I legitimately think that Robot Wars, in that format, had it's time. As much as I'd love to see it back, it's never going to be back to the style of Series 5-7 because there's just not going to be as many heavyweights about. What I would love to see, however, is Arenas of Destruction style 'makeshift' arenas - I know that's a logistical and health and safety nightmare, but it'd be rather cool to see robots fight in a disused factory, or in a scrapyard, or some obscure location to mix things up a tad, because I think that's why the viewing figures started to drop... each successive series (especially 5 onwards) was pretty much the same thing...
I think the 'golden age' of Robot Wars was definitely series 2-4, when the innovations were really coming out but there were also loads of variations of the formula like the gauntlet, Sumo Basho, Pinball... that kind of thing. Likewise, the whole idea of TechnoGames is something I'd love to see come back alongside Robot Wars. It had a lot more personality back then as well, it wasn't all fake aggression and shouting all the time - Craig Charles' little 'stand up' bit at the start of each episode was absolutely great, and I do think that's something that was really missing from the later episodes.
If it were to come back though, it'd need a major overhaul - I think the arena would need a complete redesign visually, the house robots would need improving (not to cause more unnecessary damage, rather to be as imposing as possible) and I think you'd need a massive structural change to the competition as a whole. Probably need a way of nerfing flippers a bit too, they were really popular later on as I'm sure you all know, and it wasn't as interesting to watch when a great number of robots had the same weapon. I'd love to see a new type of weapon 'invented' but I'm not sure what else can be done within the rules!
I've just been doing a video about all this for Youtube as well, so if it seems like I've got a lot to say on that matter, that's probably why!
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