Tag Archives: Battlebots

Television in the Time of COVID

Tiger King, The Queen’s Gambit

The pandemic put the movie industry on ice. But it has set TV on fire.

From Tiger King to The Queen’s Gambit, COVID has treated the small screen like royalty. Television viewing nationwide increased for the first time in nine years in 2020. Warner Bros. announced it was turning its 2021 film slate into movies of the week airing on HBO Max (though Warners will still toss flicks to the few theater chains still dog paddling).

That doesn’t mean all was right on the boob tube last year. Sports have lost their competitive zeal, and some game shows simply don’t translate without a live audience.

Here, then, are the TV lab reports from from some iconic shows facing pandemic programming.

Sports Athletics saw some truly dramatic storylines in 2020, including LeBron James becoming the first NBA player to win championships with three teams and the Cleveland Browns winning their first football playoff game since, well, maybe leather.

Baltimore Ravens: Overreaction Monday - Browns Got Lucky, Actually...

But there’s no getting around it: Pro sports are just glamorous scrimmages without crowds. Part of every athletes’ measure is the ability to perform the craft in public. Otherwise, you’re just a musician with agoraphobia; the talent may be there, but you gotta show the guts.

Scripted television Screenplays — particularly dramatic ones — felt as rare as toilet paper last year. Most series simply weren’t (aren’t) ready to reflect a society forced to wear a mask (after all, COVID hides your dimples). The upside is that those who did venture out, like Fargo and Better Call Saul, felt like oases in ash.

Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk in “Better Call Saul,” the “Breaking Bad” prequel series.
Better Call Saul

Game shows Here’s where TV went manic.

For the sake of reporting I swear! I looked up the opening minuts of The Bachelor on Comcast’s On-Demand. I know it’s been ABC’s (thus Disney’s) shinier mantle piece for a quarter-century, where it has hovered about the top 10.

I don’t know who the bachelor is, I don’t know who Miss Etiquette is. But the series begins with Sweet Polly Purebread announcing to the bachelor, with her hand behind her back: “The pandemic was really hard on me, but I got through the tough times with this,” producing a dildo.

Where to begin? Howbout: Was? Is the pandemic over if you find true love? And what did you want him to do with that? Wouldn’t you have been concerned if, instead of laughing, he’d said, “Oh, thanks! Mine broke!”

Clearly, some shows need to be put into a medically-induced coma until the storm passes.

Bachelor' Premiere: Matt James on Being Distracted by a 'Big Dildo' (Exclusive) | Entertainment Tonight
Miss Etiquette and The Bachelor

You have to feel for The Price is Right. Sure, Drew Carey looks like he’s about to mail bombs from a woodshed, but they’re trying. But it doesn’t feel the same without your second-cousin Terry shouting at you that you’re paying too much for sandwich bags.

The Price Is Right At Night's Drew Carey Talks COVID-19 Changes, Including His New Beard - CINEMABLEND
Drew Carey

Some TV hosts seem utterly unfazed by a worldwide plague. Judge Judy may be better in a pandemic. She looks a lot like the New York city judge featured on 60 Minutes because of her straight talk to lawyers and laymen alike. And the show benefits without a courtroom to ooh and ahh at courtroom antics, which Judith Sheindlin always detested, anyway.

Judith Sheindlin and her bailiff, Petri Hawkins Byrd, in 1997, during the first season of ‘‘Judge Judy.’’
Judge Judy and Officer Byrd

Some shows are not only pandemic-proof; they’re people-proof. Battlebots may be a peek into an AI future. If anything, the show drags to a near-standstill when the humans cackle about what’s at stake in the pursuit of the show’s “Giant Nut” championship.

BattleBots crowns a new champion - Nerd Reactor
The Giant Nut

So what does that mean for viewing in ’21? At least on the news front, things are going to get pretty boring. Already, the 24/7s are replaying footage from the Capitol insurrection as if they were seeing Charlie Bit My Finger for the first time. As much as they bitch about inciting unrest, CNN and MSNBC need to examine their stoking insistence to highlight lowlifes. Saul is entering its final season, and Fargo has no plans in place for a fifth season.

