That's followed by Son of Whyachi destroying Nightmare, and then they show a bunch of clips that are in color of other robots in combat. The message of the piece seems to be "robots have been doing a lot of fighting this season." Tim Green talks in hype-speak, so it's hard to interpret.
Tonight we're going to find out who won the lightweight and middleweight championships. A lot of clips are shown. Some of them even feature the robots that we'll be seeing tonight!
Hey, I wonder what would happen if you mixed Snapple and Keystone Light. I'm sure it would be oh so delicious.
For the first battle tonight, T-Wrex will take on Hazard. Hazard was the champion in season one, then didn't enter the season two tournament. Spaz, the season two champion, didn't enter this tournament. Those crazy middleweights!
Tim introduces an interview with Tony Buchignani as being about adjustments. The sound bite is simply Tony explaining how Hazard's ramp will draw T-Wrex into the blade, since T-Wrex's body is lower than the blade. But I guess we can't always expect the presenters of the show to be correct, can we?
As Mark Beiro introduces the robots, there's another voice faintly talking beneath his words. It almost sounds like Mark's mic picked up some signals from a radio traffic report or something. Or else his ventriloquism act is getting really good.
Robot fightin' time. Hazard powers up and approaches T-Wrex before T-Wrex can start spinning, delivering a blow. Then there's a collision between weapons. T-Wrex heads toward a wall. Hazard slowly approaches, then quickly (relatively quickly, Hazard's not that fast of a bot) smacks T-Wrex again. T-Wrex doesn't move, so Hazard pushes it a little bit. The weapon of T-Wrex sits on a spike, which elevates T-Wrex's wheels off the ground.
T-Wrex has been immobilized. Hazard backs off, powers its weapon up, and slams into T-Wrex, producing a shower of those beautiful white sparks. As bright white as Antarctica on a sunny day. If you pause even the videotape at the point where the most sparks are produced, you need to have protective eyewear to be able to view it and keep your vision intact.
Anyway, that whack knocks T-Wrex off the spikes and puts its wheels back on the floor. Helpful Hazard blocks T-Wrex in between itself, the spike strip, and a screw's base so the robot still can't go anywhere.
Hazard runs off to get its blade moving again. T-Wrex drives toward the center and spins. When T-Wrex stops spinning, Hazard moves in and pushes T-Wrex's weapon, then gets in a position where its blade can hit T-Wrex's body. So actually, Hazard's weapon is just below the maximum height of T-Wrex. I'm sure Tony Buchignani's got no complaints about that.
The two bots position themselves. Hazard jumps in and slams T-Wrex again. T-Wrex finds a new strategy -- take the bar sticking out of the robot and try to jam Hazard's blade with it. It makes Hazard jump back, but doesn't disable the blade.
That works a couple of times, but then Hazard just ignores the blade and uses its wedge to push T-Wrex around. It takes a couple of tries, but Hazard is able to lift T-Wrex's wheels off the floor again and push its other end into the spike strip.
T-Wrex escapes and spins a couple side blows to Hazard. Hazard leaves, charges its blade, and runs back in to throw T-Wrex a bit with a hit.
That'll end the fight. The 27-18 decision goes to Hazard. 27-18? According to the judges, this fight was closer than the Son of Whyachi vs. BioHazard match. Apparently those white sparks really do blind people...
In the post-fight interviews, Alain Kramar reveals that one of T-Wrex's wheels got damages from an early blow. Traci Bingham is wearing yet another new outfit.
After the commercial break, we get to see a very short set of clips of the prototypes for the radio-controlled toys. They're just white plastic, but there's no doubt that the fight is between Complete Control and Diesector. I know what I'm asking for this Christmas. And I might ask for some Battlebots toys, too.
The other middleweight semifinal fight is between SABotage and Little Drummer Boy. Enough said, let's start the fight.
SABotage tries to drive around so as to avoid Little Drummer Boy's drum, but Little Drummer Boy turns to not let that happen. Nevertheless, SABotage gets under Little Drummer Boy's side and flips it, ten seconds into the fight.
