Well I did sort of say to Toast on Discord I'd do my own and here it is! Here I'll rank the UK Series only, unlike Toast and Nick's in depth look at every Robot Wars Series. Simply put I'd end up putting pretty much all the international lower due to (dare I say) language barriers which CAN indeed be a distraction and me not finding them all that interesting as a whole with rarely any memorable moments. That said I'll split my thoughts on the series into two simple categories; The Good and The Bad. Each will list the best moments and what I enjoyed as a whole, the negatives that hinder the series with a conclusion over all. Now some choices maybe controversial, while some not so, however you must remember this is all subjective opinion (as were both Nick's and Toasts. This will only be updated when I have the time so don't expect it to be weekly or every two days, just randomly! Without further ado let's begin shall we?

12.Series 1

I feel bad putting the FIRST series last but...I just can't find another series low enough! Before doing this rank, I thought to myself "Hmm, surely it's the worst UK series, after all it's the first one! It was the thing that started Robot Wars!" That was when it struck me, most of my praise comes from the fact that it was, indeed the first Series the one which started it all! But does that really mean that it's good? Like at all? No. Just because it was the first one, started it all doesn't mean it's automatically good.

Here are the good points:

It started the franchise off.

Heat A and Heat D were good, not great, good episodes. Heat D mainly because of them wacky featherweights that love so and Heat A because it was the only Heat with damaging robots (more on that later!).

The Grand Final Rumble, perhaps one of the only fights that's any good.

Some robot designs were nice to look at. For a series made up of mainly boxes and wedges, there were some designs I quite liked such as Bugs, Nemesis, Killertron, Torque of the Devil (and some more). To be fair they aren't spectacular but for Series 1 they were pretty looking.

Recyclopse vs Mortis: The most "Robot Warsy" battle of Series 1, frantic, fast and quite brutal at times.

Now for the negatives:

House Robots: These brutal behemoths of robots...don't do all that much. If you watch every episode all over again you'll notice that the House Robots really didn't do much except maybe the odd setting a Nemesis on fire or Matilda using her chainsaw... and even then! Their weapons in Series 1 were perhaps the worst (Just look at poor Shunt's axe, it's ugly!) with them rarely doing anything except nudging a robot. Of course this inaction would be fixed in Series 2...

Their weapons in Series 1 were perhaps the worst (Just look at poor Shunt's axe, it's ugly!) with them rarely doing anything except nudging a robot. Of course this inaction would be fixed in Series 2... Battle...YAWN! I get it it's the early days, battles are not the best but here's the thing Robot Wars was fought in America before Series 1...and the battles there WERE MUCH BETTER! What's worst is that they even had highlights from US Robot Wars showing The Master slicing into Thor...mean while we have Robot the Bruce vs Cruella.

Stock Bots: Not the worst offender but it does come across as quite sleazy having real competitors in a main competition fight alongside cannon-fodder whose main ambition is to to die so that the real competitors can go through. OR SO YOU THINK! Funnily enough these stock bots actually beat out some of the real competitors before completely throwing it in the second round making some of the legit competitors very unhappy indeed...Over all comes across as unfair.

Gauntlet and Trial: This is called "Robot WARS" right? This problem does carry over to the next Series, but I've NEVER liked these whatsoever, what could (and does) should be battles that eliminate a set amount of competitors before the Heat Final but alas we need a rather uninteresting Gauntlet that serves to bore rather than be fun and frantic. The trials were always different every episode which meant that some competitors were more suited for certain trials as opposed to the ones that they eventually did compete in. Overall boring and unneeded.

Heat A was the only Heat with competent robots. I understand the marketing here, use the best looking and most destructive robots in the first episode so that people will be attracted to the show and come back. Problem is the rest of the series had Uglybot, Dreadnaut, Warthog etc. and so people are more likely to get annoyed and perhaps tune out? Not only that in later years/the future people will rewatch it and find the Series is lackluster except for that one episode and the Grand Final rumble (unless you're me who also liked Heat D, speaking of which...) Also whose idea was it to have an episode of Heavyweights for four of the episodes and featherweights in one with Middleweight in the other?! I understand it happened in the US Robot Wars but here's the thing, I don't believe they mashed all the weight classes together for a grand final where the lower weight classes are doomed from the start, especially the featherweight whose only hope if for the other competitors to breakdown.

To conclude, no Robot Wars Series is 100% bad but Series 1 certainly is the most lacking in every series. This in my eyes comes from the fact that it was a new show, a new show where the production crew didn't know how to approach resulting in what appears to be a mes of a Series where things were thrown in left right and centre without further thought. It has some benefits but most come from simply knowing that it's the first Series and nothing else. I don't out right hate this Series but I find it incredibly forgettable and most of these faults are from it being from the "early days".

11.Series 9

I'm sorry,I'm not a fan of Series 9 what so ever, and yes I think Series 2, 7 and 5 are much better! I don't really like this Series and to be honest I really don't know why, I mean there's a lot of positives but then again I just can't seem to bear this Series in comparison to others. I remember entering this stage of denial of liking this Series at first but soon I came to really dislike this series, almost in a reverse of Series 7 (i.e. from absolutely loathing it to mediocre), believing "Hey, it's not that bad, I say it's great! NOTHING WRONG with it what so ever...it's improved it's...terrible, I don't like it I hate it!"

Oh well let's look at the positives first.

Production is certainly better than Series 8. I will say this, it's not perfect as it still has the ugly redness in a lot of episodes and even gas odd red spots littered across the arena, but at least the redness doesn't completely bleach everything this time. Also the editing and camera work is improved from the previous, seems they listed to complaints.

Supernova: I say this is the best version of the machine, shame it went out in round 2 but hey it did better than the Series before and it was in the Frostbite vs Supernova fight which brought me memories of the Splinter fight from Series 4.

Rogue House Robot: A nice additional hazard and allowed for more House Robot to do more considering their major absence during Series 8 (yes I will get back to that later).

It was the only Series that didn't spoil anything for me. Sadly for Series 8 I was spoilt by having certain individuals spoiling Razer's pitting and trailers showing the Grand Final and all the finalists! Series 10 had a next time which out right shows whose in the Grand Final and a trailer which shows Eruption, Magnetar and Rapid in the arena...Series 9 surprisingly spoiler free for the most part.

Heat A and B: Now as you may have noticed, just like Series 1 I've only named two episodes as being good...that should indicate what's to come, although I will say Heat E was alright as well.

Negatives.

This series made spinners boring! HOW THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE SPINNERS BORING?! Well Series 9 did...Series 9 did. Having 48 competitors (both main and BotS) with 18 (discounting Nuts because I don't call it a Spinnah) in the main competition and 3 in the BotS (which had 8 in total) this shows that almost half of the competitors were spinners, now let's take away the spinners which did not or hardly worked I calculated 7 out of 18 (8/19 if you count Nuts) that's quite high. What makes it worst is that we had two/three episodes where spinners were ether the half the competition or the majority (Heat C and D or Heat A/C/D if you count Nuts) which made spinners a little too dominant! You see more isn't always a good thing, take Lumpy from Happy Tree Friends for example; here this character is seen in the most amount of episodes and is responsible for more deaths that the murderous Fliqpy, he also the producers/creators etc. favourite character. However, fans HATE Lumpy and you wanna know the primary reason? Because it the show TOO DAMN MUCH! Do you get where I'm getting at? Too much can lead to disinterest and disdain towards that particular thing, however just like Lumpy I do still like spinners but when it's too much it's too much! (It's why we should't have the active weapon rule, a least heavily armoured rambot would put a stop to this.) Especially when it comes to battles...

