YMMV / Robot Wars

• Accidental Innuendo: One of Razer's main tactics to defeat an opponent was to crush it apart ... from the rear. Such examples included Chaos 2 in the First World Championship and Matilda in the Southern Annihilator.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: When Jeremy Clarkson was hired to present a BBC 2 show about metal boxes fighting each other, he clearly didn't think very highly of it and spent most of his screen time disparaging the contestants. When it proved a modest success, the show was renewed for a second series and Clarkson was replaced with Craig Charles. On his first day of filming, Charles watched a broken-down robot getting dragged into the arena and thought, "Oh my God, what have I done with my career?", but unlike Clarkson, he decided to make an honest go of it. Series 2 promptly exploded in popularity, and by the Grand Final, it was the top-rated show on BBC 2 with seven million viewers.
• Badass Decay: The nature of the sport meant that the standards were raised every year. Most notable examples follow:
  • Hypno-Disc, who after reaching three consecutive grand finals (the only robot to do so) fared dismally in its Series 6 semi-final and Extreme II fights, defeating only the most fragile of opponents.
  • Chaos 2 slowly fell behind the times, making few modifications between series and electing not to take full advantage of the extra 20 kilos added to the weight allowance in Extreme 1/Series 5. It finished its career with a heat final loss to a newcomer in Series 6 and a thrashing in the Extreme 2 All-Stars competition.
  • Panic Attack had defined the Boring, but Practical trope in The Second Wars by winning it. Unfortunately, reality ensued when robots with more powerful weapons began to dominate the show and Panic Attack's "box with forks" design became increasingly easy to beat. They never made the grand finals again, with its final two series not even getting out of the heats. This also carried overseas, where their brief performance on BattleBots Season 2.0 having them almost immediately defeated by frenZy.
  • Pussycat had a powerful blade and a very precise driver, propelling it to second place in Series 4. However, opponents' armours became thicker and the team lost their driver in a tragic accident. Pussycat returned in later series but could not deliver a repeat performance. They did, however, at least get to go out on a high note by winning the Series 7 All-Stars event, in the original show’s 2nd last episode.
  • In Series 6 the Wild Thing team abandoned their successful shield-on-wheels design in favour of a vertical spinner. Though this version did no worse than last series, its victories were a lot more lackluster (it won a heat with largely uninspired or unreliable opposition and it didn’t put up much of a fight against Razer, which its predecessor would have fought very hard against).
  • Only seven of the sixteen seeded robots made the semi-finals in Series 7. Of all the seeds that year, only seven had been semi-finalists the previous series due to the rest dropping out, and of those seven only three - Tornado, Firestorm and Dantomkia - made the semi-finals again. And of the other seeds that did make it to the semis, one of them was Storm II, which was seeded for winning the New Blood tournament and was in its first appearance in the main championship.
  • The 2016 reboot saw a huge number of veterans crashing out in the first round, including the likes of Razer, Thermidor 2, Or Te (the new robot from Ian Watts of Bigger Brother), Tough as Nails, Kan-Opener, and Supernova). Ultimately, while four of the five heat finals featured a veteran robot, all of them lost. Justified due to the 12-year gap between series; that's a long time for this trope to set in. Many of the returning robots hadn't fought in years, and had either been hastily upgraded to take part in the series, or hadn't been upgraded at all.
• Broken Base:
  • Tornado vs. Razer in the Series 6 final most notably. Tornado showed up to the fight equipped with a large external frame that made it nearly impossible for Razer to either reach it with its crusher, or pit it, and subsequently won the match, thus unseating Razer as the UK champion. One side claims that the frame was perfectly within the competition rules and thus shouldn't be complained about, while the other side claims that the frame should have been banned since it made it much harder for Razer to win, and decries its use as an example of bad sportsmanship, on the basis that it was specifically built to allow Tornado to beat Razer. According to an AMA with Team Hypno-Disc, even the other roboteers felt that while it was within the rules, it went against the spirit of the competition.
  • In general, weaponless robots are either seen as boring (as they cannot damage other robots directly and don't create the destructive spectacle other types of robots can) or amazing (as they require talented operators to maneuver them properly). The competition's organizers sided with the former, as after a rambot, Tornado, won Series 6, there was a ban henceforth on robots without moving weapons. The strange thing is, though, that Tornado had been using a powered weapon system ever since Series 5, and the only time it fought without one in Series 6 was when it used a fixed spike against Anarchy in the heat final. The rule change thus had no effect on Tornado whatsoever.
  • While the announcement of the 2016 revival was met with universal delight and appreciation (as was the announced return of Jonathan Pearce as commentator), the announcement that Dara Ó Briain would be hosting instead of Craig Charles was met with some discontent. Some people think he's a good pick (as a comedian who is also known for his interest in science and technology), while others just can't get over the fact that the much-loved Craig won't be back (even though he couldn't make it because of prior commitments to doing Red Dwarf).
  • Similar to the reveal of the 2016 reboot, the announcement of Series 9 was well-received, but also met with criticism, mainly stemming from the fact that it didn't seem to improve on the flaws of the previous series:
    • Easily the most base-breaking element was the fact that the builders were again only given two months to prepare, leading several (such as Storm 2, King Buxton, and Gravity) to decide that they couldn't make the deadline and pull out. This angered a number of fans, while others, both fans and roboteers alike, retorted that the builders had had since April to prepare for a potential Series 9.
