History Series / RobotWars

A British television show about [[UsefulNotes/RobotCombat fighting robots]]. The original run aired from 1997 to 2004, airing seven series (each comprising one UK championship, with a few sideshow tournaments and specials in most series) plus two series of "Robot Wars Extreme", a house show-esque format featuring several different events and mini-tournaments. The first 6 (and the two Extremes) aired on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC2]] while the last season aired on Creator/Channel5. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork The latter channel's treatment of the show proved to be the death of it]], but it lived on in repeats and live events organised by the roboteers. In 2016, [[{{Revival}} a new 6-part series aired on BBC 2]] and ended a hiatus of more than a decade; the revival lasted for two more series in 2017, but was [[https://twitter.com/UKRobotWars/status/974672709455097856 cancelled]] in early 2018.

* IncendiaryExponent: The two most common ones were fur (Diotoir, Granny's Revenge) and petrol (Reptirron, Technophobic, ''[[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Sir Killalot]]'').

** Nuts' first battle saw it holding its own against three previous Grand Finalists (including champion Razer) and ''winning'', and it would later qualify for the Grand Final 2 years later [[spoiler: where it defeated ''another'' champion: Carbide]].

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* OhCrap: During the Series 4 semi-finals, the look on Isabelle Adams' (Wild Thing) face upon hearing who their next opponent would be: [[spoiler: Hypno-Disc]].

** [[FightingClown Nuts.]] [[LethalJokeCharacter Good Lord, Nuts.]] In Series 8 it squeaked through the melee when Razer [[TakingYouWithMe got dragged down the pit by Kill-E-Crank-E]], got brutally torn to pieces by Carbide, and basically couldn't do anything to any of the other robots in the round robin (although it did hold Terrorhurtz to only winning by a Judges' Decision, [[SpannerInTheWorks causing them to miss out on the heat final]]). In Series 9 they didn't even accomplish that much, as its speed controllers broke down in the opening melee and it got ejected from the arena by Matilda without doing anything. But in Series 10, it became one of the top contenders for the title after its seemingly useless flail weaponry proved capable of consistently hitting opponents in unarmored locations. [[spoiler: It started off by beating up both of its opponents in the three-way opening melee, including a Grand Finalist from last series, then it knocked out each of them ''again'' in later rounds, [[AttackItsWeakPoint destroying Concussion's wheels and tearing open Androne 4000's hydraulic system.]] This put Nuts in the grand final, where it was drawn against Behemoth and Carbide, the robot that demolished it in Series 8. It proceeded to almost immediately eliminate Behemoth by pressing the pit release with a minibot right as Behemoth bounced onto it, and [[AttackItsWeakPoint broke Carbide's weapon chain]] on the first hit, leaving Carbide unable to attack and winning by Judges' Decision. Carbide eventually beat it the second time, but only by welding on a piece of another defeated opponent to protect its chain - Nuts repeatedly got direct hits on the chain guard, and would have most likely broken the chain ''again'' if it hadn't been there.]] From JokeCharacter to LethalJokeCharacter within the space of a single series.

During the height of its fame, the show had two seasons and a Nickelodeon Kids' Series involving mainly US robots (called ''Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors'' and ''Nickelodeon Robot Wars'' respectively), two seasons involving robots from the Netherlands and Belgium (called ''Robot Wars: The Dutch Battles''), and a German language single Series (named ''Robot Wars: The German Struggles'') involving 12 robots from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which were broadcast in their native languages and used local Presenters and pit reporters. All series took place in the UK arena and used UK house robots (and the final UK series involved many big-name Dutch, Belgian and German robots). Most of the episodes are available on [=YouTube=] and, if you live in the UK, Challenge is showing reruns of all series bar 1, 3 and 4, with H2 showing Series 3 and 4. In addition, the UK version also spawned a SpinOff, ''Techno Games'', which ran for four series and was effectively a robotic Olympiad, featuring many of the same teams with new robots and sharing lots of personnel with the parent show.

** Twn Trwn is actually Welsh - it means "Broken Ring". [[AwesomeButImpractical And its impressive design was contrasted greatly with its lacklustre performance]].

** Robots without [=SRIMECHs=] (itself an acronym for Self-righting mechanism) would sometimes have PTO ("Please Turn Over") written on the bottom.

** By contrast, [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce6H-3kXEAApiPG.jpg:large the arena for the reboot series]] looks to have been designed deliberately to ''avoid'' these- while there are still open gaps near the four cardinal points to make it possible with sufficiently good driving, most of the arena wall is topped by an extended plexiglass shield which increases its height by several feet until it's almost as tall as a man. Only the most ''incredible'' flipper bots would be able to throw a robot ''that'' high[[note]]in the classic series, only Wheely Big Cheese and ''maybe'' Gravity would have realistically had a chance[[/note]]!

** A notable one from the later series was Warhog v Napalm in Series 5. Warhog's full-body spinner weapon wasn't working, Napalm's weapon [[JokeItem may as well have not been working]], neither robot had any real speed or pushing power, and by the end of the fight, Napalm was stuck against an angle grinder and Warhog had simply stopped moving. Napalm was judged the winner.

* ForWantOfANail:
** Razer lost in Series 2 through 4 due to one thing going wrong (most notably in Series 3, when its self-righting mechanism went off at the wrong moment and left it stranded just before it got the chance to finish off a CurbStompBattle with Aggrobot).
** An almost literal example occurred in Series 2; if George Francis had only remembered to screw two small pieces of plastic onto the back of Chaos, it would have been the first robot to ever self-right during its heat final battle against Mace, and could well have then beaten Mace, reached the semi-finals[[note]]which would in the long-run have made Team Chaos the first of only two teams to reach five semi-finals; in the end only Firestorm achieved this feat[[/note]], and caused eventual champions Panic Attack to have been eliminated in the Gauntlet[[note]]Panic Attack and Mace had come joint-last in the Gauntlet, with Panic Attack winning the race-off; this in itself could qualify, for if Panic Attack had covered only a few centimetres less then it would have gone out[[/note]]. From there, it likely could have made the Grand Final[[note]]which would have made Team Chaos the only team to reach four Grand Finals[[/note]]... but on the [[{{Pun}} flipside]], if Chaos ''had'' gotten that far, would George Francis still have been motivated to [[TookALevelInBadass make Chaos 2?]]
** The third series was intended to feature a seeding system like the others, but did not due to the extensive changes to the show's format. This resulted in cases where high-quality robots went out early because they were drawn against equally good machines in the heats, while there were other heats where the entire field was unremarkable (most infamously the last one, won by the unimpressive Trident).
** Typhoon 2 were flipped in their opening battle of Series 7 but went through because the other two robots in the fight had been flipped first, and were losing their semi-final match against Atomic when their opponent mistimed a large flip, turned itself over and broke the flipper with the force.