Doctor Who Series 8 Episode 3 - Robot Of Sherwood - Review

Starring: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Tom Riley & Ben Miller

Written By: Mark Gatiss

Directed By: Paul Murphy

 

As we are aware, one of the main functions of Series 8 is to introduce Peter Capaldi's new 12th Doctor. The 12th Doctor marks a dramatic change to Doctors before him, and he's arguably the most alien Doctor we've seen in quite a while. Both Into The Dalek and, in particular, Deep Breath did a great job of showing this. But while I do welcome this new change in direction, I don't want to see the fun in Doctor Who being forgotten. So along comes Robot Of Sherwood, which serves to remind us that we can still have fun in our travels with the Doctor and the TARDIS.

 

The Doctor and Clara arrive in Sherwood Forest in 1190, with Clara hoping to meet the legend that is Robin Hood. The Doctor insists that Robin Hood is nothing more than a legend, so when the two find him, the Doctor smells foul play. When the Doctor and Clara later attend an archery competition with Robin and his Merry Men, with Robin in the hopes of winning the golden arrow, the Doctor's suspicions appear to be true, especially when he discover the Sheriff of Nottingham in control of an army of Robot Knights …

 

Within the opening few minutes of the episode, it becomes apparent that it is almost entirely different in tone to the two that came before it. While the previous two episodes questioned whether the Doctor is a good man, or made the audience question whether or not the Doctor really did push the Half-Face Man, straight away Robot Of Sherwood allows us to have a lot more fun. The episode even gives us a hilarious sequence where the Doctor and Robin duel over a river, with the Doctor fighting Robin with just a spoon. It's surprising to think that in Doctor Who's 51-year history, Robin Hood has never appeared in the show. As this episode proved, the dynamic between the Doctor and Robin allows for a number of great stories. Tom Riley gives a great performance as Robin Hood, and helps enormously in adding to the sense of fun that this episode has going throughout. While Tom Riley is doing a great job in the role, the version of Robin Hood that he is playing, isn't exactly unique or distinctive from the countless other versions that we seen on film or TV. This is more on the fault of Mark Gatiss than Tom Riley, as the writing for Robin's character feels like the generic, basic version of the character that we so often see.

 

That being said, the dynamic between the Doctor and Robin that I mentioned earlier, is fully realized here, particularly in the best scenes of the episode – the jail scenes. With just the Doctor, Clara and Robin locked up together in a cell, the combination of great dialogue and great performances gives us these hilarious scenes. There is some brilliant clever writing to be found in these moments as well, in particular when the guard assumes Clara is the group leader and takes her to the Sheriff. Speaking of Clara, her character continues to be a dramatic improvement from her Series 7 counterpart, as she is now actually able to contribute something to the series, such as tricking the Sheriff into giving her information.

 

I really enjoyed the Sheriff and the Robot Knights here. While they aren't going to shake the world with their innovation, they serve their purpose well. The design of the Robot Knights was quite inventive, and I particularly like the cross-shaped lasers that they fired about. This also gave us some impressive and well-made action sequences, particularly the prisoners' revolt. Ben Miller's performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham was brilliant too, with his costume and beard being very reminiscent of Anthony Ainley's incarnation of The Master. While Ben Miller is great here, there are a couple of moments where the writing occasionally lets him down, as the Sheriff sometimes becomes a clichéd villain, even having the “Mine, Mine, Mine!” scene. Now, on a serious note, and for understandable reasons relating to current events, before this episode was broadcast, the BBC quite rightly cut a scene from the episode that saw the Sheriff being beheaded. This would have have revealed that he is half-man, half-robot. While I can understand why the scene was cut, it sadly makes the Sheriff's line about being half-man, half-engine, just before he meets his demise, feel a little clunky and out of place. In the future, hopefully when the DVD is released, it will feature the scene that got edited out.

 

So while I do think Robot Of Sherwood is a lot of fun, that unfortunately doesn't redeem it from a couple of quite serious problems. Firstly, the Doctor throughout the episode is convinced that Robin Hood cannot be real, and even when the two meet, the Doctor is convinced that Robin is a robot or some form of duplicate secretly working with the Sheriff. But why is the Doctor so adamant that Robin Hood cannot be real? Traveling through time and space, the Doctor has met countless people and aliens that many consider to be just a legend, so what's so special about Robin Hood? Why is the Doctor so sure that he can't exist? However, the biggest problem of the episode, for me at least, is it's terrible application and use of science. (Spoiler Warning!) The use of science reaches it's low-point when the Doctor, Robin and Clara have to find a way to give extra power to the Robot Knights' ship to get it into orbit and prevent a massive explosion. To do this, the three fire a golden arrow at the ship to give it the extra fuel that it needs. In terms of science, this is a pretty awful conclusion. Firstly, I doubt if a conventional bow and human strength would be enough to actually fire the golden arrow over the distance it needed to fly. Secondly, just shooting the arrow at the ship and seeing it magically work, is comparable to throwing fuel over a vehicle and hoping for it to run – it just doesn't work.

 

To conclude, Robot Of Sherwood isn't an episode that's going to go down as a classic or be remembered long after its broadcast, and it's really just a fun little adventure. However, based off its own merits, it's an entirely fun and immensely enjoyable watch, and you just can't help but smile and laugh along with what's going on on screen. It's also helped by some good, if somewhat clichéd villains and some well-executed action sequences. Sadly, if you scratch away the fun surface, a few problems do arise, the most notable for me being an irresponsibly poor application of science.

 

 

Robot Of Sherwood



6/10