    • Some fans had been hoping that Series 9 would feature more episodes, and more robots, and were disappointed that it would be the same 6-episode format as before; others were concerned that the December filming date would exacerbate the problems that Series 8 had faced, where the cold had affected several robots' pneumatic systems, either weakening them or causing them to break down entirely.
  • The House Robots. Some viewers think they're an entertaining addition to the arena that test drivers' control and give the show flavor, while others believe that their interference is unfair to the roboteers and takes away the skill factor in favor of randomness and uncertainty.
• Crazy Is Cool: Many robots could apply, but Stinger may be the first robot to live up to the label. An oddly-shaped robot that drove like none seen before it and eliminated itself spectacularly in its first-ever battle. After that misfire, it became a formidable contender due to its completely unique style and shape that not only let it attack from multiple angles, but made it difficult to even land a hit against. This led to many entertaining battles and even a run to the Grand Final.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Mortis was seeded 2nd in Series 2, ahead of every other Grand Finalist from the previous year (bar reigning champion Roadblock), including Cassius, whose predecessor had beaten it the previous year. This was solely due to how much the producers favoured it to win (admittedly, not without reason). Then, of course there was the Executive Meddling in its semi-final Pinball trial... after which the trope was oddly subverted, as the producers painted Mortis as a Heel for the rest of its Robot Wars career.
  • The Series 4 seedings ranked Razer and Behemoth 3rd and 6th respectively, ahead of previous champions and grand finalists, primarily because of their performance in the First World Championship (which seemed to be pretty clearly rigged in the UK's favour).
  • Typhoon 2 drew cries of this for supposedly robbing Storm II of their Seventh Wars championship through Executive Meddling. The fact that the team's other machines' success were also underscored by controversy tied to producer bias doesn't help. It wasn't until years later that the claims of meddling were re-examined and discredited.
  • Cherub very quickly became accused of this in Series 9. After getting through the elimination round without doing much, it won a very controversial judges' decision over the impressive PP3D, seeming to fly in the face of what had just been seen, before beating Behemoth solely by virtue of Behemoth equipping a grabber that didn't work, causing it to constantly drive up Cherub's wedge (and even with this said, the fight was restarted after Cherub was trapped by the floor flipper, which while admittedly a malfunction such arena malfunctions had been ignored in the past even if they led to an immobilisation, usually only stopping fights if they caused a safety hazard). What really didn't help was that it was this battle where Behemoth's loss led to the now-infamous incident of Anthony Pritchard storming out of the post-battle interview. Some accused the show of favoring the team due to them being mostly made up of kids^note Which was probably not helped by Sarah Colliass joking claim in her VT that "If my robot got destroyed in battle, I'd be really upset, and I'd go up to them, and cry right in their faces so they feel guilty!", and were very pleased when Eruption casually eliminated them with one flip in the heat final.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Granny's Revenge in general. Especially since both of its fights had Sgt. Bash in the arena, leading to the morbid yet comical image of a wheelchair-bound elderly lady mannequin driving around on fire.
  • Chompalot being destroyed by a battery fire is tragic without a doubt, but the way it bursts into flames on cue when the team is asked about whether they'd be able to repair the robot is hilarious.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Professor Noel Sharkey, one of the show's judges, said that the judges inspected Hypno-Disc before its first ever fight and dismissed it as a copy of something off Battlestar Galactica (1978), and that they didn't think it would do very well. A few minutes into the first match, according to him, the judges were crawling behind their desks to avoid the shrapnel flying everywhere as Hypno-Disc tore its opponent apart. On the meta level, Hypno-Disc's sheer destructive ability quickly established it as a fan favorite; it's one of the names that's practically synonymous with the show itself, and is generally considered the greatest robot never to win the title.
  • Storm II started as an unassuming newcomer in the New Blood tournament of Extreme 2. Not only did it proceed to take the tournament, well, by storm, but it fought its way through to the grand final of the Seventh Wars, plowing through the likes of Tornado and Firestorm along the way before finally losing out to Typhoon 2 (though they would eventually become Condemned by History as liars).
  • Bigger Brother, the robot that simply would not quit. Its victory against Hypno-Disc thanks to its sheer toughness and Ian Watts' amazing piloting (despite Bigger Brother being practically eviscerated with its flipper ripped off and venting gas and massive holes torn in its body) is rightly considered one of the greatest battles in the show's history. How beloved is Bigger Brother? Most fans will tell you its victory against Hypno-Disc was worth not ever getting a Hypno-Disc vs. Razer fight. And, of course, there's Joe Watts being the show's quintessential Cheerful Child and a good roboteer in his own right.
  • Similarly to Bigger Brother, Wild Thing is remembered very fondly for its amazing fight against "the Disc of Destruction", refusing to go down without a fight despite being burned, its wheels damaged, its face plate ripped off and its lifting arm apparently disabled, and right at the end, charging Hypno-Disc, sliding the wedge underneath it, and ramming Hypno-Disc into the wall so hard that the spinner stopped working. At the end of the fight, Hypno-Disc was starting to run out of power, but Wild Thing was still raring to go! It's also remembered for giving Chaos 2 the fight of its life in what's considered one of the best battles on the show, where the two engaged in a nail-biting, back-and-forth brawl that had Wild Thing nearly pitting Chaos 2 twice - the second time pushing it in so far, the pyrotechnics went off before Chaos 2 escaped.
