July 6: "Robot of Sherwood"

Stuart Manning's poster for "Robot of Sherwood"
(from Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood
exclusive poster revealed)

It's definitely a romp; there's no argument there.  Mark Gatiss wants to deliver a thrilling action-adventure, with lots of swordplay and banter and Robin Hood.  Of course, the problem is that there's not a whole lot here beyond that; anyone wanting something more substantial will have to look elsewhere.

They're clearly having great fun "doing" Robin Hood; the battle between the Doctor and Robin on the footbridge is good fun (and the spoon bit is pleasingly absurd), and the archery contest between Robin and the Sheriff (with the Doctor thrown in for good measure) is pretty entertaining as well -- and I like Capaldi's Pertwee-esque "Hai!" as he knocks a sword out of Robin's hand.  Tom Riley makes for a good Robin Hood, and while the laughter does feel a bit theatrical at times, there's at least a story purpose behind it: "Why are you so sad?" Clara asks. "...Because the Doctor's right, you laugh too much."  And Riley handles the other aspects with ease, clearly comfortable in the role.  Meanwhile Ben Miller provides a good foil as the Sheriff of Nottingham (even if he distractingly looks like the Anthony Ainley Master), with the right amount of charm matched with villainy to make him suitably hissable.

The problems arise in the characterization of the Doctor.  It's nice that he doesn't believe that Robin Hood could possibly be real, and his disbelief does lead to some entertaining moments (the examination of the Merry Men, for instance).  But the problem is that the script and the direction don't go far enough to make us wonder if this is indeed a trick; despite occasional hints (the weather's wrong, the Sheriff's knights are robots, and the stuff in the spaceship that is the closest this story comes to making you question Robin's veracity -- and look, a shot of Patrick Troughton as television's first Robin Hood²⁵⁶), they never actually push the angle that this is fictional, and so we find ourselves siding with Robin and Clara against the Doctor.  He's surprisingly close-minded, and it takes him an awfully long time to come around.  (That said, it's a lot easier to imagine Peter Capaldi as unpersuaded than Matt Smith or David Tennant -- proof that Capaldi has already made his mark in the role.)

Robin, the Doctor, and Clara in the Sheriff's dungeon. ("Robot
of Sherwood") ©BBC

And while I'm aware that I'm in something of a minority opinion on this, I don't find the petulant banter and one-upmanship between the Doctor and Robin particularly entertaining -- if the Doctor doesn't believe Robin is real, I don't see why he would stoop to reacting to him, and besides, why would this Doctor let Robin get under his skin so much?  "Into the Dalek" showed us a Doctor who's rather oblivious when it comes to human behavior, but his reactions to Robin here are all too human, and thus don't quite gel with what we thought we were getting with the twelfth Doctor.  (None of this is to disparage Capaldi, by the way, who's coping admirably; this is a problem with a lack of consistency in the writing across episodes.)  What this does do, however, is make Clara stand out more, as she's willing to accept Robin Hood as genuine and she more than holds her own when verbally sparring with the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Jenna Coleman is fantastic to behold here, providing a strong female character to outwit the Sheriff in their conversation about the "lights in the sky" -- and, it must be said that she looks incredibly beautiful in the outfit for this episode.

The actual plot, about circuits and repairing a ship, feels a bit derivative, as we saw something similar in "The Fires of Pompeii" (y'know, the one Capaldi was in before he was the Doctor), but the end duel between Robin and the Sheriff is suitably exciting, and it allows Robin to show that he's learned something from the Doctor.  (There was going to be a scene during this battle where the Sheriff was beheaded, revealing he was a robot, but this was edited out of the final broadcast in the wake of ISIL's beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff earlier that week.  The series 8 boxset doesn't include it either (apparently BBC Worldwide were still wary about its inclusion), but it was in the early version leaked prior to broadcast and thus isn't terribly difficult to find online.  Frankly, it's not really that exciting a scene and the only thing the episode loses from its omission is an explanation for the episode's title.)  It's thus nice to see that the Doctor and Robin have both developed respect for each other.  (All the stuff with the gold arrow at the end is painfully stupid, though.)

I dunno, a lot of people seemed to really like this, and it does make a nice contrast from the previous couple episodes, but "Robot of Sherwood" (which really is a silly title, even with the proper context) never quite clicks for me.  I wish there had been something more to weight it down, either to really sink one's teeth into or to make it genuinely funny (instead of just mildly amusing), because as is it's an incredibly lightweight piece of fluff.  That's not the worst thing in the world, of course, but it does mean there's not ultimately much here to engage with; this ends up being about as consequential as a summer breeze.







²⁵⁶ Surprisingly, given it was 1953 and these went out live, a small section of the second episode (the studio material) still exists.