Battles: Wanna know the main reason I'm so slow at doing DVD remakes of the screen caps for Series 9? Because I really find most of the battles boring. They're ether one hit KOs (which for me are 99% boring) or tedious pushing matches where neither robot can use their weapon (see almost every Concussion fight) What's worse is that a lot of the robots were unreliable and lead to an even worse experience in terms of battles. As stated before I only found Heat A and B to be the best episodes but even then the battles weren't all great, Eruption vs Cherub (both), PP3D vs Cherub and Jellyfish vs Terrhorhurtz to name a few.

Carbide winning: I love Carbide, it's a nasty spinning machine that was the UKs equivalent to Tombstone but by God it winning was no surprise and it never had any competition, in some ways the spinner Hell that was Series 9 helped it to victory. I often like to see some competition but no one ever did...

Battle of the Stars: I love specials so when I saw that there was a new Robot Wars Special I was excited for it...Then BotS happened...They were essentially Series 9 consisted into two episodes; Spinners dominate, one spinner is undefeated and beats a flipper and most battles are (you guessed it!) BORING!

The Round Robin stays: This'll be controversial but I hate the round robin in Series 8 and and I hate it even more in Series 9. As mentioned plenty of times, the series is boring and spinner dominated, therefore with a round robin format and an hour break to fix your machine, it becomes apparent that this already tedious system is flawed as a robot can be annihilated by a spinner and forced to rebuild or withdraw both of which result in another victim doing worst or better ruining the potential that destroyed robot could have had. Is it really bad to just want a traditional round 1 melee, round 2 battle and then Heat Final? OH WAIT MORE IS GOOD I ALMOST FORGOT!

I ALMOST FORGOT! The Arena: Surely if you build an arena that's meant to withstand spinners should be able to y'know withstand spinners? I mean Battlebots and King of Bots is able to withstand more powerful spinners yet this arena cannot...Oh and the arena problems ruined some of the battles (see: Apollo vs Aftershock vs Eruption, Concussion vs Thor).

Big Nipper fails to qualify...but Ms Nightshade goes through. So a competent claw robot, unique and very powerful fails to qualify as does the large and exciting Gabriel but Ms Nightshade does because:



"oh look it's unique!"- The only defense for this robot ever used by anyone.

Ms Nightshade was untested, couldn't move, had useless weapons and went with the whole "Look we're inspiring wimminz with our robutt" all while humiliating women by this dreadful machine by basically saying "this is your representative, this is what you'll make" At least THMWK could fight...

Cherub-Behemoth Controversy: I hate Behemoth but I'll try to be balanced here, and yes this is copied from my essay on how overrated Behemoth is but it did have what I wanted to say here: The Series 9 ragequit from Ant Pritchard. When this happened, the ordinary viewer laughed, mocked and was disgusted by his reaction, most incorrectly thinking it was because he lost to children (which to be fair was untrue) and instead of the fact that he was mad at his team, the fans reacted with outrage and to be fair they did say the correct reason...THAT SAID, I for one still think the reaction was over the top and unnecessary but rather expected, what I mean by that is it seems the team don't like losing and when it happens they often flip, though not in a spectacular fashion like the Cherub-gate scenario. You see just because your team made a very stupid decision, doesn't mean you should do that...and in front of children, y'know the future, the ones who will be inspired by the elders (not that they're old!) to do roboteering? It doesn't set a good example, and when individuals controversially stated something along those line, criticising Ant for those actions, the fans reacted with upmost anger and hatred against them stating that they were "bulling" Ant for it despite that they never aid anything mean about simply saying that he shouldn't have done that, even if he was angry or the "brilliant" excuse that "he's had many years of experience so of course he'd react like" and infact some (well at least one of them) were fan of the machine!

Series 9 tries its best to build on what Series 8 left off by making changes for the worst, yes you're bettered edited but that doesn't make a series good. For the most part I was bored and found more interest getting into arguments on Facebook (true story!) and I never really found myself celebrating the wins of certain robots and their performance because there was this sense of "oh well" because of the predictability of the series (maybe that's why they didn't spoil anything for it, because it was predictable!) The arena was battered and seemed to be unable to contain spinners despite almost half of the bloody competition having spinners! This series is boring, the round robin proves how terrible it was here (thank God it disappeared in Series 10) and has the belief that "more is good" when more doesn't always mean it's good.

10.Series 2

I was trying to find as many excuses to prevent Series 2 from entering the lower sector of this list but...I just couldn't! Series 2 for many is considered the "worst" though I personally find more problems with the other two Series as having to do the HD uploads for Nick Weston and images for this wiki, I have Series 2 fresh in my mind and honestly it's not the worst what so ever. That said it's certainly not the best.

Positives

One of the surprising things I found was there was not a lot of "limp breakdowns" in this Series...

Plunderbird's success: Of all the semi finalist, Plunderbird is perhaps the most unique, yes some would call them "cowards" for their pitting in the gauntlet, but you cannot deny that they were rather impressive in battle and a load of fun.

It's longer: More robots, more mayhem, more interesting moments, however this does have a major side effect...

The introduction to many famous faces occurred here such as the great Razer, the overrated Behemoth, the cute Milly-Ann Bug and let's not forget the most famous House Robot of them all: THE SENTINEL! (okay, I'm joking no one cares about The Sentinel, it's actually Sir Killalot)

Side Events: Once again I am a sucker for side events, even with House Robots destroying half of the competition and the fact they used highlights, the ones that we saw were very impressive!

Bigger budget meant that things now look more clearer and cleaner as opposed to very cheap looking obstacles with awful red/pink lighting. (seriously the ONE lighting that the reboot had to choose was red!)

Competitors were no longer boxes and wedges and now had improved massively, even Cassius (a robot I've and will criticise) was a major step forward!

Killertron: I like Killertron, having it in the Grand Final was brilliant...That is all! (Oh and it's episodes were the best of the Series)

Time for the negatives

House Robot Rebellion: One of, if not, the biggest complaint I've seen and have myself is the fact the House Robots were far too aggressive this time around! Now I'm one of these arseholes who prefers House Robots to decimate competitors rather than take a backseat, but here they thought that the House Robots should come out of their designated zone (the PPZ, absolutely stupid BTW) and enter the arena, killing or attacking random competitors. One of my complaints about Cassius which I failed to make note of before is the fact that the House Robots were often the reason for Cassius to win a "harder" match (i.e Roadblock) The House Robots didn't just unfairly attack during the arena battles but also the gauntlet and trial! Sir Killalot's first outing saw it attack Caliban and turn it over shunting it further back after the attack, all because they wanted to show off the new house robot!

PPZ: It takes up a large majority section of the arena (the entire frame to be exact) and the House Robots abused this system anyway so...

As mention in the positive the more episodes saw more robots and interesting moments, that's good, but what isn't good is the fact that we now have more Gauntlet and Trial! I said it in my Series 1 write up, the Gauntlet and trial was pointless and dragged on too much. While doing my HD uploads I realized by looking at the time length that most of the episodes took half to three quarters to show these gauntlet and trials, with arena battles being a small section. I'll repeat I thought this was "Robot WARS !" Another example of more isn't good.

!" Another example of more isn't good. Having the side events as highlights. This is a problem because it means we can't see the battles that took place, for one thing some singular events (lightweights and Featherweights) are shown for a whopping 10 seconds! With no clue to what happened and as a result no interest. Why bother?! is my question, if you can't be arsed to show anything just don't bother what so ever! And yes I know about timing...so why not split it into two shows? Or get this?! DON'T FILM TOO MUCH! Of course this problem will be replicated in Extreme 2, which I'm current debating which out of Series 7 and Extreme 2 is worst and should go next.

Overall Series 2 has a lot of positives, Hell more than negatives, but the problem is, those negatives are much bigger than a minor positive therefore outweighs it entirely. Series 2 isn't the worst there are much worst areas but it isn't totally good ether. The length has its benefits but also carries a lot of negatives that just pisses me off and the House Robots aggression was way too much to the point of being unfair! The classic era (Series 1-2) was unimpressive overall but were responsible for being the spark that eventually lights the fire to the Golden Era (Series 3-EXT1). Therefore these Series cannot be forgotten for that but that doesn't mean that we should keep them from negative feedback because they haven't aged well and still leave a rather sour taste in people's mouths.