  • Firestorm is widely remembered and admired as one of the best flippers in the history of the competition for (if nothing else, although of course there is much else) 1) pitting itself and Hypno-Disc and 2) the awe-inspiring moment where it flipped Mr. Psycho - right as he was pitting a defenseless Panic Attack, a detail which has led the moment to be dubbed "Panic Attack's Revenge." For reference, Firestorm weighs a mere 99 kg, whereas Mr. Psycho tips the scales at 750 kg, meaning that Firestorm flipped a house robot seven-and-a-half times its own weight. Its unorthodox design, possessing a rare front-hinged flipper and a very effective one at that, also helps its iconic status.
  • On a less competitive level, Diotoir was one of everyone's favourite robots (and certainly one of Jonathan Pearce's) despite no-one ever really taking them all that seriously. Splendid entertainment without going the whole Joke Character route that Plunderbird and Sir Chromalot did, great sportsmen (they won the Sportsmanship Award 3 times) and everyone loved watching their red and black polka-dotted fur go up in flames almost every fight. They were actually pretty effective roboteers too, reaching two heat finals and once convincingly defeating Tornado in a surprise upset by simply out-shoving them.
  • Similarly, Nuts in the 2016 series also gained quite a few fans, partially due to the team completely embracing the robots' Joke Character status and use of Confusion Fu. Notably, it was put in a first round 4-way melee with three former grand finalist teams (Razer, Terrorhurtz and Kill-E-Crank-E, Pussycat's successor) and went through to the next round. Two seasons later, Nuts 2 did even better, beating its heat and even fighting well during the finals!
  • Much like Diotoir and Nuts, Prince of Darkness from Series 1 is very popular despite, or perhaps because of its charmingly abysmal design, which Clarkson infamously called "the worst robot I've ever seen in my life", and went on to sweep the Gauntlet and the Trial despite having no weapons and wooden armor.
• Follow the Leader: Any time a weapon became really successful, several teams would copy it in the following series, each with varied amounts of success. Examples include flippers (first used by Recyclopse in Series 1 but became really popular after Cassius in Series 2 and Chaos 2 in Series 3), crushers (after Razer), spinning discs (after Hypno-Disc) and the SRIMECH/Self-righting Mechanism (first used by Cassius in Series 2).
• Friendly Fandoms: The show's fanbase unsurprisingly has a lot of overlap with that of BattleBots, due to both being largely composed of Robot Combat enthusiasts, with any tension between them largely confined to good-natured "our bots can beat up your bots" discussions.
• Game-Breaker: Razer (unless it's fighting Pussycat, or breaking down in the first 30 seconds of the fight.)
  • The ability to flip opposing robots out of the arena and thus win. It got so bad that in the last season, of all the robots that got through to the semi-finals, three (of sixteen) had no flipping capability. Though one of them eventually won the entire series.
    • For the 2016 reboot this was balanced out by enclosing much of the arena in high bulletproof walls, leaving only a few strategic gaps at which robots could be flipped out unless you have a colossally powerful flipper in the Wheely Big Cheese range (which tend towards Awesome, but Impractical).
  • In the Series 6 final, Tornado employed a Game-Breaker of its own - An external frame, designed to keep Razer far enough away from Tornado's body that it couldn't cause any damage. The frame was so big that Tornado wouldn't fit into the pit. Razer and Tornado fans still argue over whether the frame should have been allowed or not.
  • The American robot Drillzilla, while being a walkerbot in name, actually employed a bank of shuffling feet to give it massive speed in contrast with traditional walkerbots, resulting in tremendous pushing power when combined with the extra weight allotted for walkers. This proved to be bending the rules far enough that a rule amendment was made re-classifying robots using this method of locomotion as "shufflebots" and restricting them to one-and-a-half times normal weight limit as opposed to the doubled weight limit for walkers, rendering Drillzilla unable to compete in the second Extreme Warriors series as it was over the new weight limit.
  • The hiatus between Series 7 and 8 saw spinners becoming terrifyingly powerful, capable of destroying just about everything on the receiving end, as demonstrated by the likes of Carbide and Aftershock. Carbide in particular managed to solve the reliability issue inherent in most spinners and curbstomped its way through Series 9 so convincingly that, for the first time ever, entanglement devices were legalized in Series 10 in an effort to bring spinners down a notch.
  • Even in the original run, spinners proved their worth as destructive weapons. Armoring up wasn't a high priority in the earliest seasons, but then Series 3 brought in the embodiment of whirling death that was Hypno-Disc; after it tore through several opponents like tissue paper, durable armor was no longer considered optional. Later on, X-Terminator and Matilda both became several times more lethal after swapping out their original weapons for vertical flywheels.
  • In Arenas of Destruction and Extreme Destruction, Chaos 2 is exactly as nasty in the games as it was in real life, so much so that you have to beat the World Championship (entry fee: 25,000 credits) in order to access it!
• Growing the Beard: The debate rages as to whether this really happened during the 3rd or the 4th Wars:
  • Series 3 was where they did away with the trial stages to make the show entirely combat-based. Advances in technology saw the first instances of truly catastrophic damage with the debut of Hypno-Disc^note Razer had debuted in Series 2 and briefly demonstrated its power against The Inquisitor but then just broke down and a truly dominant champion in Chaos 2, who at the time looked almost unbeatable. As well as these two, other notable robots debuting in Series 3 included Firestorm, Pussycat, X-Terminator and Diotoir, and notable new teams included Team Big Brother, Team Jurassic Park, Team Stinger, The Adams Family, Team Scutterbots, Team Lobster and Team Steel Avenger. However it is also considered a somewhat weak series overall due to the new format and a lot of poor quality entries leading to a lot of really boring fights during the opening four elimination bouts of the episodes, and the lack of seeding resulting from the format shakeup leading to some heats (especially the last one) just being boring all the way through.
