BattleBots

Battlebots is a show that can be enjoyed by everyone. However in its aim to please everyone, it forgets its major appeal - the robots fighting.

The show has to last for a short season which is essentially to root of the problem. The robot fights themselves are limited to 10 minutes, however many of the fights are won in a few seconds. That means there is an extraordinary amount of fluff and time-filler to stretch the show.

The builders' bios, while moderately interesting, last longer than the fights.

There is a "boxing pre-game" type segment where non-technical people talk about utterly meaningless and arbitrary stats about the robots. One of the hosts is a MMA fighter. What insight does a MMA fighter have in robot fights? The answer is simple: none. While I am not overtly complaining, the director really seems to like Molly McGrath's legs. Obviously, she is there for the male audience and brings nothing but exceptionally good looks to the show.

Another fault, which I believe is an unfortunate oversight, is the show could be an excellent vehicle for education in electronics, mechanical engineering, robotics, etc. The show offers no information on how anything works.

Again, while I think the show if fun to watch, there is a lot that could be improved.

One issue some find with combat sports is the inherent violence. The great thing about robot combat is the 'violence apart from people.' It is awesome to watch a machine simply wreck another machine!

My only real issues with the show are the long periods of time in between each fight. Also, this latest season had far fewer teams (who competed in fewer fights) when compared to previous seasons. However, this was due to the pandemic and the show runners did the best they could.

This season has been a lot of fun. Great battles and great commentary. Our family really enjoys this show.

The new season 3 format is way more entertaining than previous years. Please stick with it.

I witnessed the Battlebots contests and filming twice here in San Francisco when Comedy Central was doing the show. I sincerely thought that they never captured the spirit or the true violence of the event.

What still doesn't come across is how large and vicious these things are, but the present show does largely capture the spirit of the event instead of trying to gloss over it with lame humor and WWE- style antics.

A shout out to the the talking heads, especially Chris and Ken who show real enthusiasm for the fights. That was completely missing from the old show.

One thing has happened for the better with the actual event. The pure wedge bots that did nothing but try to upend or shove their opponents around have basically been eliminated. Good riddance!!! They were deathly boring and probably the reason the old show stretched so much.

A great show, nothing to offend, and a way better than the old version. Give it a try.