9. Extreme 2

I tried to debate with myself which is lower, Series 7 or Extreme 2 or Series 5? They all have one thing in common. They're boring. Something I noticed in Toast's and Nick's write ups on this Series is how high it was rated and yet both have major heavy criticism that almost comes across as they DON'T like it. Well unfortunately I can't say I'm a fan. It's also quite ironic how I went to see Series 6 and 7 filmed but missed out on Extreme 2.

Positives

It has a structure. Unlike Extreme 1 which mashed multiple competitions into each episode, this at least had structure which meant that if a person liked a particular competition but not another they can pick and choose whereas Extreme 1 had other competitions wedged in between the one that person wants to watch.

More competitions...though most weren't good, there were some interesting ones such as Iron Maidens and New Blood.

Some robots gaining massive success and had their moment to shine. These include Kan-Opener, Chompalot, Bulldog Breed, Robochicken, Thor, Tiberius, Infinity and Cedric Slammer.

Lots of great battles. Despite me saying it's boring, it does include some very good fights especially the allstar/challenge Belt melees and annhilator.

The return of Diotoir and Pussycat!

Negatives

Most competitions are heavily weighed in favour for famous robots. Minor Meltdown:Bigger Brother. Allstars: Razer. Commonwealth Carnage: Firestorm etc.etc.

HIGHTLIGHTS AGAIN! I complained about this in Series 2 but here it's inexcusable. For one thing, they could have split it into two episodes; have the heats in the first episode and a second for the finals. But no! Let's have quick highlights for battles that could have been a lot of fun in favour of Little Pink Bot vs Typhoon.

Middleweight battles: Talking about in favour for certain robots. This came across as unfair and almost bullying towards other competitors as three Typhoons who don't attack one another kill you. The battle wasn't even that good ether!

Why wasn't Germany vs UK in this? Why was it for Series 6? That makes no sense what so ever.

I think it's been said so many times but Philliper Forrester was rather mean spirited towards the end of her reign wasn't she? I won't go in any more detail because I feel both Toast and Nick but she did come across as EXTREMELY CONDESCENDING towards teams, especially newcomers.

Though one half of the fights this series are great, the other half isn't so. When a fight is bad IT'S GOD AWFUL! And perhaps one of the worst you'll ever see, when it's good it's one of the best you'll ever see...Yeah it's awkward that way.

So this is an awkward series for me because even after rewtaching it I completely forgot about a lot of what happened and found myself getting bored through half of the fights. In fact when I saw Robot Wars back in the day on TV, I completely bypassed this Series (despite having a VHS tape of three allstar battles) and went into Series 7 after 6, and I feel like if anyone were to watch every Series again, this is the one series you could skip and not miss anything...like at all! (well, except why Chaos 2 never appeared again) As mentioned throughout this type up, Extreme 2 is awkward and that the best way to summarise it. Awkward. With one half some of the best and the other some of the worst.

8. Series 7

(Copied and pasted)



So Series 7 was the first and only time Robot Wars went to Channel Five and for the most part just remained the same as Series 6 with a new House Robot and the return of side events in between battles. However, when it came out most people hated with few (such as Toast who has it as number one on his favourite series list) who liked it. Series 7 often leaves a sour taste in most peoples mouths, most reasons were because it was the "last" series at the time, however have attitudes changed? For me Series 7 still remains at the bottom bunch, not as bad as Series 1, 2 or 9 but still one of the worst for me personally. Funnily enough I actually went to see Series 7 live being filmed, one heat in particular was the Supernova vs Storm 2 melee. So like with Series 5 let's look at the good points first.

Featherweights: Aside from the rage from Team Mute, these were fantastic! It was frantic madness with small featherweights being thrown about left, right and centre.

Side Events: I love that the side events returned in between the main battles and I also the events after the series (yes I even enjoyed that annihilator)

The robots weren't too bad, I 'm stating these with a grain of salt as I want to touch upon the robots, that said even the weakest robot in this series wasn't completely awful, they weren't good but not too dreadful. Not only that some older robots returned (Atomic, The Steel Avenger) which was great to see and they performed really well which makes it great.

Thermidor, Bulldog Breed, X-Terminator and Atomic becoming semi finalist are a joy to behold.

X-Terminator Heat.

Big Nipper returning and doing well

Pussycat wins the allstars (hey its my favourite robot of course I'll love it)

And now for the negatives...

It's incredibly forgettable! If I'm honest even after seeing the series over and over again, I forget most of what happens and who was in it. For one thing the battles are largely between slow and tedious or too fast and quick to the point that it has no substance to make it great. As for robots, tell me without looking anything up did you know a robot called The Scrapper? or Xenomorph? or Jabber? Do they ring a bell? if not then I don't blame you, they're forgettable, they left NO IMPRESSION at all and if I'm honest I completely forget such robots even existed in Robot Wars, at least robots from Series 2, 5, 1 and even Series 9 left some sort of impression, Series 7 has a weird case of having extremely bland robots with no quality to make them unique and memorable (even robots I dislike such as Ms Nightshade or Spawn Again are at least memorable) With forgettable battles and robots it sometimes feels worst than something you hate.

A lot of allstar robots gone. Now to be fair this is nitpicky but after Series 8 and 10 having a lack of "allstars" and still being good series then I still have a problem. Series 7 didn't have the likes of Razer, Hypno-Disc, Chaos 2, Dominator etc. though as mentioned with Series 8 and 10 this was fine because you had great robots who themselves are now allstars (Nuts, Carbide, Eruption, Apollo etc.) with Series 7 it becomes very lacking and notable when you have a bunch of Jabbers (I'm using the terms Jabbers to describe forgettable and bland robots) about and the other "allstars" disappear from round 1 or 2, as well as seedings which annoyed quite a few people (though I never really minded the seedings) then it feels like somethings missing. I feel the reboot had the benefit of coming back after 12 years whereas this didn't. And before any one comments, I do know that there were many reasons as to why these allstar robots I mentioned above but as I mentioned with Series 8 and 10 I still remain wit my point.

The show became less about a bunch of engineers, school kids and what not having fun making and more a stale gameshow that in EVERY EPISODE HAD TO STATE "a prize of £20,000 As if to hammer the point on the head. I believe the BBC also gave some cash prizes to winners or competitors but they never out right stated it (I could be wrong) but with the move to Channel Five meant it had to state it loud and proud...which in my eyes turns a friendly show into something quite predatory or greedy, too competitive to say the least.

They still kept spoilers at beginning though not as bad as Series 6.

Active weapon policy. Does anyone like this? Like anyone? This was a mistake and ridiculed at the time and is STILL a mistake and STILL ridiculed now. Remember kids! This was brought because the producers decided that rambots and axlebots are "boring" and made that rule on behalf of the audience despite no one asking for it! The reboot may still have this silly rule, but at least it's relaxed in letting axlebots (Chimea, Gabriel) and robots like Nuts in despite really having no active weapon.

Producer interference. The most controversial and most hated thing to occour was Producer interference, many may know that Storm 2 was treated unfairly as a result of the "active weapon rule" which dictated that Storm 2 should use their weapon because, as I repeat, the producers thought it was "boring" (even though it was a fast pace monster with brilliant aggression) and so punished Storm 2 by lift the pit every so often so its opponents can survive. Then there's the Grand Final, the World Championship final...which is best left to this: http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_2/Controversy

Cassius Chrome. Just. Cassius Chrome.