  • Series 4 is often hailed as the best series of the classic show due to a huge leap in technology as other teams stepped up to match the standards of the previous series' top competitors, with a massive reduction in the number of lame gimmick bots which would be hard-pressed to threaten a pavlova, or machines which simply didn't work. The opening rounds were condensed into a pair of 3-bot melee battles, further reducing the number of dud battles while also presenting an exciting alternative to 1v1 fights, the set design was the best yet, and several teams returned with markedly improved machines, most-notably Stinger and Thermidor 2. Notable new debuts included Tornado, Dominator 2, Disc-O-Inferno, Iron-Awe, Atomic, Knightmare, Kronic the Wedgehog and Major Tom, and the first semifinal episode is considered by some fans to be the greatest single episode in the show's entire history, including the reboots. While the 4th Wars are unquestionably considered superior to the 3rd, it's debatable whether it did enough to be the one where the show really found its footing.
  • The reboot series was agreed to have really hit its stride in Series 10, thanks to the improved format which gave all the contestants more chances to fight and replaced the unpopular round robin format of Series 8 & 9, as well as the introduction of the 10-Bot Wild Card Melee to determine who would get the last spot in the Grand Final, rather than just leaving it to the judges' discretion. Series 10 is actually considered by many to be possibly the best series in the show's entire history (the only thing people didn't like was the Fog of War and the showrunners basically admitted that it would not be brought back). The fact that the BBC refused to renew it for a Series 11 after finally getting everything almost perfect is considered a phenomenal injustice.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Every time during the 7th Wars that Craig consoled a losing team by encouraging them to come back "next year" with a new robot to try again, considering the 7th Wars was the Franchise Killer. It happened again when Dara and Angela said the same thing to competitors in Series 10.
  • Team S.Tek in Series 10 featured Stephen McCullagh, a YouTuber and longtime Robot Wars fan who had worked with the team last season as "media relations", getting to appear on TV as a full member of robot Push to Exit's operation and maintenance team, which was previously be considered a Heartwarming Moment even though the bot had an unsuccessful performance. His legacy instead soured in 2023 when he was charged with murdering his girlfriend, Natallie McNally, after attempting to cover his actions with a fake livestream at the time of the murder.
• Heartwarming Moments: During the first semifinal of Series 6, Wild Thing got trashed in their first round battle against Razer, but still had to compete in the Loser's Melee for a second chance and everyone pitched in to help get the machine up and running: Panic Attack gave them two fully-charged batteries to replace their fried ones, Tornado donated a spare wheel, George Francis (of Chaos 2) helped straighten out part of their bent weapon motor, even Alan Gribble (of the Pussycat team, who didn't enter this series following the tragic death of their driver) was there to lend his considerable technical assistance, despite still trying to overcome the death of his son David. Perhaps the most heartwarming assistance came from two members of the Dantomkia team- who were going to be one of Wild Thing's opponents in the Melee! The third member, who stayed behind to give their own machine a few touch-ups before the fight, explained to a flabbergasted Philippa why they were helping the very robot they were just about to fight against, which is possibly the most heartwarming moment in Robot Wars: "Well the way I see it, we're all roboteers, we're all helping each other out".
  • Similarly, any time a heavily-damaged robot is repaired in time for its next round-robin fight during the reboot, it tends to be this. Arguably the most notable was the Sabretooth team rebuilding their shattered robot just in time for its final round-robin match in Series 9; Gabriel Stroud's overwhelmed reaction to seeing Sabretooth start up again borders on Tear Jerker.
  • In Heat D of the 3rd Wars, Ultor defeated Big Brother (the original incarnation of Bigger Brother) by a very close judges' decision, leaving Little Joe so despondent that he didn't even want to give Philippa a cuddle. After the credits, though, Philippa brought Team Ultor over to Big Brother's bench in the pits and Barnaby Golder told Joe that they'd decided the judges' decision was wrong^note In hindsight, a lot of people have agreed with this assessment, considering Big Brother to have had considerably better control and aggression and they were going to give up their spot in the semifinals to Big Brother instead. Little Joe promptly gave Philippa a big hug.
    • Earlier in the same episode, the Sir Chromalot team lost to Big Brother, and in the pits Joe came up to them to offers commiserations. The Chromalot team were not at all embarrassed to have lost to a small child, and all heartily shook his hand and congratulated him.
  • In the Grand Final Eliminator of Series 5, little Ellie Watts (who was six at the time, need we remind you) was seen covering her eyes as Bigger Brother was ripped apart by Hypno-Disc. After Bigger Brother pushed Hypno-Disc into the pit to secure one of the greatest and most improbable victories in the show's history, Jonathan Pearce said the following:
    Jonathan Pearce: Ellie! Look again! Hypno-Disc are out! You've done it! You've won it! What a stunner!
  • When Behemoth won its heat for the first time in nineteen years in Series 10, advancing to the Grand Final for the first time ever, people were so overwhelmed with happiness for them that they made tribute videos!
