Nerdy. Cheesy. Fun.

That’s essentially all you need to know about the first episode of this year’s BattleBots. I missed it live so watched it on ABC’s website. The first 10 minutes is full of completely cheesy build up, but as the episode progresses the terrible poetry of introductions gets more humorous with each battle. An entry of twin robots named Gemini got introduced as: “Your horoscope reads: you’re about to die. It’s the real zodiac killer…” My favorite though was “The Roomba of Doomba.”

But, the 3 minutes of action in each round is surprisingly awesome. Flames and clashing metal abound. There’s not much in terms education, but there are surprises about which type of robot performs well. Will the robot trying to flip others prevail over the hammer-wielding robot? What about the one with flames versus the spinner? I imagine the hope is for kids to see the carnage and get inspired to see how it works. Well, technically the hope is for ratings, but you get the point. This was also the qualifying round so I’ll have to see if they delve more into the science behind it in future episodes.

The only real complaint I had was that it’s just soooo many white guys. Each robot had a team behind it and even those led by non-white men were filled with white dudes. Again, maybe the full field will do a better job of showcasing the tech field as more than just white men, but I’ll have to wait and see.

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