Robot Wars Revealed (found BBC Choice spin-off of robot combat game show; 1998-2000)

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RobotWarsRevealed.jpg

Title card.

Status: Found

Date found: 6 May 2022

Found by: Mech+

Robot Wars Revealed was a spin-off series of the BBC 2 robot combat game show Robot Wars. Broadcast on BBC Choice from 1998 to 2000, it provided a behind-the-scenes look at Series 2 of the show.

Background

Hosted by Robot Wars pit reporter Philippa Forrester, the show presented a behind-the-scenes take of Series 2, also known as The Second Wars. It would document the teams as they progressed through the events, provided their video diaries on how they created their machines, as well as showing how the production crew set up trials like Joust. Additionally, battles would shown in a more raw format, containing music but no commentary from Jonathan Pearce.

According to the Genome archive of Radio Times issues, episodes were broadcast from 1999 to 2000.[1] Additionally, two other episodes were said to have been listed in 1998 based on a Robot Wars Wiki discussion, but have since been removed by Genome.[2] During this time period, BBC Choice was a relatively new television channel, created to entice people in the United Kingdom to buy digital set-top boxes.[3][4] However, few were purchased during this time period, meaning that Robot Wars Revealed likely received low viewership.[5]

Availability

Because of the low viewership, combined with a lack of any home media release, much of Robot Wars Revealed remained relatively obscure among even hardcore Robot Wars fans. Out of a total of around fifteen possible episodes listed by Genome,[1] only two resurfaced prior to May 2022. On 20th February, 2017, Simon Harrison of the King Buxton team was able to find a VHS recording of the Heat I episode, which was uploaded to YouTube three days later. On 18th March 2018, John Denny of Team 13 uploaded the Heat G episode. Based on the tape's label, the episode was broadcast in November 1999.[6]

On 6th May 2022, free streaming platform Mech+ announced that it had obtained all episodes of Robot Wars Revealed, publicly releasing the episodes later that evening.[7]

Gallery

Heat G

Heat I

See Also

External Link

References