  • The Series 10 Team Great Britain vs the Team Rest of the World tournament, for acknowledging the show's (and robot combat's) past, with a look back at Diotoir's exploits in the original series (including pitting Tornado), Big Nipper's status as a former UK Champion from the off-air days, and the existence of former House Robot Sergeant Bash. Long-time viewers who'd grown up with the original show were overjoyed.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the opening of Heat D of the 2nd Wars, Craig said of the competitors "Well they all look very good, but can you imagine Keanu Reeves in a fight? No." Less than half a year after this episode was broadcast, a little movie came out with Reeves in starring role. You might have heard of it; it was called The Matrix. Reeves' starring role in the John Wick series in The New '10s just makes it even funnier.
  • At the beginning of The Third Wars Grand Final, Craig Charles made a joke about Sgt. Bash being caught playing with My Little Pony toys. In other words, Sgt. Bash was the original brony.
  • After Series 5 entrant Dome was overturned within seconds of its only fight against Diotoir, Craig joked that it had been "as successful as the Millennium Dome". The Millennium Dome was later bought by mobile service provider O2 and is now a roaring success - it's even hosted several of the live circuit events!
  • One that took fifteen years to drop: Plunderbird's musical performance at the end of one Extreme 1 episode contained the line "And if it don't work, we go berserk, and hit it with a hammer". Guess what Dantomkia's captain proceeded to do after it failed to work in the 2016 series?
    Shane Swan: [hitting Dantomkia with a hammer] Damn you! Damn you!
• Jerkass Has a Point: Jeremy Clarkson in Series 1 was disdainful of many of the contestant robots, and on occasion outright hostile towards them. However, the standard of engineering in Series 1 was quite low, especially compared to the later series, and a lot of the robots Clarkson insulted genuinely weren't that good. For example, Prince of Darkness, which he infamously called "the worst robot I've ever seen in my life", took five hours to build, had wooden armour, no weapons, and initially looked like this (mind you, it did sweep the floor with the Gauntlet and Trial).
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "SPINNNEHHHR" ^note The distinctively hammy manner in which the reboot's announcer pronounces "spinner". Given the proliferation of spinners, he says it quite often.
  • Anthony Pritchard's Rage Quit after his team's poor decision-making cost them a fight against Cherub is a very unfortunate example.
  • "OH, SHE'S UP TAE SPEED NOW, BOY!" ^note Spoken by PP3D's driver just before punting Cherub through the arena wall. The hamminess of the line, coupled with the spectacular hit that followed, meant it became very popular with the show's fanbase. It even got a T-shirt.◊
  • John Reid chiding weapons operator Nick Lynch to "wait for a good hit!" in Series 9 became an oft-quoted line amongst the fanbase. Became an Ascended Meme during Series 10: John alluded to the line after beating Vulture, and then said it verbatim prior to shoving TMHWK into the pit during the World Series.
• Mis-blamed:
  • For a number of years, the show's fan wiki identified More Panda Monium, the successor to Series 2 robot Panda Monium, as the robot that went out-of-control backstage and injured a crew member. This became common knowledge in the fandom until, in 2018, it was discovered that More Panda Monium was innocent.
  • The infamous Storm 2 versus Typhoon 2 controversy from Series 7, where Ed Hoppitt claimed that Storm 2 had been robbed of its rightful win due to Executive Meddling, which went unchallenged for many years. It wasn't until well over a decade later that the claims were re-examined in more detail and found to be lacking in credibility, and the fan wiki subsequently deleted its page on the controversy completely.
• More Popular Replacement: The show started with Jeremy Clarkson as the host, however his tenure is largely forgotten, to the point that the BBC even edited first series episodes to remove his appearances. In the second series, Craig Charles took over as host and he is often considered synonymous with the show amongst fans.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The rising metal howl that accompanied Stuart McDonald's countdown before the declaration of "Activate!" that heralded the start of every battle.
  • Any destructive spinner with a distinctive weapon sound, such as Hypno-Disc's metallic howl, Carbide's death hum, or Pulsar's deafening buzz, most likely signalling its owner winding up to deliver some spectacular hits.
• Nightmare Fuel: Coulrophobic? I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine: Conquering Clown. It was an American robot with a clown head for decoration. The clown face was creepy enough on its own, but when it was set on fire the rubber would slowly melt away and leave an empty metal face before the neck snapped completely. Brrr.
  Stefan Frank: I'm meeeeeeeeelting! Nooooooooo, ohhhh dearrrr...! (beat) Oh come on, somebody put the clown out! It's a family show!
  • Berserk 2 with its eye panels removed during its Series 3 intro, giving it a hollow skull-like Nightmare Face.
  • Granny's Revenge (from Series 5 and 6) blurred the line between this and hilarious, with it mostly consisting of a powered wheelchair with a large, life-like dummy of an old woman slumped in it, holding a weapon — a chainsaw in Series 5, and an axe in Series 6 — and flammable to the point it would go up spectacularly when set alight. Allegedly, the team had to thoroughly cover the robot up with plastic bags when transporting it to filming, so they didn't get stopped by the police en-route for driving with what looked like a corpse.
    Jonathan Pearce: It looks like some horror from a Hitchcock movie!
• Once Original, Now Common: The birth of the srimech in the Second Wars' semi-final and the first case of a robot being flipped out of the arena in the Third Wars grand final, both of which were groundbreaking at the time, but the impact is rather diluted if you didn't see them on first transmission - not having a srimech was seen as suicidal by the very next series, and being flipped out of the arena soon progressed from originator Chaos 2's signature move to the default tactic of most flippers.
• Older Than They Think: While Cassius' famous first self-right shook the Robot Wars world, it wasn't actually the first instance of a robot turning itself right-side up again after being flipped by a long shot- Biohazard managed it with its lifting arm in the 1996 American Robot Wars championship in battle against Vlad the Impaler years before the show even started!
