Lots of firsts and the best Venusian Aikido to date!
The Doctor, Clara and Robin Hood are caught in alien crossfire, while the Sheriff of Nottingham goes bonkers for bling.
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The time has finally come for Twelve to let Clara choose her own adventure, so she contrives a hero hang with the merry manager himself, Robin Ha-ha-ha Ho-ho-Hood.
Doc can’t believe his eyes; where he expected to teach Clara a sobering lesson with a blank patch of forest, instead he must fence for his TARDIS with the genuine greenwood gentleman.
But wait, the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham is ransacking the land thereabouts for every last morsel of gold. Will our bantering band of outlaws win him over to their medieval Marxism?
I found this episode to be beautiful. The costumes, the locations, all the laughter that drove the Doctor bonkers. We even got to see the Doctor be concerned when Clara fell into the moat.
I found the squabbling between Robin and the Doctor to be entertaining, and Clara was so happy to be with the merry band.
I think Robin Hood even managed to cut through all the naval-gazing the Doctor will be doing the next long while, when he spoke of inspiring others to acts of kindness and mercy. The Doctor’s time spent in struggle over whether he is a “good” man or not would better be spent in discovering whether he is a kind man or not. But… why would the Doctor take Robin’s words to heart?
“[We are not heroes] But if we both keep pretending to be, perhaps others will be heroes in our name.”
4.3 out of 5 Pirates of the Caribbean-like swordfights, because while they are not at all accurate, there is a frivolous joy to them that’s hard to deny.
Things I liked:
Beefs:
Trivia: the Seventh Doctor’s Tardis also gets pelted with arrows in Silver Nemesis.
Summary: Not an episode that will change the world, but a merry, inoffensive, romp, that gave me a cheeky chuckle in these dark times of imminent Tory electoral victory and Brexit doom.
Rating: 3/5 dumb robotic knights getting zapped by deflections of their own blasters. Silly robots!
Hi, first time submitting a review:
I remembered this as an extremely cheesy but fairly enjoyable episode to watch and that analysis held up on re-watch. The episode had me smiling pretty much throughout and had some great lines: “do people ever punch you in the face when you do that?” Although the animosity between the Doctor and Robin Hood was overdone, the episode was still more enjoyable than it really had any right to be.
For all the lip service Robin and the Merry Men gave to helping the peasants, they really didn’t seem to actually give a shit about them?? The peasants at the tournament were all apparently murdered but every single Merry Man escaped and no one ever thought about them.
How did the Doctor’s conversation go with Marianne? “Listen, I know you haven’t seen Robin, the love of your life, for months/years but please stand silently behind this box until we say our goodbyes and it disappears because…uh, it would make me look cool.”
The thing that bugged me the most on re-watch was the villains’ plans. They still had a ton of gold in their workshop so why did they decide to take off right then? If it was because the sheriff died and their slaves escaped, why was the castle already about to explode before the revolt? Were the robots straight up ditching the sheriff? (who never seemed to realize they weren’t really going to help his world domination plan).
This is probably higher that it should be: 2.4/5
Hope this is on time,
Kade