So I checked out the latest edition of "Nerds Gone Wild" i.e. - the robot war craze - Robotica. It was pure chance as I was going to my parents house to scarf down my usual free food (or as dad would call it - "becoming the human hoover" and I call "hospitality") and also I had to work on my costumes for Fantasm.

I knew it wouldn't be as good as Battlebots as usually dad has all of his vices in front of him (ice cream and chocolate syrup) screaming "DIDJA LOOKIT THAT??!??" as chocolate syrup would drip down his chin and his eyes would shine like a mad man. Truly a great moment of joy that dad basks in when taking in a couple of lawnmower rejects duking it out.

This time - he was very calm on the couch and doing word puzzles - not a good sign of a TV show when grading by the Dad-Meter. I asked him what it was about and he gave me the rundown on how four robots were squared off in groups of two - were then scored points on four different categories - the race of boredom- the maze of certain doom - the beat-the-crap out of your robot with heavy objects competition - and then the yawning showdown (yes, I named them myself - my names are better than what the network gave them anyway). So while I was ironing (a bad sign on the Dawn-Meter of a TV show) I assessed my opinion on the show.

First of all, the host is no Bill Dwyer - it's the little known brother of Dweezil Zappa. And though I am glad that he finally found work after running two shows into the ground - at my prediction of his previous hosting abilities, I am sure he will fail at this one, too. His personality reminds me of a 5 year old on speed who got control of a microphone taking hostages in the control booth. This man would not shut up and his enthusiasm seemed a little helped along with self medication.

All in all this wasn't very exciting. Dad and I would watch as robots would fail to get through the maze or would get hung up on simple objects (like a piece of lint) and sympathize - until they told us that all of the contestants are given the blueprints of all the mazes. The silliness of building a robot that can't push his own weight when the controllers KNEW that it would have to push a 2 ton safe, and the fact that there is a huge sheeting waterfall at one of the competitions and a robot would have bare wires out - causing it to short out - were laughable. How could you not prepare when you are CERTAIN of what you are up against? It was like going to the ACTs and not realizing that math would be a part of the test. Gah!

And these bots were something built out of an old 60's erector sets. These things were terrible - I could have done a better job on a souped up toaster than with some of these entrants. Also, some of the people didn't know how to control their robot and would end up not even able to start the race let alone finish it.

Anyway, I really didn't like the fact that they made the set more important than what was really going on. In the final showdown - it has a motif of tiki torches and doom soundtracks. The rest of the set was very clean and non used. Sterile is the term I would like to use. The audience is non existent - and you get the feeling that you aren't seeing everything.

Battlebots is tons better as I feel like I could come down to their show with a cooler of beer and some barbeque ribs and feel right at home with the other members of the audience (just with more teeth and education and no mangy dog). Their arena has parts everywhere and robots aren't testing on strength - I can do that on my own with any household appliance and some anger - it's just metal on metal action and you can feel your teeth grit when another robot grinds into another one and you see the damage done as the one is rendered helpless and the other drags it around like a broken toy with an actuating lifting arm (mine and dad's favorite battlebot term btw:). According to me and Dad's that's family entertainment - Robotica is just trying to hard to be "serious." Dad and I don't wanna be serious when watching robots on TV - we wanna high five each other, jab each other in the ribs while screaming at the TV, and of course, wiping the chocolate off our chins.