightmare, they toss the robot's body over the rear wall, its disk now stuck behind the bumper. Nightmare ain't getting out of that position.
Team Whyachi celebrates. Nightmare's disk spins, but it's trapped. The countdown finishes, and Warrior Clan is the winner.
The replays focus almost exclusively on the hit between Nightmare and the flamethrowing nuisance bot, showing the destruction five times from three different angles. A short interview with Team Whyachi, and once again, Chris holds up a broken chunk of robot to demonstrate the damage that occurred during a fight. Some speculation as to whether Nightmare will receive a wild card spot, and it's time for another commercial.
The final segment of the show consists of nothing more than a recap of the episode's events and a tease for next week's episode. I'll worry about those details next week.
So there you have it -- "BattleBots" is back and surprisingly, not all that different than it was thirteen years ago. But maybe, just maybe that sameness is enough to make robotic combat popular again. I hope it does, because if BattleBots becomes really big, then Kenny Florian will get to realize what I assume is his lifelong dream of marketing a line of delicious homemade jams.