Robot Wars returned to BBC2 with 2 million viewers, beating the final overnight audience of another Sunday night series rebooted by BBC2 this year, Top Gear.



The show, featuring new and improved house robots Sir Killalot, Matilda, Dead Metal and Shunt, had a 10% share of the audience from 8pm last night.



The show, which began on BBC2 in 1998, peaked in its first incarnation with 6 million viewers, before tailing off to just 1.2 million and ending up on Channel 5.



Occupying the “Top Gear slot” in which viewers have grown accustomed to watching whooping middle-aged men indulge in a bit of wanton four-wheel destruction, Robot Wars managed to beat the last episode of the new series of Top Gear, the first without Jeremy Clarkson.



Chris Evans’ new incarnation of Top Gear finished with a Sunday night audience of 1.9 million viewers on 3 July. Evans announced he was quitting the show the following day.



Secret Agent gobbled up in Dragons’ Den

It was a good night for BBC2, with Robot Wars being followed by the first of a new series of Dragons’ Den, which had 2.9 million viewers, a 14.4% share, from 9pm.



Dragons’ Den is back for a new 16-part series, so BBC2 looks to have Sunday nights all wrapped up.



The Evan Davis business ideas show beat the second episode of BBC1’s three-part Toby Jones drama, The Secret Agent, which is failing to match the ratings performance of previous BBC1 Sunday night dramas, such as The Night Manager and War and Peace.



Last night it had 2.7 million viewers, a 13.6% share of the audience.