The lighting, though not awful, is somewhat the opposite to Series 8 in the sense that it is extremely bright and sometimes is too bright that it makes the robots almost hidden away in the arena, funnily i use to think this was a problem with the blurry older videos but since the HD rips it seems the light was STILL a problem

Now is Series 7 deserving of its hatred? I've certainly listed more negatives but is it truly awful? I've tried to give Series 7 a chance and everytime I do I just can't bring myself to like it the flaws out way the positives. I know Nick Weston and Toast consider this their favourites but every time they've said so they're reasoning can be summarized as "it's underrated so therefore it's good" or a positivity bias whereby the the good points are amplified and the bad points are muted completely, and after seeing their lists, my opinion is still the same it seems like you two watched a completely different series to everyone else. Do I hate it? No. Do I like it? BLOODY HELL NO!

7. Series 5

(Copied and pasted)



Ooo a controversial post about a series that seemingly almost everyone in the Robot Wars fanbase loves...and I'm not a big fan of it. I will stress before we begin that I don't hate Series 5. If anyone's been paying attention to the Robot Wars Wiki blog posts by our beloved Toast and Nick Weston, then you'd notice that they've rated Series 5 lowly, you may also notice a certain user (me) agreeing with them entirely.

So why do I think lowly of Series 5, it's NOT necessarily the WORST Series of Robot Wars (I'd argue Series 1,2 and 9 are worst) but it is in my personal low end and thanks to the recent blogs, it seems I'm not alone. Let's start with the good points;

The Grand Final was a lot of fun and all four finalists were on their top game (extra points for Razer winning, yes I am a fan :P)

The First Semi Final with Chaos 2 vs Wild Thing and other amazing battles were exciting. *Diotoir vs Tornado, I like Tornado but c'mon this was great!

Heat H was certainly the best heat with the most competent robots around (especially since every other Heat was...well you'll see)

House Robots have improved greatly (namely Matilda and her flywheel)

Now you maybe thinking that those are only a few points of positivity and you're right I have a lot more negative points about the Series, ones that I deem are more seriously problematic.

For one thing the reintroduction of the head to heads replacing the melees was (as we would see in later seasons) and mistake! In Series 3 it was understandable, it was the first time having actual battles instead of a gauntlet and trial, though the head to heads were rather slow and tedious at times. In Series 4 they had the melees which made things fast, frantic and fun. In Series 5, in order to have "more battles" they re-added the head to head. Most head to heads were boring, slow, tedious, a random breakdown and/or just a few nudgings. Sure you'd get a Hypno-Disc vs Black Widow every so often, but for everyone of those there's a Warhog vs Napalm, Sir Chromalot vs Rohog and/or Diotoir vs Dome. Basically what I'm trying to say is there are more bad fights than good...speaking of which.

Most fights were bad (in my opinion of course) As stated above the reintroduction of the head to heads cause 1 fight to be great and memorable while 3 others would be forgettable and I've even seen people name them as some of the "worst fights" Don't get me wrong, when a Series 5 fight is good, it good but when it's bad, it's some of the worst! Whenever people say things like "Oh but Series 5 had the best fights" they often ONLY EVER REFER TO THE GRAND FINAL OR SEMI FINALS BATTLES it's funny how they often skip the heats or have forgotten how bad these battles can be. Some battles would pit two robots that would nudge each other for three minutes, or get caught or even die after one ram, that's not fun or interesting. People (myself included) criticise Series 9 for some of these reliability and quick knock out problems yet for whatever reason Series 5 gets a free pass despite being longer and having more episodes in which similar events took place. These aren't problems in just the Heats, oh no! The second Semi Final has Firestorm dying in one quick hit and then the dreadful Dominator vs Hypno-Disc fight where Dominator was practically immobile but it wasn't so we waste three minutes because we don't want a short runtime. But alas Series 5, in my opinion has more bad fights than good, and I feel that people who enjoy Series 5 maybe judging it based on these few good fights as opposed to the Series as a whole.

Many robots were...embarrassing to say the least. We had plenty of great robots (Razer, Hypno-Disc, Firestorm, Chaos 2 etc.) we had brilliant surprises (Corkscrew, Prizephita, Diotoir etc.) but as with the battles there are a litter of, dare I say, robots who are mediocre at best. The fact that Series 4 had better robots that Series 5 says a lot, in Series 4 all the robots, no matter how goofy (like Scorpion) they maybe they had some levels of competence and many put up a good fight before being knocked out. Series 5 is the opposite with robots that qualified over other much better machines (Bot outta Hell > M2 or Juggernot 2 > Spirit of Knightmare) The problem is with these "bad" robots is that they weren't even that fun when they get defeated and/or decimated, at least Series 3, 6 and 7 had that, Series 5 has them simply to make the Seeds' jobs easier. What worst in my eyes is that these mediocre robots make up the majority, essentially you'd have a Heat where there's three "Allstar" robots and the rest are basically filler there to be defeated so the seeds can win. I reiterate my points about the battles being rather boring in the sens that you've ave these mediocre robots nudging each other for a minute before one dies from boredom, it's a shame really (It's why a melee format would have been better).

My second to last negative point is that the team interviews are almost completely omitted for no reason...OH WAIT that's because they wouldn't have enough time because of those head to heads! -But wait Series 3 had them so...My theory is that Series 5 was meant to be an "all out action" orientated series and so the producer probably thought that "dem people speaking and having a personal touch is BORING!" Oh how they were wrong, one of the most complained about things when it come to Series 5 is that they got rid of team interviews for Round 1, because it brought about a personal touch it had added some more "humanity" in a way but if you lost in round 1 you'll be forgotten about forever and no one will care how much time or effort you put into your robot, because we can't be bothered to save a minute at the maximum to talk.

My last point may end up being seen as quite predatory towards the fans to say the least in the sense that there are SOME fans who I can't stand. I feel most who like the series are dare I say "nostalgia blind" Remembering things from their childhood and increasing the idea that it was "the best thing ever" when really it probably wasn't the best. But here's the thing, I don't mind if you like the Series, you're completely entitled to your opinion. Now this post is a SUBJECTIVE OPINION it's quite important to stress as it seems some radical fans treat Series 5 as their favourite Series as OBJECTIVE FACT when really it's just their opinion and will attack other people for simply having another opinion believing that they're right when really they're nether right or wrong as liking a Series like Series 5 is subjective. These are the entitled fans I have a problem with and it is isn't just Series 5, it's in all Series but Series 5 has it the worst when it comes to the "entitled fan" and their subjective opinions being treated as "objective facts".

As you probably could pick up on I have attacked the fans a few times when it comes to certain points. Fans of the Series say it's the best but seemingly only because of the grand final they never pick up on any other aspect of the series, they often seem oblivious to any negativity it has and almost seemingly overrates the series all while slagging other series off for reasons that can be connected to Series 5 (i.e. limp breakdowns, bad robots, boring battles)

6. Series 8

Series 8 has been quite polarising for fans, some see it as a great return while others see it as a major disappointment, with me on the former. Don't get me wrong when I first saw Series 8 I was rather mixed, but unlike Series 5 the more I watch Series 8 the more I really enjoy it. I find Series 8 to be very underrated by many, but I cannot deny it has some flaws. Let's look at what's great

The return of a few familiar faces: In particular Razer, Thermidor, Supernova and Dantomkia, robots that we haven't seen for a long time, even during the live events they completely disappeared and to see them again is great...even if two lost in round 1 but hey the battles they were in were great fun.

The flipper limit: Once this rule was in place I was thrilled! I'm glad they put a cap on flippers, why? Because if it isn't obvious they're kinda boring unless they get an OOtA but also because the live events were (and still are) dominated by flippers, some of which are Ripper clones (*cough*Dystopia*cough*) I'm glad they had this, but more so because we ended up having very impressive flippers as opposed to 10 bad flippers and one good one.