Little Drummer Boy stops and reverses the direction of the spinning drum. It then backs into the wall, since it's driving upside-down. SABotage tries to flip it again, but gets pushed back by the spinning drum.
SABotage takes a hit from Little Drummer Boy. It tries to flip Little Drummer Boy, but Little Drummer Boy doesn't quite tip over. Little Drummer Boy retaliates with a hit that flips SABotage onto its back.
SABotage brings in its lifting arm, and with some help from Little Drummer Boy, lands right side up again. Unfortunately, now SABotage isn't moving. Little Drummer Boy hits it from the back. Then from the side. All SABotage can do is raise the lifting arm. No motion from the wheels.
SABotage is counted out. A couple seconds after the buzzer, SABotage lurches forward. Too late.
After the commercial, it'll be the middleweight finals.
Oh look, I've reduced the length of a commercial break down to a single blank line. Whaddaya know.
Since they've done it for the two heaviest weight classes, "Battlebots" the television show first will choose a middleweight rookie of the year. Surprise, they've chosen Little Drummer Boy. Good thing they took some time for that.
Bil talks about advantages for both finalist bots. Is anybody actually paying attention? They both spin, one's a rookie. I think we can figure that much out on our own.
Here we go, the finals. Little Drummer Boy versus Hazard. I will thank you to not point out any sentences I may have typed in my episode three summary.
Okay, I should say something positive somewhere in this summary. In Little Drummer Boy's introduction, the line, "his rotating steel drum isn't here to play enchanting Caribbean music" is pretty funny to me. It's too bad the laugh track reacted more to, "it's come to perform a Mexican hat dance on your freakin' head," which isn't particularly clever.
Middleweight championship robot fightin' time-o-rama. Little Drummer Boy has no problems driving its drum right into Hazard's blade. On the second contact, Little Drummer Boy's drum is disabled by Hazard's blade. Whoops.
Hazard continues to smack Little Drummer Boy. Several times.
As Hazard's blade slows down from all the punishment, Hazard finally just scoops under Little Drummer Boy with its wedge and starts to push. However, the spikes hanging off of the back of Little Drummer Boy get caught in the holes for the ramrods, preventing Hazard from pushing Little Drummer Boy anywhere. A little maneuvering and Hazard pushes Little Drummer Boy away from the ramrods, but then Little Drummer Boy slips off Hazard.
Hazard turns around and pushes Little Drummer Boy toward a set of saws. Hazard backs off and Little Drummer Boy drives off the holes before the saws can pop up. Hazard pushes Little Drummer Boy toward a sledgehammer, but Little Drummer Boy slips off again. Before Little Drummer Boy can drive away, Hazard finishes the job and pushes it under the big hammer.
Little Drummer Boy takes some solid blows from the hammer, but no damage is done. Hazard does a little more pushing, then moves back to start the blade up again. Two hits, then some more pushing.
Hazard drives back to get the blade moving once more. Three solid shots. On the fourth shot, Little Drummer Boy quits moving. Hazard has knocked Little Drummer Boy out.
Team BotWorks signals to Tony Buchignani to go ahead and hit Little Drummer Boy some more. Tony gladly obliges. Then Hazard, taking a page from Toro, drives back to its square. While Little Drummer Boy is counted out, though, Hazard moves toward the center again to do its victory spin. It's slow, but it's still victorious.
Bil and Tim brag that Hazard is the first robot to win at Battlebots two times. Go past the televised tournaments, though, and you'll see that that just plain isn't the case. Heck, in the first season they were mentioning how Vlad the Impaler won the tournament that took place before Comedy Central grabbed hold of Battlebots. Remember: never trust anything the "Battlebots" talent says. Of course, if you've been reading all these summaries, you've already learned that lesson. Trust only me... Prove your trust of me by letting me "guard" your money from those evil banks... It's okay, you know you can trust me...
And my purpose for creating this web site has been revealed. Well, no need to continue summarizing. Good night, folks!