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • The only time Mortis, "the most feared and technically advanced robot of the first four wars", made a semi-final is only remembered for the producers' interference controversially keeping them in when they arguably should have been eliminated. It all proved to be for nothing as the team felt they could no longer win Robot Wars afterwards and the regular driver's refusal to drive the robot in protest at the producer bias resulted in Mortis' elimination in the very next round.
  • The Seventh Wars is chiefly remembered for Ed Hoppitt claiming that the producers tried every trick in the book to keep Storm II from winning, said claims lasting for years before being discredited.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The five Robot Wars video games ran the gamut, from unplayable to decent. There was also a board game, which was not well-received.
  • The best (worst?) example was the first licensed game, Metal Mayhem for the Game Boy Color. The 8-bit handheld simply wasn't capable of doing the show any justice, and it showed. Several robots were Off-Model with inaccurate weaponry, mechanics such as flipping and self-righting simply weren't present, and battles were fought by simply ramming into your opponent and wildly flailing your weapon (or, failing that, by trying to trick the AI into driving into hazards). The roster consisted largely of highly-obscure robots that had been knocked out in the heats — five of them as early as their first battle — while bigger names like Hypno-Disc, Cassius 2, Mortis and Razer were omitted, the controls were terrible (your robot would spin wildly out-of-control if you turned too fast), and the Robot Workshop was so lacking in features (outside of the body designs and names, none of the options changed anything) that it may as well have not been included at all.
  • Sort of averted with Robot Arena 2 which, while not a licensed game, is pretty much indistinguishable from one, to those who don't know. There's even an official Robot Wars mod that adds in hundreds of robots from the show and live events, two different Robot Wars arenas, and brand-new parts so you can build your own RW replicas. Unlike the official games, Robot Arena 2 has somewhat realistic physics (although they're prone to breaking) and building your own robots is actually worthwhile, as you can literally build it any way you want, rather than having set places to put set parts. If you want to use a saw blade as your wheels, that's fine, if you want to stack a motor on top of another to make your weapon spin faster, that works too. The game can be downloaded for free nowadays, premodded, if you know where to look (www.gametechmods.com is the only place that you can get it).
    • Robot Arena 3 was released on Steam in May 2016 and ended up playing the trope straight again.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Refbot was initially considered highly unnecessary and annoying, but was rescued in Extreme by giving him the electronic countdown and yellow/red card system, both of which were far more useful than the fire extinguisher (which proved highly ineffective the first time it was used) and the ploughs which on more than one occasion only got in the way.
• Retroactive Recognition: Any robot that would later make it big on BattleBots. KillerHurtz is an obvious example, while Tentomushi would count as a close second.
  • In an example of a roboteer making it big after the show finished, one of Team Torque's members in The Fifth Wars was Daniel Sloss, who would later go on to become a successful comedian (notably establishing himself as a professional performer whilst still in his teens).
• Robo Ship: Jonathan Pearce and Matilda, not helped by commentary like this:
  Jonathan: In the arena for the house robots and still not returning my calls, Matilda!
• The Scrappy:
  • Cassius Chrome, who debuted in the final series. His weapons? Metal fists that repeatedly punched other robots (and were interchangeable with a set of spikes). They were completely useless, especially compared to the weaponry of the other House Robots, and his unappealing design didn't help endear him to the audience either.
  • You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone with much good to say about Jayne Middlemiss, the replacement for long-time pit reporter Philippa Forrester in Series 7 when the show moved to Channel 5. An ex-model with an obvious lack of both technical knowledge and Philippa's charisma, she came across as a Brainless Beauty and impressed nobody.
    • Averted by the Series 4 and Extreme 1 pit reporter, Julia Reed, who stood in for Philippa while she took maternity leave. Julia was more or less as popular as Philippa and handled the job extremely well, although Philippa was always considered the "real" pit reporter. The transition was eased by Philippa actually handing over the microphone to Julia herself at the start of series 4, making it easier for audiences to accept her.
  • While some people hate Tornado for the controversy in the 6th Wars Grand Final, for a long time everyone hated Typhoon 2 because of the 7th Wars Grand Final controversy, largely because of the perception that they were happy to play along with the supposed Executive Meddling that robbed their opponents of their deserved win. It didn't help that their robots are all copies of each other in different weight classes and that all of their victories are tied to some kind of controversy. They were subsequently Vindicated by History after said claims were re-examined many years later and found to be largely fabricated.
  • Napalm tends to be rather disliked due to the perception that it's a poorly made robot that wins battles with dumb luck rather than any sort of actual skill.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The arena floor spikes which fired out of the ground in the Second and Third Wars, as on several occasions they ended a battle abruptly and unfairly when robots simply drove over them and got flipped. When they were brought back for Series 8 onwards they were initially Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, as they fired much more slowly and were much more visible, but by Series 10 they were right back in this category again due to their unreliability (including repeatedly shooting out of their housings) and the perception, ironically, that they don't actually do anything.
  • The arena floor spinner (or "Disc of Doom"), a rotating disc set into the floor and activated by a bumper similar to the one that opened the pit in Series 6, was considered useless at best (it couldn't seriously affect the driving of any robot heavier than a featherweight), downright irritating (and not in the intended fashion) at worst- sometimes robots with a zero ground clearance scoop at the front would catch themselves on its raised edge while trying to drive over it, even when it wasn't spinning. Added in Series 6, it was removed after Extreme 2.
