|
| Foocha! is a non-profit Web site. We do it for kicks, not for cash. If you're interested in writing for the site, click here |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
| TV,
Jerry Carpenter,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F1
|
|
| |
| |
|
This is one of those shows that annoys me even when I’m not in front of the crystal bucket. Some folks assume I like this show because of the title, and that’s the sore point. Because they’re right, I should like it – but not since ‘Shoestring’ have I felt more mislead by a title. I’ve seen footage of official American robot warring and it looks pretty meaty. Surprise matey, the UK adaptation of this most important modern sport is piss-weak tea and buns.
The whole show’s been geared up to be ‘really kewl’, a lot of whizzing clanging 3D graphics, raging commentary, and fireworks just don’t cover up the fact that these so-called robots are in fact remote control shoeboxes. Sometimes the shoeboxes have puny pickaxes which invariably break in the first strike. More often than not the teams behind the boxes doll them up with ‘armour plating’ (tin foil), danger stickers, and spikes (more tin foil).
Fair-dos, the BBC’s own robots are a bit more like it, at least they don’t keep cocking up. But this just means the Beeb-bot on geek-bot combat is horrendously one sided, the only chance the shoeboxes have is to run away. That’s not entertaining - that’s shite. Compounding all this grimness is the grating fool Craig Charles. His ‘shouting shouting shouting’ style puts me in mind of the farce that was Dexter Fletcher’s brief stint on ‘Gamesmaster’, he’s just getting it all wrong.
Ah yes, I forget the ‘boffin’ babe Forrester. Well she’s alright I suppose, and I rather like her chubby arms. But she suffers from a similar charisma-debt as that other Beeb stalwart Anthea ‘explodo’ Turner. The whole enterprise lacks any real spark, just another case of the Beeb doing things in it’s time honoured anaemic fashion. Bloody ‘Bugs’, bloody ‘Neverwhere’, and now this. It’s simple – loose the shoeboxes, get two dwarves in tin-foil suits to duke it out while Stevie Hawkins eggs them on through a thundering PA. Now that’s REAL robot wars!
BBC2 Sat 18.45, 23.20 GMT
Top Home |
|
|
|
|