Oh, okay. I'll keep going. But only 'cause I'm a nice guy. Who you can trust.
For the fourth segment of the first half hour, we see Tony accept his new giant nut trophy. Every time I see a builder lift one of those over his head, I just keep imagining what would happen if the builder lost his grip. I can picture some practical joker greasing the corners of the giant nut...
Also in this segment, we're informed of a couple of lightweight quarterfinal fights that we won't be seeing. Sallad and Ziggo met in a head-on collision, and Ziggo was the one to lose. In the Wedge of Doom versus Backlash fight, Wedge of Doom used the killsaws to flip Backlash on its head for the victory. These were major upsets! You're not going to see the fights in full!
They still had some time to kill in this half hour, so it's time for another look back at the tournament. Look, there's Nightmare's blade spinning up. And yep, it's approaching Slam Job. Twenty-two! And then they show the hit again, twice more in rapid succession. Well, I've been counting the number of times we've seen Nightmare's blade come into contact with Slam Job. So technically, that makes it twenty-four. I hate technicalities. Wait -- no, I don't. Twenty-four, then.
Toro tosses Phere. T-Minus twists Bumper Bawt. Turbo is torn by the saws. Son of Whyachi smashes BioHazard. And lots of other stuff happened that I don't feel like writing alliterative action statements for. All in all, I'd have to say that these were definitely clips of fights that took place this season.
Hmm... still got some time left. So here's an interview with Tony Buchignani. He mentions all the things he has to do to fix Wedge of Doom for the semis. The viewers are left to infer that this is because Backlash did a good deal of damage before it was flipped.
Aha! Halfway point!
For this next half hour, we're going to follow the lightweights through the semis to the finals. For the first semifinal fight, it's Sallad against Dr. Inferno Jr. Bil is impressed by the fact that Sallad has had three knockouts in a row before this fight. Um... one of the KO's was caused by Ziggo ricocheting into a screw base, and another was caused by Carnage Raptor driving itself under a screw. Sallad didn't exactly do much except endure blows.
There's more of that other voice talking under Mark Beiro's introductions again. I could make out somebody talking about strategy and aggression, and later, it being a tough one to... something. It appears that we've tapped into the secret illegal Battlebots wagering odds-setting room. Wait, was I supposed to reveal the existence of such a room? No? Oops. Um, I mean... the secret... illegal... Robot Wars wagering odds-setting room. Is that better?
The fight begins with Sallad driving at full speed into Dr. Inferno Jr.'s side. Then it's positioning time. Oh yeah.
Sallad takes a hit from the saws. Its frame has already been damaged from previous fights, so who knows if that did anything.
Dr. Inferno Jr. gets under Sallad and pushes it into the wall. Dr. Inferno Jr. can't get either of its weapons to hit Sallad, so Sallad just uses its arm to hit Dr. Inferno Jr. in the head. Dr. Inferno Jr. repositions itself, nope, still no good. Dr. Inferno Jr. gets popped by the ramrods. Sallad's arm gets stuck under Dr. Inferno Jr.'s arm, so Dr. Inferno Jr. pulls back and pushes Sallad into the wall again.
Sallad eventually escapes. As it drives around, its lifting arm raises into the air, then stops when it's perpendicular to the ground. Now that can't be useful in any way. Sallad slams the arm back and forth, not hitting Dr. Inferno Jr.
Dr. Inferno Jr. gets under Sallad again. It pushes Sallad, and its skirt gets caught on the floor. So Dr. Inferno Jr. repositions itself under Sallad and pushes Sallad into the base of a screw. Suddenly, the bots start shaking. What the...? Oh, Dr. Inferno Jr. is using its drill weapon. To be honest, I didn't even realize Dr. Inferno Jr. had a drill weapon until they showed this close-up. The drill is rotating, and not puncturing Sallad at all. Comedy Central adds a drill sound effect, as if they placed a microphone a foot away from the robots during combat.
