Weaver's Week 2010-06-13

The basic plot is this: in about 2030, a toy company made a mint out of the Roboidz, real-life robots that children can play with. The inventor, a teenager called Laura Grant, went on to refine the concept and create real-life uses for the metal machines. Somewhere along the line, the Roboidz obtained intelligence of their own, and progressed from "I think, therefore I am" to deducing the existence of methods to wipe out all of humanity before anyone worked out how to turn them off. All of humanity was wiped out.

Complete all the games on the website, and the story is explained. Well, that's what the publicity blurb says: we've never managed to get beyond level three, so the tale is still a bit of a mystery. If anyone's got an eight-year-old who completed all the levels in ten seconds flat and can tell us the important bits of the story, do get in touch.

We mentioned that there was an indomitable human survivor. He's Caleb, played by Stuart Goldsmith. He's got everything a modern children's presenter could need: wit, humour, intelligence, a metal whisper clip over his right ear so that The Voice from Trapped can give him clues. Though Caleb isn't down with da kidz in a patronising manner, he's not averse to some slapstick humour, and is certainly a far more identifiable figure than Raven: an older cousin figure, rather than a well-meaning but rather gruff headmaster.

Less philosophically-minded viewers may be more concerned with the way biorods have a multitude of uses. Not only are they power sources for the 'boidz, but they're also a scoring mechanism, and a target for recruits to aim at. Surely possession of the Super Bio-Rod would make anyone the prime target for the agents of evil, unless it's a sword of destiny and the bearer is untouchable? Not as well explained as it might be, and – in truth – a minor quibble.

The challenges themselves are familiar territory for adventure shows: collect items while being pursued by baddies, perform various feats of manual dexterity, complete a task before your opposition (whether that's other players or time), and be good at strategy and thinking. The dressing is unfamiliar: the bad guys are represented by various types of Roboid, powerful mechanised killing machines that look like overgrown children's toys because they are actually overgrown children's toys. That's the backstory. Also on the ship are some Shades – things that used to be human, but are now rotting hulks of flesh, dark shapes in space, identifiable only by their pungent odour.

And so it was that the Maersk Boston was turned into the studio for a children's production. The contenders are kitted out in thick jackets and wooly hats, they'll have been doing much of the recording in the depth of the recent winter, and it wasn't exactly a warm winter. Readers with good memories will think of the Industrial zone from The Crystal Maze, only more grubby. It's an atmospheric setting, slightly menacing, and exactly right. That said, it's a slight shame that so few challenges actually used the height of the cargo holds – so many of them could have been played in someone's living room, they were so physically flat.

As well as his daily briefings with Cybele, Caleb records some video diaries, and tries to contact any other humans who might be out there. All this serves to pad out the show to the right length, without making it obvious that they're padding. It's the second most impressive aspect of the show, behind only Peter Dickinson's End of the World Voiceover (TM). When he's working on quotidian fluff like The X Factor, we can't help but feel that he doesn't actually mean what he's saying. We didn't have to suspend disbelief here, as Peter Dickinson's End of the World Voiceover (TM) was used to explain how the world as we know it came to end, and to give the show's insanely instant catchphrase when each contestant began their task:

It's a brilliant catchphrase. Absolutely obvious, explaining precisely what's happening with no padding. Just slightly out of the usual turn of conversation, not so that people would be confused if someone came out with it, but so that they'd be aware it's a catchphrase. We're filing it alongside such other instant classics as "You lose, you choose".

We've barely mentioned the games so far, have we? Something like two-thirds of the show's spent doing the games, and they're perhaps the least remarkable part of it. As we've noted, the games themselves weren't that remarkable. Oh, we loved the "blow up your own Roboid" game, where contenders were asked to find the heaviest weights from a set – not because it's a culture-free logic puzzle, but because when done correctly, it led to a special effect of a Roboid being pulled apart, limb from limb, and landing in the loch. For most of the games, the jeopardy level was low if not zero – rather than Raven zapping contestants out of dangerous situations with his magic staff, the Mission 2110 recruits would use panic buttons to do almost exactly the same thing.

At various points in the week, the contestants would play The Vaporiser. Caleb used a similar line before sending the contenders in, and we think this was intended as the show's catchphrase: "Good luck, and to one of you, goodbye."

The Vaporiser was a grid of equilateral triangles, with the contestants aiming for the middle of the opposite side, or the centre of the grid, while trying to avoid making contact with any of the Roboidz who were clomping about the grid, or the Shades who were waving their arms like arm-waving Shades. Though this owes a slight debt to the Vortex from The Adventure Game, it's only a slight debt. The main difference: the contestants can always see their opposition, and half the time they know where the opponent will move next. We were rather hoping that the baddies would make some moves under their own steam in finals week, but this didn't come to pass.

Anyway, returning to the ship, there was also a slight return for The Last Stand 1.0, in which Nevar fired paintballs at final-week contestants. In this variant, the last contenders fired paintballs at targets on the ship's deck. The magic of television turned the paintballs into laser beams, and inserted footage of a Roboid army marching slowly towards the finalists. The last challenge was also familiar to Raven fans, being almost identical to Thrall Threads, only played with laser beams rather than strings with bells on.

We watched all thirteen episodes of this show, and reckon that the final week might at least have been extended beyond one episode. All the heats followed exactly the same path – if it's halfway through Tuesday's episode it must be time for Raise the Washing Powder – and the show stood or fell on its characters, both those of the actors and those of the contestants. The young contestants were encouraged to be a little cheeky, not to be deferential, to react and talk about their honest feelings without any worries that they'll come across as anachronistic.

We saw it all, we would like more, and though there are flaws, they're not going to be impossible to fix for a second series. If we get one. We've certainly got a new catchphrase.