But COVID, which has proved to be a pandemic that teaches us what we can live without, has also improved some of the things we hold dear. Phone calls now really are a way to reach out and touch someone. Zoom has strengthened enumerable family relationships. Drive-ins are back. Dog shelters aren’t teeming with the abandoned and abused. Imagine what a hug is going to feel like again.

From surface to soul, COVID has been a human cleansing. If TV is a reflection of — or reaction to — that profound metamorphosis, it will see a new heyday. Just pass on the dildos.

Let’s Get Ready to ROOOOOOOBOT!

 

I suck at socializing. I can’t help but ask people too soon about their faith, their politics and, especially of late, their favorite reality TV show.

That last question might not sound as weighty as the first two party-downers, but consider the subtle nosiness of the question. What you’re really asking: What speaks to your inner angels (or demons)?

The answers can be fascinating. My oldest buddy admits he loves reality shows about renovating dilapidated pubs and bars. Another loves dating reality shows. Another, who has about as much culinary expertise as I (Pop-Tart, anyone?), loves reality cooking shows. My mom never misses Judge Judy.  Image result for judge judy

There have to be deeper psychological layers to the shows’ appeal. Are they wish fulfillment? A satiation for fairy tale or just endings? A peek at a career path not taken?

Sure, there are risks in the ask — namely the douchebag who likes to brag he doesn’t own a television. Beware anyone who boasts of cultural fasting.

And I’ll concede: I’m a little worried about my own guilty pleasure TV: Battlebots. Does it mean I have a thing for headlessness?

I wonder because that’s what introduced me to the show, a gladiatorial-style battle to the death between remote-control robots.

These aren’t Rock Em Sock Em robots. They have flippers, flame throwers and firepower. These things weigh 200 pounds, feature lawnmower saws, and boast blades that spin as fast as a helicopter’s. One shoots a five-pound lead cartridge 300 mph at its opponent, like a Campbell’s Soup can in a howitzer.

My favorite bot, though, is Ice Wave, which has a 54-inch spinning wheel with a firefighter’s saw that rotates at 250 mph. I was channel flipping when I happened upon Ice Wave’s upcoming match, a fight with a stubby spin bot that looked like a fire hydrant with rabies. 

When the bell rang, the hydrant charged toward Ice Wave, which simply began firing up its spinner. Fearless and fast, stubby hurled toward the blades, hoping to defeat Ice Wave by knocking it on its side.

Instead, Ice Wave decapitated stubby with one rotation. In a subsequent battle, Ice Wave was tipped on its side — only to slash its opponent vertically in two. That’s how legends are born, folks (Alas, it lost in the playoffs for the most anti-climactic of reasons: A battery short left it immobilized).

But this reality show, too, suggests something deeper about human nature: Our bloodlust. And given our increasing understanding of that lust, it just may be carving the future of sport.

Consider: Football, from the NFL to Pop Warner, is seeing declining revenues, ratings and participation.. The UFC and mixed martial arts are a niche sport at best. And boxing — once the most popular sport in America — essentially retired as a legitimate competition when Ali did. Image result for violent pop warner hit

All three  share a macabre plotline: the primate desire for violence. High school districts nationwide have already banned head-butting soccer balls out of concussion concerns, and more than 15% are considering measures banning children’s tackle football outright. And if moms pull their kids out of school football, it’s Friday Night Lights out.

So let the bots battle. Teams gain no advantage through misogyny or racism. Women kick mens’ asses all the time on Battlebots. Parent-child teams are common.  It’s kinda like Star Wars chess. And come on: who doesn’t want a game piece that can eat an opponent? Image result for star wars chess scene

One suggestion to Battlebots producers, though: You may want to put a self-destruct button on every copy of your matches for the near future. Because if our Artificial Intelligence overlords ever see what we made them do, we may face the wrath of Ice Wave.

May I suggest this instead?