All of the pushing Dr. Inferno Jr. did while trying to make the drill effective has wedged one of Sallad's corners underneath the spikes. Sallad ain't goin' nowhere. The timer runs out before the ref decides to start counting Sallad down.
It's a 36-9 decision for Dr. Inferno Jr. But we all knew that was going to be the decision. Including the 36-9 part.
Coming out of the commercial, we get more sneak peaks at the radio-controlled toy prototypes. This time, it's Complete Control and Tazbot going at it. If the controller they showed was the final design for the toys, it looks different than your average RC car controller. The shape strongly resembles a Playstation controller, except each side has two buttons. The left side controls forward and backward, and the right side controls left and right. Dunno where the weapon control buttons are.
Now it's time for the other lightweight semifinal -- Gamma Raptor versus Wedge of Doom. Wedge of Doom is coming off a violent battle with Backlash. But you never got to see it! Sucks to be you, inferior Comedy Central viewers!
The lights indicate that it's time for the battle to begin. Both robots drive off in seemingly random directions. Then they get around to meeting near the middle, where neither bot flips the other.
Bil explains all of the things Gamma Raptor's lifting arm can do. According to Bil, it's also a wedge (okay, yeah, a curved kind of wedge) and a grabbing arm. Huh? How does Gamma Raptor's lifting arm grab other robots? Well, maybe if it... no, I don't think that would work. Or... no, that's not right. Maybe he mistook Gamma Raptor for SABotage. Or they just edited in some of Bil's dialogue during one of Diesector's fights. Next he'll be explaining how Wedge of Doom can spin up to 300 rpm.
Gamma Raptor gets some charging room and slams Wedge of Doom against the wall. The canned audience goes absolutely berserk.
Bill Nye pops up on the screen with no warning whatsoever. While he speaks, Gamma Raptor drives over saws a couple times. When he leaves, Gamma Raptor gets under Wedge of Doom again, though Wedge of Doom slips away.
The two bots drive around a lot and don't lift each other. Wedge of Doom's lifting arm seems really slow to activate. Gamma Raptor's is only slightly faster.
One of the lifting tusks of Gamma Raptor has broken loose, just kind of dangling. Wedge of Doom has lost power to its front wheels, it appears. Gamma Raptor slams into Wedge of Doom a few times, angling Wedge of Doom toward a sledgehammer. At that point, Wedge of Doom drives forward, right under the falling hammer. The hammer hits. Gamma Raptor flies in and gets hit, too. One of Wedge of Doom's rear wheels falls off. The buzzer sounds.
They really need to turn down the fake crowd noise while Mark Beiro announces that Gamma Raptor is the winner in a 28-17 decision.
According to Bil, the "battle stats" are close, so "we have to look at the judges' scores." That's not a reason, Bil. That means that the statistician lost count somewhere during the fight so you needed to fill some time.
But since they're there, here are the real scores, not some lame counts made up to sound pretty. Strategy was 8-7, Gamma Raptor. Aggression and Damage were both 10-5, Gamma Raptor. Let's see... 10, 10, 8... carry the 3... yeah, that adds up.
It's near the end of the tournament, and Traci's interviews are still awkward and filled with pauses. I really should stop paying attention to what's being said. I've been told that there's something else on the screen that I'm supposed to be looking at instead of listening to the interview, but I'm not sure what that something is. Maybe it's the colorized pictures of S.L.A.M.
Commercial. Then it's time for the show to name a lightweight rookie of the year. Wait, wait. Let me guess. Wedge of Doom went the farthest out of all the new bots, so Wedge of Doom is going to be Nye's pick. Let's find out...
The list contains Wedge of Doom, Carnage Raptor, Wacker, and Death by Monkeys. Bil announces the "winner." It's... Wedge of Doom! Surprise! Congratulations, Tony Buchignani, you'll be receiving no award of any type for this title.
Time to get ready for the lightweight finals. Tim informs us that after this fight, Dr. Inferno Jr. will be retiring. Its plans are to move to Florida and play golf all day, like all doctors do.
