TV Preview, Robot Wars (BBC2, Sunday 8pm) – the final cyber-showdown

Plus: The X Factor (ITV, Sunday 7.20pm); Paul Hollywood: A Baker’s Life (Channel 4, Monday 8pm); Blue Planet II (BBC1, Sunday 8pm); Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, Saturday 7.05pm); Classic Album: American Pie – Don McLean (BBC4, Friday 10pm)

Sir Killalot is up for a fight as the mechanical rumble reaches its climax (BBC)

Two finals this week, then, for your viewing roster. Most important, by far, is the full-metal climax that is the last episode in the current series of Robot Wars. I find it hard to explain why such an overtly nerdy sort of show should exercise such a compelling hold over me, but, well, maybe it is its very unabashed, unbuttoned overt nerdism that represents its essential charm. Watching it is like being having a battery of hidden cameras at a trainspotters’ convention (great idea for a new format there), but where you yourself are a repressed trainspotter (or “rail enthusiast” to use the euphemism). I’m not, by the way, a rail enthusiast or someone who likes to knock up mechanical killing machines out of bits of an old washing machine and a biscuit tin, but I’ve certainly got the sort of nerdy tendencies that makes me prey to such a predatory programme as this. I suspect hosts Angela Scanlon and Dara O Briain harbour such secrets as well. So enjoy the Ten Robot Rumble, Matilda, Shunt, Sir Killalot and all the other funny little contraptions, and wonder, as I do, if Philip Hammond realises this represents the apogee of the British Artificial Intelligence effort. Let the games begin…

By comparison, the final of The X Factor is a thoroughly reserved sort of affair, the emotional trauma of being a contestant with the prospect of a lifetime of fame and fortune as nothing compared to having a robot with a slightly better break knife strapped to its bonnet than the other creations in the ring. Apparently the final is earlier than ever this year, after a mere five-episode run. The nation demands more, I am sure.

I don’t think I can recommend Paul Hollywood: A Baker’s Life with quite the verve I ought to, because I’ve never seen what the fuss surrounding Paul Hollywood is all about – for good or ill. I’ve read far more than I have any desire to about his private life, and I’ve seen him doing his cake thing on Bake Off, obviously, but I’ve never “got” the Paul Hollywood thing. Plus my mind keeps wandering off to the scuzzy shop run by some Viz characters called The Drunken Bakers, who are as real and disturbing a window on modern British life as Bake Off is absurdly idealised and comforting. I think it might be better if Paul nipped down to Boozeland for a few 2-for-1 offers on spirits before his next recording.

Apart from Blue Planet II and Strictly Come Dancing – enough to justify the TV licence fee on their own – I can’t wait to see Classic Album: American Pie – Don McLean. You know the most famous track – “Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry...” and “good ole boys drinking whisky and rye”. I always fondly imagined that McLean wrote the lyrics purely with a view to making people build gigantic bizarre theories about what they “meant”, when in fact they “mean” nothing much at all. Until, that is, a few years ago they found some notes by McLean purporting to be the solution to the many riddles in the song (but which turned out to be no such thing). Never mind, though; like all puzzles, the fun would be over if it ever did get solved.