Diversity of robots: Something I failed to touch upon is the fact that Series 8 in particular had a very diverse set of robots as opposed to Series 9 which had one type of robot dominating the scene, here we have a balance set of robots in my eyes (sure it's not perfect but it's the best it was). Take the Grand Final for one thing; it had two flippers, two spinners, one axe and one rambot - therefore not one robot type dominated the others.

Most of the battles were very good, I found them to be tense, destructive fun and/or memorable. Things the previous half had major problems with...

The new presenters did a very good job in my eyes. Would I have wanted Craig Charles - yeah...but Dara did a fabulous job nonetheless, he was funny, level headed and also enthusiastic. Angela was practically the same except possibly with more excitement than Dara.

Most of the Series was very enjoyable, in particular Heat A,C,D and the Grand Final have great battle consistently to the point it's hard to pick out a favourite sometimes.

Negatives

House Robots are back but they don't do anything...yeah... The problem with the reboot in general is everyone has this Team Saint approach whereby they're too passive half of the time and it seems the House Robots were also caught up for this Series also. As mentioned in the caption Heat C saw the most House Robot action that wasn't committed solely by Shunt - who was literally the most used House Robot in the reboot in general. This almost comes across as if the House Robots weren't even needed if they aren't going to be used, thankfully this improved later.

Heat B and E are dull: Both these episodes have the pattern of having some very good robots with two very good round one melees and then the head to heads happen which instantly bores you to death. Now don't get me wrong there are good battles inbetween (e.g. any battle with Thor, Gabriel vs Chompalot) but for the most part these head to heads really ruins what is - for the most part - brilliant.

Team Danby: Their attitude, fake or not, was awful! This type of behaviour will detract people, not entice them! It came across as arrogant, cocky and was over all embarrassing, especially considering their robots (and for this Series Foxic - a robot that clearly could not work got through round 1 by doing nothing and was hyped by fans who think surviving a battle at the RoboGames means winning ; there's a clear difference!) The one positive is that because of the MAJOR backlash they completely changed their game (although some would argue they were "bullied" to change, but I say otherwise.)

a battle at the RoboGames means ; there's a clear difference!) The one positive is that because of the MAJOR backlash they completely changed their game (although some would argue they were "bullied" to change, but I say otherwise.) The arena: Say what you will about it I say it's not the worst (Series 1,2,3 are worst) but this new arena is...how do I say it nicely?...UGLY! From awkward arrows, a large logo in the centre, lined out CPZs that almost looks like they simply put black tape on the metal arena and the bland looking hazards (seriously what's wrong with a black and yellow warning pattern or as it's more red, red and black!) Even though the arena is meant to be larger than the older one, it's square design made it look smaller, which isn't helped by the fact that the robotscan only move in the centre + because every where else is filled with hazards due to the arena's blocky design. It's just too structured in my eyes, I preferred the Series 4-7 arena and still do.

Red lighting...well lighting in general: Whose bright idea was it to use red lighting in an arena that is quite RED already? What strange is there's also this awkward aqua lighting on the arena floor which just looks weird and then there's the outside which consists of green, blue and plain lighting...Just why? Why have so many lights and colours in what is a dark and dull arena? It has no substance.

40 robot limit and six episodes: This is a problem with the reboot in general but I'd prefer more robots and heats (I mean it probably would have saved the series from cancellation cuz dem views) But regardless this series was great even with this cap.

Round Robin: This is my fourth real negative point as I am not a fan of the round robin format what so ever. Yes it means competitors can have a chance to survive whereas before they'd be out...but this also means certain robots will now have more losses than wins to its name and what's worse is that most heats was clear with whose going to win and get to the heat final and who isn't, meaning this was pointless and you might as well have gone for the A-B-C format. Not only that the Round Robin meant that robots can be heavily damaged at the beginning and have no chance despite possibly being a good robot, I mean look at Beast for one thing.

No battle music: Everyone's mentioned this so not much to press on, I have more of a problem in Series 10 about this which you'll find out later...

Some thing that really bothered me also was the inconsistent countdown. For one thing; having no ability to move one side did not mean you were immobilised yet having one wheel knocked off does. Basically if you hate Dominator 2 vs Hypno-Disc you'll hate a lot of these head to heads as there are plenty of Dominator 2 vs Hypno-Disc-esc battles here. But what worse about this is that the roboteers also seemed confused and didn't know why the battle continued; Take Beast vs Gabriel or Eruption vs PP3D.

Despite the negatives, a lot of them can be summarised as nitpicks with a few actual bad points as a whole. That said Series 8 is a series I remember fondly and as mentioned at the beginning this is a series that, the more I watch the more I enjoy. It's a very good series but a flawed one at most, one that brought back Robot Wars but unfortunately it was the massive BANG "We're Back!" but rather a POP "we're back." Overall, Series 8 is a brilliant Series despite the flaws and incredibly underrated.

5. Extreme 1

Now before we begin I'm gonna talk about a strange dream I had about Robot Wars which is completely unrelated to this write up. So basically it was a Grand Final for a unknown Robot Wars Series, however I missed it only to read the news that supposedally the team captain from Eruption had attempted to stab the other contestants and was arrested on site. What's stranger is that Saw Point (Series 4 vers) was in this Grand Final and some other box shaped robot (I dunno who that was) with both Dara and Angela speaking in a very monotone voice about who won that battle. It was strange. Very strange. Anyway back to the write up

For whatever reason people seem to dislike Extreme 1 now, it's like this bizarre norm but what's worse is that there's only one real excuse to their dislike, which is admitting a big one but we'll get there! When I was young I did in fact confuse this for a real series and thought the Extreme part was just a fancy way of promoting it as "awesome" but of course grew up. I also still own a VHS tape of random recordings from Extreme 1 and having rewatched the Series, I think it's great and much better than Extreme 2 by a long shot.

Positives

Almost every battle was ether fun, intense or overall just fantastic with the Tag Team final being one of my favourites (seriously no one ever talks about how great this fight truly is, they're too busy jacking off on Bigger Brother vs Hypno-Disc) and the Panic Attack vs Ax-Awe fight being a favourite also. The allstars fights were great, so was the mayhems and the first annihilator, Tag Team, some of the vengeance battles, some of the Challenge Belt and some of the wild cards were not that bad ether.

The Second World Championship. What else can I say, it was the most fun and the best of all the international events in my opinion, everything was great about this.

Robots that Failed to Qualify or would not appear in the later Series would appear here and some put up a decent effort (e.g. Disc-O-Inferno and Arnold A)

Everything here was energetic, despite some obvious fakeness here and there, you cannot deny that most if not all had a lot of fun during this series, you can tell from their enthusiasm and smiles, had they not been enthusiastic they'd probably not bother being here.

The layout. I may have praised Extreme 2's layout for being more structured, this however I like also, in fact upon rewatching it I find it more better in fact...which reminds me I should do this for Diotoir's Wacky Rumbles...So what do I mean by "better" well, the problem I had with Extreme 2 was I found it mostly forgettable and I wondered why? Then it struck me, it kinda gets boring seeing the same event playout continuously while having multiple random events displaced here and there will keep interest and viewership because unlike a main competition, these aren't important they're just fun and to screw up with fun is to make it tedious which Extreme 1 doesn't do...for the most part.

Negatives

At the beginning I mentioned there being one big negative that everyone uses as an excuse to describe why this is a bad Series, while I disagree that this is a bad series I agree this negative is rather big. You see, to make the over the top joy ride even more over the top was to act for the most part. The majority of vengeance battles, though not bad, were heavily staged which if someone were new to Robot Wars, they'd be treated so something that was staged and not hiding it meaning that these newcomers will believe that ALL of Robot Wars is staged. What worse is that the stageness takes away the reality that the show is known for and can almost take away the viewership's trust.

Annihilator 2: When you have the best annihilator ever previously you'd think a second one would be just as good right? Well it only had three battles because two robots pulled out, not only that some of the actual competitors who won the annihilator had to pull out...It's made worse by the lack lustering battles so much so they had a random Vengeance midway through to get the runtime.

