Rescue Robots: a forgotten CITV classic

OK, so, before we continue with the serious business of my UC retrospective, and the continuing delay of the new series, it's time for me to talk about a long forgotten show from my youth that is finally getting some recognition, 19 years after being so appallingly treated by TPTB.

So, for the past nearly quarter of a century, I've been a massive fan of Robot Wars. Well, the original series anyway; the revival was great too, but it'll never have the same place in my heart as the original series and the nostalgic memories I have of it. Sadly, the original series was never released on DVD, which means we've had to make do with various YouTube uploads of varying quality over the years.

Until earlier this year, when a new streaming service emerged where we could watch the entirity of both the original series and the revival in excellent high quality. Mech+ would go on to also provide us with all four series of the spin-off show Techno Games and the even shorter lived Robot Wars Revealed series, and more shows of the robotic genre were promised to us as well.

And then, about a month ago, they gave us Rescue Robots...

Rescue Robots was a great little show that aired on CITV in the summer of 2003. A single series of 15 episodes was produced, but, sadly, only seven of them were ever aired, as CITV underwent a massive makeover, both in presentation and programming, midway through its run, and Rescue Robots was an unfortunate casualty.

The show took place in the rather aptly named Calamity City, where, every week, the populace had been threatened by some kind of disaster; either something serious, like an earthquake or a nuclear meltdown, or something more trivial, like the town's TV transmitters having to be fixed in time for a football match. Three of the five titular robots would be deployed to sort the matter out, and teams of four young competitors would be tasked with helping them do so, three of them driving the robots and one commanding from afar and telling them what to do.

The five titular robots, three of whom would appear in each episode, were:

• Talon: red, with a grabbing arm.
• Transporter: blue, with either a large bunker to carry items or a water tank and cannon for fighting fires.
• Muscles: green, similar to Talon, but with a magnet instead of a grabber.
• Ranger: yellow, with a saw for cutting things, missiles and radars for detecting gasses and other things.
• Blade: orange, with a large raisable scoop for pushing things.

Unlike nowadays, where everything would probably be computer generated, the action took place in an actual physical world, the largest ever built for a children's show apparently. The model robots were constructed by competitors and technicians from Robot Wars; the robot drivers were given half an hour off-screen beforehand to get the hang of the controls.

Despite this, the robots do actually look quite difficult to control (the large and long Transporter with its awkward six wheel steering especially), and the contestants did often have difficulties with them, quite often spending ages just turning corners. Another episode saw Talon get stuck on a small hill totally unrelated to the actual objectives and several minutes had to be spent getting it free.

So, as UKGS pointed out at the time, things did have a tendency to drag a bit at times, especially when the contestants were unable to do seemingly simple manoeuvres. But thankfully, even if they did, it wasn't for very long. And host Anna Williamson and commentator Eddie Matthews were usually able to inject enough humour into procedings to keep things watchable ("We're supposed to be saving the hospital, not crashing into it!").

 

AW did her job very well, keeping the contestants in check and offering them advice and encouragement when needed, as well as keeping a firm hand on the format and ensuring neither the contestants nor the viewers got confused as to what was happening. And EM, while not quite on the same level as Jonathan Pearce on RW, was still a good commentator who always ensured things kept ticking over for the viewers.

There was a minor competitive element to the show: at the end of each episode, whether the team succeeded in their mission or not, each of the four contestants received an 'ACE rating', marks out of 10 for 'Ability', 'Communications' and 'Effort' for a possible total of 30, with the contestant with the highest rating being 'Highly Commended'. But this was added in post production and the contestans themselves never found this out (on screen), so it was very much a team effort.

So, anyway, as I said before, fifteen episodes of the show were filmed, but only seven were aired before the show abruptly disappeared from the CITV line-up following a mass overhaul of the strand's presentation and programming. And that, we thought, was that.

Until, a few weeks ago, Mech+ announced they had acquired the entire series, the missing episodes included, and would be making them all available to watch. I was very surprised; I honestly never thought we'd ever get to see the missing episodes, either officially or unofficially. So, I'm currently working my way through them; I've currently watched all bar two of them, but I'll get onto them in the coming days.

So that's Rescue Robots, a great little show that deserved a lot better than to get cancelled mid-run; it's a shame that happened as, in the right circumstances, I think it could well have run for at least a couple more series. But at least now we can finally view it in its entirety thanks to Mech+, a fine service that is totally recommended if you're into RW and that sort of thing!

Tune back in later for the penultimate installment of my 10th anniversary series...