  • The only addition made to the show between Series 8 and 9 was the Rogue Robot function: when a competitor hit the pit release tire, half the time the pit would open (although now it would close again after a short while if a robot wasn't pushed into it), the other half of the time it would trigger the Rogue House Robot, freeing one of the House Robots in the battle to go after whichever competitor was closest- maybe the triggering robot's opponent, maybe them.. This wasn't popular with many fans, who were not impressed that the producers had apparently decided that the best change they could make to the show was to add more randomness.
  • Then Season 10 added the 'Fog of War', another possible result from the pit release button which results in CO2 smoke being belched into the arena to obscure everyone's vision. That means everyone's vision- not only does it make driving almost impossible for the competitors, it has the same effect on the house roboteers and, worst of all, the audience can't see anything either. The net result is that for 10 seconds the battle comes to a grinding halt because nobody can see shit^note this also gave spinners free rein to rev up to their maximum speeds, sabotaging the producers' attempts at nerfing them, and fans hated it. At the end of the series the producers took the rare step of admitting it was universally unpopular and promising to scrap it for any future series.
• Shocking Elimination:
  • Plenty of defeats for Razer, Bigger Brother, Behemoth, Panic Attack, and Chaos 2 over the years.
  • The first major example came in Series 3. Despite Panic Attack's Dark Horse Victory in Series 2, Cassius was still considered the strongest robot around and Cassius II was the most anticipated (and feared) returnee, favoured to win the entire war. While it got off to a good start in its heat, in the 2nd round (fighting against Pussycat) clumsy driving by the driver (who, contrary to popular misconception, was new team member Mick Cutter, not creator Rex Garrod) sent it careening into the open pit, shocking everyone (adding insult to injury, team captain Gerrod had expressed confidence that Cassius II's flipper was so improved that it would be able to flip the robot out of the pit... if only it had gone in the right way around).
  • Hypno-Disc's successive losses to Pussycat in Series 4, and Bigger Brother in Series 5. Its loss to Pussycat was convincing but highly unexpected, whereas its loss to Bigger Brother came after it had spent the entire battle ripping the Watts' machine to shreds, and was thus even more of a shock.
  • Tornado's Series 5 loss to Diotoir came as a massive surprise, especially considering Tornado was a robot known for its speed and pushing power, and yet Diotoir was able to spend the whole match out-shoving it.
  • The Revolutionist losing to Propeller Head in the US Series after dislodging the latter's weapon.
  • Razer losing in the very first match of the 2016 reboot.
  • Carbide losing to Nuts 2 in the Series 10 Grand Final (although downplayed because they weren't "eliminated" thanks to the Series 10 Redemption Round format).
• Shocking Moments:
  • Cassius self-righting itself for the first time in Series 2.
  • Panic Attack pitting Cassius in the Series 2 final.
  • Hypno-Disc demolishing its first opponent in Series 3.
  • Chaos 2 flipping Firestorm out of the arena during the Series 3 grand final.
  • Wheely Big Cheese sending Axe-Awe flying out of the ring from near the middle of the arena with the biggest flip in the history of robot combat.
  • Fluffy (a newcomer) sending Pussycat's blade (the #2 seed) flying in a Season 5 heat final after a head-on collision. (Unfortunately Fluffy broke down, costing it the fight, but the Pussycat team had abandoned hope between the blade being torn off and that.)
  • The entirety of Chaos 2 vs. Wild Thing, one of the most common contenders for "best match in Robot Wars" history. Chaos 2 escaping the pit once was impressive enough, somehow recovering after being pitted a second time, escaping literally as the pit pyrotechnics were going off, drove it quickly into the halls of legend.
  • Bigger Brother, literally ripped to shreds, with its weapon torn off, its armour mangled and Jonathan Pearce going through its defeat speech, hitting the pit release, turning on Hypno-Disc and driving them neatly into the pit in the first match of the Series 5 grand finals.
  • Diotoir pitting Tornado in the Series 5 heats.
  • Dantomkia flipping Chaos 2 out of the arena in Series 6 and ending their run of semi-final appearances.
  • Firestorm flipping Mr. Psycho in the Commonwealth Carnage.
  • In Series 8, Apollo taking out Dead Metal, Matilda, and Shunt over the course of a single episode. Notable for being the first House Robot kills of the new series. After that, scoring a ring out at against Storm II almost felt like an afterthrought.
  • Series 9 seemed at times like a contest to see who could do the most batshit insane thing with a spinner. First Matilda throwing Nuts 2 out of the arena with her flywheel, then Aftershock punting Terrorhurtz ten feet into the air, then PP3D punting Cherub halfway across the arena and into the wall with enough force to smash one of the wall panels off (and recoiling backwards into the opposite wall for good measure), then Carbide hurling Smash across the entire length of the arena, smashing a wall panel off and causing Smash to ricochet five feet up into the air, and finally Aftershock getting a piece of armor torn off with enough force that it nearly went clean through the arena's bulletproof outer box. Wow.^note This is all somewhat dampened by the fact that some fans have started citing this (as well as other assorted technical failings) as evidence that the BBC are cutting corners with the construction of the arena.
  • Apex literally exploding after its unstable spinning bar ricocheted off Track-tion's armoured front scoop, sending the bar flying through one of the arena's internal screens.