I feel Extreme 1 gets a bad wrap when I really enjoy it! Is it my favourite series? No. But it's a great series nonetheless, that said the major negative does hinder the series massively but I cannot simply mistreat this series over that negative because for the most part it is a frantic, exciting and most of all enjoyable to watch. As mentioned there is only really one bad episode while the rest are a joy to watch.

4. Series 6

I feel really bad having Series 6 at the fourth position but by this point, it's getting REALLY REALLY hard to put one series below another but alas Series 6 takes the fourth position mainly because of two flaws that certainly get in its way. Now what also makes Series 6 special to me in particular was the fact that I went to see it live! I saw the first round melees of Heat A and B (they were filmed one after another) the introduction of the new House robots (which they kept repeating in between fights) and I'm sure I saw a Supernova battle as well (I'm convinced I've seen that and Firestorm both times I went to filming, though I could be confusing Supernova for Series 7, Firestorm I KNOW I saw twice) Let's just say it was an epic feeling going through this narrow (waiting in a que) line covered by black curtains where if you looked to the right you'd see some roboteers in the pits as you enter this long and large rows of seats in what was a very loud an somewhat cold place. I also saw Chaos 2 in the distance in the pits but never saw them fight :( which did upset a younger me, I also wanted to see Diotoir but that never happened ether :P But I still have my program, plastic bags and even a Wheely Big Cheese from the little shop you could go to.

Positives

Every Heat was consistent quality, which only the Spawn Again heat being the weakest but even with Spawn Again's terribleness, the heat itself was still a blast with Supernova certainly improved from the year before. The battles ranged from funny, mad, intense and overall action packed from beginning to...well we'll get there...

The robots were great. This is one of those Series that have great robots all around with only really one robot that had no chance at winning any thing (Granny's Revenge in this case)

Lighting, format, new House Robots, new Hazards OH the list goes on and on. One trouble I am having with writing the positives for any series is that the most I can say is everything's great, and I know it's not doing the series any justice and it's not as in depth as Toast or Nick's list but really when it comes to the great points its that it really needs to be seen to be believed. The return of the melee format was a VERY wise choice as it allowed for some of the best melee action you'll ever see from the melees, the new house robots were great additions that were memorable and unique! The new hazards, well one of the new hazards (Drop Zone) was a fabulous addition to the arena bringing it something memorable, flashy and overall a joy to watch.

Dantomkia.Most newcomers in the show left an impact even bad ones like 259 but One newcoemr tends to stand out from the rest. DAN-TOMA-KYA! So Dantomkia kicked ass in in its Heat and threw Chaos 2 out of the arena! It shown itself as a pure allstar in it's first appearance, something not many robots (that include the reboot) can't do. It's just a shame about it's semi final run...

Negatives

The greatness of the heats are somewhat ruined in a way the rather lackluster semifinals and grand final. Here me out, they're not bad but they are predictable. All the battles Razer is in we KNOW it's gong to win, there's no way any of these other robots had a chance until Tornado stepped in with the frame. Same goes for Firestorm, we KNOW it'll win these battles or Tornado etc. Terrorhurtz was a surprise for sure but I'd still argue that it's performance in the heat says a lot!

Spoilers at beginning. Series 6 is the WORST when it comes to spoilers, Series 8 may have had the teasers, Series 7 and Extreme 2 may have had the intro narration and Series 10 may have had the "next time" but BY GOD Series 6 just outright, at the beginning of the episode shows round 1 then two and the heat final ALL IN THAT ORDER. Essentially showing the entire episode in a summery as JP gives a very half arsed narration which consists of pauses and some stutters as he speaks making this more awkward and rather stupid (no element of surprise but then again i knew the results of Heat A and B before hand :P). Out of my three negatives, this is the only SERIOUS one.

Spawn Again. THE WORST ROBOT OF ALL TIME in my opinion and Series 6 shows this pile of s-crap at it's worst! It did nothing after doing nothing and then decides to work once before reverting to doing absolutely nothing. What worse is the team seemed oblivious to fixing their own damn machine! Thank God this robot is not around anymore.

Why is Germany vs UK a part of this series and not Extreme 2? This still makes no sense.

So yeah overall, Series 6 is borderline perfect with some of the best battles, most memorable moments and perhaps the best use of the format, that said there's a lot wrong, though most are nitpicky, one in particular (the spoilers) is rather annoying and can ruin the experience. However, my enjoyment seeing this live and the great memories of watching it later on TV is something I still smile at. Series 6, I wish it could be higher but I find these other series JUST a bit more better...

3. Series 10

Now that we're in the top three, I am struggling to come up with large in depth details about what makes these Series the best of the best without brief "It's great" littered about. That said Series 10 can be summarised by what Toast said in his write up:

"The third series of the reboot, and tenth series overall, had all the makings of an awful series. Its predecessor, Series 9, fell far below expectations and created a champion which looked impossible to stop. Series 10 starts filming, and we learn that rather than expanding the series with more episodes, we instead lose ten of the already limited forty robots, for the smallest number of competing robots in any UK series, equal even with Dutch Series 1. So how come Series 10 was absolutely phenomenal?" — Some guy called Toast

Basically Series 10 was DOOMED to fail with a small number of robots, and the absolute terribleness of Series 9 with Carbide being pitted against pretty much all the "deadly" and "tough" opponents in its heat...things didn't look good. What worst is that the trailers went out of their way to spoil one of the Grand Final fights (Eruption vs Rapid vs Magnetar) and the fact that featherweights were to be used and then never got a chance was sad. But we were surprised...

Positives

The Series was consistently great in quality. Sure there were some weak bits here and there and the final episode (World Series 2) was awful but every episode and battle was unique and thrilling each time. It's funny to think that this Series had such a low competitor count and yet managed to continuously impress. Huh, it's as if my message about how "more isn't always good" is true or something...

Diotoir's return: I really don't care if it's Kadeena Machina seeing that shit-eating grin from our beloved Irish ladybird was so thrilling, sure the first battle it damaged Terrorhurtz and then got knocked out almost immediately and the fur didn't last but I loved that Team Nemesis appeared at the start of the show and ironically at the end of it too.

Out of all the robots to truly shine, Big Nipper was the one for me. It was already one of my all time favourite robots but here it truly shined, and what funny about it is that, poor Big Nipper was knocked out straight away in its first round (and that fight was great) before kicking ass in every other fight. Even battles it lost Big Nipper appeared in the best possible fights of them all and that includes the World Series.

10 way Rumble. How can you not love this? It was complete madness and destructive fun, we saw how certain robots behaved towards others and to see who used the best tactic (though the best way is also cowardly) I also loved the fact that it had no time limit meaning it could go on for a long time, shame we won't see anymore rumbles...

The format. Though I am still in favour of the basic A-B-C format, I did prefer this one over the Round Robin one. Here no robot loses in round 1 but rather they have a redemption where they can have a second chance. This has saved the likes of Big Nipper, Concussion, Coyote, Sabretooth etc. This allowed us to see how good (or bad) these robots truly were.

Diverse range of robot. They went back to Series 8 whereby they had a good range of different weapons and robot types therefore it wasn't dominated by anything. Also extra points for insisting in getting more crushers as they are brilliant in my opinion and this Series thankfully had great crushers.

Nuts beating Carbide. For a long time I haven't screamed and jumped up and down in excitement for a very long time but this THIS made be giddy, it made be jump up and down in absolute joy and excitement, it almost brought tears to my eyes and it was GLORIOUS!