Bil talks about the strengths and weaknesses Dr. Inferno Jr. and Gamma Raptor have. Aw, mean ol' Comedy Central took away his on-screen graphics for this one!
Green light. Amazingly little happens in this fight. Neither robot is able to stay under its opponent to flip it or push it anywhere. Ah, Gamma Raptor makes sparks with a saw. That's something.
Every time Gamma Raptor gets its claws under Dr. Inferno Jr., either Dr. Inferno Jr. quickly escapes or Gamma Raptor doesn't get in far enough to lift anything but skirt with the lifting arm. Dr. Inferno Jr. is just plain not doing much to Gamma Raptor.
Gamma Raptor gets positioned between a saw hole and the wall, with Dr. Inferno Jr. just teasing it from the other side of the saw hole. Gamma Raptor gets ready to make a quick run across the hole so it can get to Dr. Inferno Jr. before the saws pop up. It does a little fake-out to Pete... then makes its move. Unfortunately, Gamma Raptor's lower claws get stuck in the saw hole. Gamma Raptor reverses to try to free itself but the saws pop up, nailing the robot.
More driving. Dr. Inferno Jr. pushes Gamma Raptor. Gamma Raptor pushes Dr. Inferno Jr. Dr. Inferno Jr. is hit by a saw. The two slam into each other a couple times. More driving.
In the last ten seconds, Gamma Raptor nearly flips Dr. Inferno Jr. twice, but fails each time. Time's up. Gamma Raptor spins with its arm raised. Dr. Inferno Jr. pushes into Gamma Raptor to get the bot to stop it. The two drivers know each other, so the situation is pretty funny. I'm surprised the ref didn't try to tackle Jason Bardis for "fighting" after the buzzer.
During the slow-motion replays, Bil mentions the waltz between the two bots that Tim talked about. But wait, Tim didn't talk about a waltz. The closed captioning has some stuff about the two robots waltzing, but the actual audio got cut from the episode. Maybe "waltz" was too difficult a vocabulary word for Comedy Central's audience.
Here we go with the judges' decision for the lightweight championship. It's a surprisingly lopsided 32-13 vote. The winner is Dr. Inferno Jr. Tim states that the fans don't like it. Um, I don't see any fans not liking it from the shots we're being shown. And the canned booing is barely audible. Still, I'm amazed that Dr. Inferno Jr. was the lightweight champion of this tourney. I honestly did not expect it to go anywhere near this far. If you had traveled back in time and visited me before this season aired and told me that Dr. Inferno Jr. would be the lightweight champion, I would have said, "Who?" If you had told me that information after the second episode, I would have looked at you quizzically and called you a liar. I believe "No way" would have been my exact words.
Wait, why would you have to travel back in time to tell me that? This whole thing was prerecorded. Ugh, don't mind my senseless ramblings. (Actually, I guess this entire site falls under that category. So go ahead and mind them if you must.)
After the commercial, we get the real judges' scores again. Suffice it to say that Dr. Inferno Jr. won all of the categories. Don't ask me why, it looked like a really even fight to me. Maybe the judges got sick of writing threes and twos.
We see Jason receive his giant nut. Whee, the cheerleaders shake their small poms. Sparkly.
(Wow, those last two paragraphs were really, really weak. It's a good thing the season is almost over -- I'm starting to lose what little edge I had to begin with.)
Tim tells us how happy he is to be part of the "Battlebots" team. Bil tells us that this has been the best tournament ever. Hold on -- that's it? The season's over? What about the rumbles? There were eight rumbles -- you have enough for an episode! They're stopping the season now? Man! They show the least interesting final last and then they just quit. What a lousy way to go out.
Shoot, I need some closing comments now. Um... I wasn't quite prepared yet. Well, um, I'd like to thank any of you who've read my wordy, opinionated summaries (I think the count is up to two now). I promise I'll be back next season to do it all over again, no matter how foolish an idea it may be. Until then, may your days be free of boxes on wheels and little dolls in fire trucks. Au revoir! Sayonara! Viva el Toro!