  • Nuts 2 pitting Behemoth by using a minibot to hit the pit button just as Behemoth were dropped onto the pit square, and then smashing Carbide's weapon chain with their spinning flails during their Series 10 Grand Final melee.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: One of the battle themes used from Extreme until Series 7 bore an uncanny resemblance to "Enter Sandman".
• Take That, Scrappy!: The first round of the Series 7 All-Stars championship saw 4 of the most popular robots of the era in the arena with Cassius Chrome as House Robot. Most of the ensuing match saw the competitors completely ignoring each other to heap abuse on Cassius Chrome instead.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Shortly after Series 5 had finished filming, David Gribble of Team Pussycat was involved in a motorcycle accident and never recovered. He was seventeen years old. A book of condolences was compiled on the official Robot Wars website and the first episode of Extreme Series 1 ends with a memorial tribute to him.
  • In Series 8, after the Chompalot team managed to rebuild their robot thanks to a gargantuan effort from the rest of the teams, it went into the head-to-head round against Gabriel and was swiftly dispatched, its punctured batteries billowing out smoke before eventually catching fire during the post-match interview. This time the repair job was just too great and the team were forced to retire, driving them to tears. The team posted a memorial video for their beloved machine afterward which, considering this was a veteran machine that the team had been using in action for 14 years and was now utterly destroyed beyond repair, is genuinely heartbreaking (although it's partly subverted by the fact that they had the machine mostly repaired when the memorial video was posted).
  • Any falling-outs among the roboteers can be painful to watch because the show is generally good-natured. Ant Pritchard clearly reconciled with his team after their blunder in Series 9, and they're back to normal in Episode 2 of Series 10. However, in the same episode a rather anxious-looking Angela reported that Team Shock and Team Eruption — who were friends back in real life — looked to have had a falling out after one violated their informal pact to take out the third robot before going for each other. It didn't help that Michael Oates, Eruption's driver, had taken advantage of Aftershock's confusion over whether "cease" had been called, leading to accusations of poor sportsmanship.
  • It looks like Series 10 will be the swansong of the mighty Carbide, as it struggled to keep up with new robots and new weaponry. Its team quietly admitted that it's getting harder and harder to adapt and survive, and that they'd probably return with a new robot altogether for Series 11. Angela called for a round of applause as it left in a blaze of glory, having just participated in one of the most ferocious fights in the series that had the judges and presenters squealing in excitement (although even this was bittersweet as Carbide, despite a glorious comeback, ultimately lost the judge's decision to Eruption).^note There is a bit of good news, though: while Carbide is indeed retired and does not compete on the live circuit, it's because its weapon is way too dangerous for live events even with the ban on spinners being lifted, and the team states that they're still rebuilding and upgrading Carbide just in case the show comes back again.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: 3 Stegs to Heaven, Corkscrew, and the gold version of Panic Attack.
  • Justified in that newer robots sometimes did suck a lot more than their predecessor. Steg 3 was extremely weak compared to its predecessor (which took Chaos 2 to beat) and Panic Attack's Gold version had very poor locomotion.
  • This was also the reaction of some fans when the early 'trials' were dispensed with as part of the main tournament, which was turned into a straight knockout competition.
• Too Good to Last: While the original series lasted an impressive seven seasons, the reboot was cancelled after only three much-shorter ones, irrespective of its popularity and the consensus that Series 10 had finally perfected the formula to the point of possibly being the greatest season in the show's history, and the BBC have refused to entertain the possibility of bringing it back again (despite the ongoing popularity and success of the revived BattleBots, which has currently reached six reboot seasons).
• Ugly Cute: There are several fans who consider Matilda to be this.
  • Within the competitors, Diotoir and Thermidor 2.
• Unexpected Character: One of the reasons Metal Mayhem (based on Series 3) was so poorly received by fans was because of its bizarre roster choices. Five of the playable robots — Crasha Gnasha, Terminal Ferocity, Dundee, Milly-Ann Bug, and Purple Predator — lost in the first round that year, the former two in ten seconds flat, and all but Milly-Ann Bug never appeared on the show again. Meanwhile, two of the four grand finalists^note Hypno-Disc and Steg-O-Saw-Us, a former champion^note Beast Of Bodmin, the successor to Roadblock and four of the biggest fan favourites^note Cassius 2 (who'd beaten Dundee in the first round), Mortis, Razer and Killerhurtz were all overlooked.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Many fans have commented on Stinger's rather...suspect design. The name and the fact that it attacks by swinging around and ramming into opponents at high speed doesn't help.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The Series 4 Celebrity Special can easily be dated to 2000 by the presence of Five, who broke up just nine months after it aired and, despite reforming in 2012, have largely faded into obscurity in the wake of One Direction and others.
• Values Dissonance: A large amount of Series 1-6 can come off as surprisingly sexist. As well as the generally male-dominated atmosphere back then, competitors were prone to mocking others by using feminine pronouns. In particular, one of the Extreme 1 Vengeance battles was a classic "battle of the sexes" fight between Thermidor 2 and Napalm due to a (staged) comment by Thermidor's David Harding: "Girls are soft and friendly, this is a man's game!" ^note It doesn’t help that the only two noteworthy robots with female team members back then — the aforementioned Napalm as well as Kat 3 – are respectively viewed by several fans as The Scrappy and So Okay, It's Average at best. Extreme 2’s “Iron Maidens” contest was most likely meant as an Author's Saving Throw to this, putting the spotlight on female roboteers and encouraging more women to watch the show. From Season 7 onwards, there has been a significant increase in female roboteers.