Negatives

It's hard to come up with any negatives that doesn't come across as nitpicky but here's one that most seem to agree on and that is, the second World Series was awful. It's a shame that the last EVER episode (for now) is also the worst in the entire series. So the World Series has come and gone and boy was it underwhelming! I had my hopes (not for team Internationals, I mean they always lose) for an entertaining Special but it wasn't even that! So the return of Diotoir was exciting at first but then it fought...and it sucked! Or or or what about THE BASH?! That was funny to see them mention SGT Bash...ha..ha..oh...Throughout the history of Robot Wars there have been International competitions and everytime the UK have bulldozed over the Internationals so them winning here is no different but unlike the past where there's been SOME competition here we only really had Cobra and Tough as Nails (who in turn was only a substitute!) as the biggest International threat and everyone else was...not so great (although Weber was unlucky I'd say). The problem here, however, is that the World Series feels too staged...Time to put on the tinfoil hat! Basically once you find out that the producers had practically harassed the likes of Team Nemesis to appear, gave weaker stockbots to some international, create a confused format (Tag team in the first round and then head to head what?!) Change the rules every second and like with BoTS every robot should get a point (even if they lose) Talking about battles, some of these also felt staged take the Concussion attack for example, it came out of no where and happened in such a way like it was done on purpose just so the other team can have some points, also note how the Rogue House Robots all went for team UK, or how about the fact that the only real reason for these specials were to be Fan service. I'm almost in denial about me liking this special...because I just don't, they sucked! That said even this weak episode has great battles see: Terror Turtle vs Big Nipper or Big Nipper + Eruption vs THE BASH + Weber.

Now don't get me wrong, Behemoth getting to the grand Final is a great achievement but the fan reaction just annoyed me and technically it's not the series fault. The fans were more than happy, they expected it to win (which is as real as bright pink and blue fairy making me supreme ruler of the world, even after Series 10) If anyone said another was going to win then the fans would swarm and kill the prey for such blasphemy! There were posts everywhere about Behemoth winning etc, etc. And when the obviously expected happened, they were not pleased and were in fact quite upset about it. But that wasn't too bad...except when you realise that Behemoth really did win its battle through luck in Series 10 I may not believe in much but I do, funnily enough, believe in good luck and bad luck, Behemoth had good luck in Series 10. In the first round melee, it survived by the skin of its popularity, it was immobile and was immobile a split second before Sabretooth (which may I say if it didn't involve another popular robot and the same happened, I BET the same wouldn't happen, in fact things like this have happened and the same didn't happen!), in round 2 against The Swarm it won, (not much I say about that) but then there's the Heat Final, Apollo dominated that battle and was flipped right at the wrong time, a damn lucky flip I should say, had it not of happened Apollo would have won for Sure. It loses the next fight in glorious fashion and Ant ALMOST loses it until his team mate pointed out the "Sneaky boi" pitted them. Then came the fight against Pul-I mean Magnetar. Magnetar had pretty much won that fight, Behemoth was immobile on one side, but because Ellis didn't know how to drive in the Grand Final (see the drive into Matilda in the first round for reference) he breached himself allowing the immobile Behemoth to win by default. Behemoth went on to lose the next fight. The funny thing is the fans mainly claimed the likes of Eruption, Nuts and Cobra won their battles through luck, even more funny is that they're the same Behemoth fans (I know this via usernames. I'm quite the bastard) who believes that Behemoth won all there fight through practically non-existent "upgrades" and not luck OH No! Not luck, Behemoth is da graetest ting evar!1!!1 Stupid Nuts won by luck (which I guess those chains hits were somewhat lucky) so dod cheattterz Eruption (Grand Final Battle was a welcomes surprise)!11!! You're all so ignorant!1!!1!

Next time spoilers...they didn't even bother to try to hide anything!

Battle music: This time they actually had some, they played new remixes of older themes BUT they never bothered to have any music except in the final two episodes....WHAT?! and WHY?! it makes no sense! Unlike Series 8 and 9, Series 10 doesn't have an excuse, especially after the World Series PROVED they had battle music.

The final nitpick is that I didn't like having Dara and Angela in the same pod taking up room and overreacting to fights. I don't mind the bets they made to see who'd win but I really thought they were taking up space and I really preferred that they just got teams to use both pods.

Can't believe I forgot this but...FOG OF WAR! It was useless that even the judges, presenters, roboteers and audience all hated it and struggled to come up with a good point. Funnily enough they were going to remove it for Series 11...*sniff*

Overall, the Series is just like Series 6, borderline perfect however whereas Series 6 had a lot of weaker elements, this one doesn't most of my lengthy negative points are indeed nitpicks. The series is fantastic with only one bad episode (the final one ironically) and as the end of the reboot era of Robot Wars, it was a fitting and fabulous end. It's as if they knew it was going to end and so gave us the best shot they could and it worked! It was a fantastic watch and the battles were fabulous and memorable, every robot was well built and all had good chance, even the weakest was competent. The Series is certainly going to be great any new comers even with the whole battle music being omitted for no reason what so ever.

2. Series 3

A while back I mention on the Series 7 write up that there's a "positivity bias" well Series 3 is my personal "positivity bias" I've been thinking for a while how I was to approach this write up seeing as I usually do the four act structure of "intro", "positive", "negative" and "conclusion" however here for Series 3 I was also thinking of just letting out why I think Series 3 is one of the greatest Series of UK Robot Wars as well as the most underrated series, but for consistency I will go for the four act structure.

Positives

Series 3 is a very special series for me, on a personal scale, due to the fact that it was the FIRST SERIES I EVER SAW! I remember it clearly, funnily enough despite being EXTREMELY young, I had recently been to a shop and was given a strawberry and cream yogurt and it was Heat C, Razer team were in their pods as the battle was about to begin. This is a feeling that will certainly control and manipulate an opinion of a series, what made my experience of Series 3 better was the fact that I was often left on the sofa or a high chair with Series 3 playing on in the background (most of the time they were repeats) but still I fell in love and that's a feeling that I cannot properly put in words and cannot stress enough that ONLY Series 3 has managed to do for me.

This was one of the last "everybody can get involved" series. Think about it, Series 4 onwards had mostly extra ordinary people make robots and ordinary people who are in a minority throwing together something in a shed for over a week, the reboot is EVEN WORSE with practically everyone being sponsored, earning well over 50k each week and all the robots being these high tech unstoppable forces. Series 3, had a balance. Series 3 had robots that were just ordinary people making basic robots FOR FUN, all while more "professionally" made robots fought alongside them. Sure most were easy for the kill but at the same time you see something which had an old lawnmower blade you know they had heart to them, something that robots after this series, seemingly didn't have.

Robot designs. In comparison to Series 1 and 2, there's no longer the "boxes and wedges" but rather it was more diversive this time around, many designs in fact were fun and memorable. One of my favourites was Rattus Rattus fr not only it's brilliant design but also having a brilliant rambot design. Now were all these designs great? No but they were very creative nontheless...well most of them. Then there's the newcomers and/or new incarnations like Chaos 2, Hypno-Disc and Firestorm who all made their debut and their start, and kicking ass in the process.

Diotoir's performance. Not only is Diotoir a sexy new redesign but Series 3 still marks the best performance by the Nemesis team to date, getting to the Heat Final, second place in the Internationals and Semi finals in the World Championship.

Now this is where my biasness comes out but...I find most of the battles fun. Yes I know the age old argument that "all Series 3 robots break down straight away" however I have a problem with people who say that in the sense that this "breaking down straight away" problem only happened a select few times, in fact after rewatching it I only found that to occur at least four time with two being in the first round (such as Ming) and two being in the second round (such as Rattus Rattus) Not only that are people forgetting Series 9? Or in fact Series 5? or any other Series where this happens? Clearly they haven't. For the most part Series 3 battles can vary from some which are just pushing matches, others which are intense, some which are complete whitewashes and others which are just fun and energetic.

This was the FIRST proper Robot WARS. Gone are the God Awful Gauntlet and Trials and in was a format (well okay I hate head to heads but unlike Series 5 which had no excuse, Series 3 has) that actively encourages what's in the title WAR! Series 3, revolutionised the show and brought out the better.

