This Team of "Mad Scientists From the Future" Is Looking to Dominate the 'BattleBots' Landscape

It was the year 2000, and Comedy Central was airing all sorts of interesting and innovative programs, which included a little show called BattleBots. The program featured a slew of tech teams who created glorified RC monstrosities that fought for dominance in a cage. The machines not only had to worry about fighting each other in the competition; however, but had to avoid hazards like buzzsaws coming out of the ground.

Well, now BattleBots is back in 2019 with a slew of new teams, including the quirky group of Team Chronos.

Each team is named after the robot's they've constructed: Axe Backwards, BattleSaw, Bite Force, Black Dragon, Blacksmith, Bloodsport... there are honestly too many to list here. 

But the total number of competitors that'll be duking it out in the BattleBots arena is a whopping 69 in total.

You may have seen robo-fighting on a variety of different networks, specifically BattleBots, and that's because the concept of robot cage-fighting has been around for a while. 

In fact, the first contest was livestreamed out of Long Beach, Calif. in August of 1999. CBS, NBC, HBO, and Showtime all broadcast their own events at some point or another too.

Comedy Central took the idea and infused it with... duh, comedy, by attaching humorous hosts and some pretty lame sketches involving the individual robo-fighting team members. 

While those bits were scripted, the actual robot fights, however, were not. After a while, the scraps between the robots became less entertaining because design teams started copying the most efficient bits from one another. This resulted in a bunch of contestants that all looked pretty much the same.

This ultimately made for boring TV. What made BattleBots so exciting to watch in the beginning was seeing the overly-complex-there's-no-way-this-can-work robo designs fail miserably against a wedge with wheels. You never knew which team would prevail or if their robot would even function properly. That, combined with some hilarious commentary, was an exciting program to watch.

The new BattleBots series airs on Discovery channel and the new rule set is pretty lengthy and in-depth, you can check it out here. Entries for new teams seem to be closed but it looks like the producers of the show are steering clear of bringing on too many designs that look the same as a way of keeping the action fresh and fun.

Just by taking a quick look at the roster, it's clear to see that they've assembled a great mix of personalities and intriguing robot designs that should make for some interesting match-ups.

Speaking of interesting teams, there's one group of robo-nerds that are already a fan favorite, and that's Team Chronos. They've been in the robo-battle game for some 20+ years and have a dead even record of one win and one loss, but fans seem to love them.

Their robot is classified as a "Ring Spinner" type of machine that was designed by Jerry Serafin. The team's comprised of Jerry, Jhonny Melgoza, Bradley Hanstad, Nathan Trowbridge, and Nadia Moss. The self-proclaimed "team of mad scientists from the future" hail out of Canoga Park, Calif. and their favorite tool to use is the Waterjet.

Chronos' biggest weapon is its spinning ring, which we saw deal some serious damage to Copperhead. It can also summon a "minibot" called the "hand of time" which also proved to be an effective weapon in its Season 4 win. 

Although the robot can get stuck on its side, its spinning ring helps it to regain its balance. The robot is named after the God of Time, hence the large gear design that decorates the top of the fighting machine.

So do you have any favorite robo teams in BattleBots? Will you be rooting for Team Chronos, or do any of the other 68 teams tickle your fancy instead?