The arena was also an improvement over the the last two, although it was still quite bland to look at, at least the lighting was absolutely perfect in my eyes.

Negatives

Though I have defended the Series of robots that broke down straight away, you cannot deny that there were a lot of breakdowns. Sure (from what I counted) only four broke down straight away as soon as "activate was preached" but there are a HELL of a lot more than that where they'd break down half way during a fight or just at the end. What worst is some come close to winning (such as Razer) and lost because of a limp breakdown...That said I find it more annoying in later series especially the reboot.

The floor spikes. These would be a major culprit against innocent robots who just want to fight...only to be defeated by a spike coming out from the floor...yeah. Now the problem I have with arena spikes in general is a we saw in the reboot is that you ether get an overly powerful hazard capable of determining a match's final result or being so useless you wonder "why they brought this back?" Basically arena spikes are useless and always will be, so just don't have them in next time!

Robot names. Series 3 has probably one of the worst roster for terrible names, such as the memorable "Blade" or maybe "Spike" or possibly "Binky" oh that doesn't do the trick? well surely "Henry" will do?!

Heat P. I think it's fair that most people including myself find Heat P the weakest, in this heat most of the annoying problems occur, arena spikes, breaking down straight away, dull battles and potentially good robots falling short (Rattus Rattus).

Pit inconsistency. I really don't understand why they had it open some battles and closed others...it just seemed weird.

Overall, I am bias towards my love for Series 3 but at the same time I can acknowledge some of the flaws it has but at the same time I only see theses as nit picks for what is a brilliant and revolutionary series. A series that had a lot of love and attention, something that was only replicated once after...which by this point is pretty obvious by now. That said Series 3 was the last of "classic era" Series and the birth of the "Golden era" a time where things had upped the anti as well as creating a great experience which introduced me to Robot Wars, making me a major fan and I salute you Series 3 for the great memories.

1. Series 4

It's all over, the end is over, it's all over and we'll do it again and again. Pardon the reference I must say I actually do not know what to write without going ahead and saying "that's perfect" over and over and over again, because Series 4 is as perfect a series as you'll ever get. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING went right for Series 4, it was the first Series watched from beginning to end (for you See I missed the first episodes as well as specials from Series 3 until years later) and watching Series 4 again and again and again never gets dull, everything is filled to the brim with exciting action, great atmosphere and overall brilliant quality. So lets try and talk about the positives in enough detail without diverging into simplified "it's good"

Positives (i.e. what made this series perfect)

Firstly, let's talk technical and talk about the production of Series 4. If you look closely, you'll notice that everything, in comparison to the previous three Series, has upped its game and the visual appeal is at its height. I absolutely love the colour choices in this series, gone were the black title cards and in was this lush neon, not just that they kept the brilliant way of introducing robots from Series 3 by having the robot called out with the stats coming on screen and then have a "previous incarnations"/team interview all while this unknown whistling techno version of battle board melody plays. But then there's the more physical visuals that make this perfect. Take the lighting; unlike other series, Series 4 used a almost purpley grey arena floor board and to add to this they also used purple lighting with bright neon blue which (unlike future series!) doesn't whitewash the robot and its colour it also makes everything look visually appealing! Maybe the future series should have taken note (looking at you Reboot era!)...hmmm maybe they should have kept the purple lighting. Not only that! But even the "front" of the arena is magnificent! I love that they got rid off all the random scrap, upped the appearance of the booths, making them more round instead of blocky and gave it this grungy, industrial almost NIИ-esc/David Bowie's Outside era look to the balcony. It also Incorporated the stripes and Christmas lights without looking silly and actually making it look effective...oh and I love that pointless blue cylinder in the middle there, sure it was cramped but that blue thing looks amazing!

The Arena itself is possibly my favourite incarnation. It's a mix between the Series 3 and 5 arena and honestly the best looking one! I think the colours really work yell without becoming a clustered mess and looks visually smooth without looking like a disaster like the reboot arena, which I still consider one of the WORST. I also really liked the way the pit worked in this series, no longer was it open so daft robots drive in and nor did it have a button rather it did the genius thing and had it come open after around 2 minutes into a battle, which I think they should have kept for it actually makes things rather balanced and interesting. I also admire (although they were useless) the yellow spikes around the arena wall and the flame jets which gave the arena more uniqueness.

Something that can't really be said about many series is that Series 4 had probably the best selection of robots all capable of winning a battle or 2 with Fat Boy Tin being the anomaly but even then it had that wedge and was only knocked out via snail. Not only that Series 4 saw newcomers become allstars in an instant from Tornado and Mousetrap being obvious examples as well as many robots showing us the best that they've got and performing well as a result, from Stinger and most obviously Pussycat, all of whom performed brilliantly and made many battles enjoyable.

There were a lot more Side events with many becoming fan favourites and ALL being done over and over and again. From the sumo, pinball to bigger events like Tag Team, the Celebrity special, International and of course the best one of them all the Annhilator. The Annhilator which had so many memorable moments such as Spikasaurus winning, Razer destroying Matilda and even the two time champions going out in round 1! What's not to love about the annihilators here and if that's not your taste you have the other events to enjoy all with their own brilliant moments.

Almost every battle had something going for it. Sure there's a few "meh" ones which I'll get onto on the negatives (yep even this great series has a bad point) but pretty much almost ALL the battles are constantly great. In my eyes they all tick off the points that make a great battle, which have been said before but; intense, fun and energetic.

Format changed for the better with a first round melee instead of a tedious and boring head to head. It really adds to the energy of the series.

It's the only series that came close to a Battlebots vs Robot Wars event...

Negatives (nitpicks)

Heat C. Let's be honest Heat C was pretty much the only episode that really strikes out in peoples mind as the one bad episode from Series 4, though I wouldn't call it bad I would say it wasn't the best...For one thing fan favourite Diotoir crash out in round 1 because it had problems of looking like a shotgun and being over weight, Scar dying after one flip, B(s)o(a)lt from the Blue, Firestorm struggling to get underneath some opponents and engaging in pushing matches and Of course...

Pit controversy. I may defend the pit and it coming open after 2 minutes but I feel the reason this never happened again was because of the controversy surrounding it. When two major battles to get to the semi finals means that debates rage over "who is pitted" and "who really won" you can see why they may have changed it to a button in the future. In these two battles, the judges came in and made a fair choice of choosing the one immobile robot to go out and the other to stay in, however you cannot deny the controversy though I found them to be fair.

Overall, Series 4 represents Robot Wars at it best. The time where the show actually became more commercialised with toys, music videos and other merchandise being released by the dozen...and honestly that really benefited the show. Going for the more commercialised route, the show was on a high and not ready to fall, everything was pushed to the best possible quality with the best machines and the best production. Series 4 is a happy series, a series full of might and gold, a series that made Robot Wars. Think about it. Whenever a list or new article or even when Robot Wars was announced to come back in 2016 THE ONE SERIES that consistently appeared and acted like the "representation" was Series 4 (i.e. almost all of the articles had the official Series 4 House Robots images) Series 4 is iconic, for a while the only images for the House Robots was the Series 4 official images. Clearly Series 4 even if its not explicit, implicitly had an effect on all the Robot Wars fans, it is the symbol of what makes Robot Wars great. It had everything going for it and worked, every little aspect and every little change effected the show and did so in the best possible way. Series 4 is a precious gem that can't really be replicated again. So why didn't other Series try to be like Series 4? Well that because every series tries to be more unique and add or change things to spice everything up, yet Series 4 was the one series that made the biggest amounts of change, therefore other series tend to be seen a minor in its eyes. Series 4 will forever be remembered and that's something you can't say about may other series, even the reboot will probably be forgotten in years to come but the classics especially Series 4 will forever be remembered as the most revolutionary and most iconic series, the series that forever implemented the great title of ROBOT WARS.