"It's the way with Scots, they're strangers to vegetables." | Doctor Who: Robot Of Sherwood - Review

The idea of The Doctor meeting Robin Hood reads like Steven Moffat and co were scraping the barrel for episode ideas. It's more the sort of concept for a short history book for kids, using the Doc to introduce children to historic figures. Still, the fact that the trailers showed the Doc questioning the identity of the man standing before him calling himself Robin Hood (Tom Riley) increased my interest without quite piquing it. Robot Of Sherwood was an episode of multiple metatextuality (steady, now…). We've got a Robin Hood played by a Tom, who later poses as 'Tom The Tinker' in an archery contest and who later sees the above image of Robin Hood - himself, I guess - played by Patrick Troughton in the 1953 TV series Robin Hood; Troughton of course went on to play the Second Doctor in 1966! Isn't that cray?! Hang on, what if the Second Doctor was Robin Hood and the Tom Riley version is merely a pretender who comes to assume the role like Jason Connery did from Michael Praed in the Robin Of Sherwood TV show? Phew, I think that's enough metatextuality for this paragraph.

I really enjoyed the bickering and banter between Robin and The Doctor (including this blog post's title quote - although its accuracy is unsubstantiated! I'm sure I've seen my Scottish uncle eat his greens), neither of whom fully trusted the other until the end, at which point, they accepted each other as equals. Robin draws a parallel between himself and the Time Lord, ' that a man born into wealth and privilege should find the plight of the oppressed and weak too much to bear, until one night, he is moved to steal a TARDIS (to) fly among the stars, fighting the good fight.' Both noblemen, both have become fairytales. A clever point from writer Mark Gatiss; after having the Doc question Robin's existence over the course of the episode, it must be acknowledged that, of course, The Doctor is even more of a fictional character than Robin Hood - the current real-world legend being an amalgamation of men and events that may or may not have existed.

The main plot of this episode was standard DW stuff - alien spaceship, crash-landed on Earth, bad robots killing people as they seek to build up their power supply to leave, blah, blah, seen it all before. I know DW always adheres to a certain formula in the end but I thought we were mixing it up a bit this season? Whilst pretty much business as usual, Deep Breath at least gave us our first glimpse of a new Doctor harking back to older ones, as well as deepening his and Clara's relationship and Into The Dalek showed a new perspective on an old, oft-seen, foe. Robot Of Sherwood (shouldn't that be 'Robots', plural? Or is the title a reference to the possibility that Robin himself is mechanical?) showcases Twelve's personality nicely - 'SHUT IT, HOODY!' - but Gatiss could've made more of an effort here. I've only really liked one or two of his DW stories, his Cold War was a highlight of the last series, where he did good work with the Ice Warrior, a DW villain of old ('Ice Warrior hives' get a mention by the Doc at the start of Robot…). The robotic Knights here only resemble better DW monsters, essentially chivalrous Cybermen with lethal mini-crucifix lasers on their frickin' heads (possibly a dig at Christian iconography? DW has had an atheist sensibility since Second Coming creator Russell T Davies' time on the show.) I saw some symbolism between the robot's head-guns and the sunlight shining on the Doctor through the Cross-shaped window in the dungeon:

Whether it's just mirror imagery, foreshadowing the Doc being attacked by the Knights, or visually pointing at him as the later 'saviour' of the peasants, I'm not sure.

The mechanical mickies weren't even in charge, it was Ben Miller's rather dull Sheriff of Nottingham calling the shots. At least he was more Alan Rickman than Keith Allen and he did get a tense dinner scene with Clara and the fantastic line, 'who will rid me of this turbulent Doctor?!' Paraphrasing King Henry II's plea to his own knights to do away with Thomas a Becket in 1170.

Sheriff's knights are thankfully unsuccessful, here. Indeed, the metal Knights were almost as easily defeatable than the clockwork droids from Deep Breath; destroyed by their own laser fire reflected off shiny metal plates helpfully just lying around and utilised by the Sheriff's peasant workforce. Strewth, couldn't the Knights have just pummelled the peasants to death once they found their lasers ineffective? Star Trek's Borg, who can adapt to any kind of attack (presumably also from their own weapons) wouldn't take that kind of crap from a bunch of grotty poor people. It's supposed to be 1109, I know, (the Doc's initial guesstimate of when to find the - he believes - fictional Robin Hood turns out to be eerily spot on. A little help from the TARDIS, perhaps?) the slave peasant's defences are limited and they had to have a triumphant moment but it was a bit pathetic. DW can do better than this, surely? If the Knights are so easy to beat, how did they control that ship, unless this was done by someone/thing we didn't see? That said, it crashed, so their piloting skills can't have been that good.

I wish the plot had been a bit more original. Sheriff's grand plan - overtaking Derby, of all places (well, you gotta start somewhere, even with a timeship at your disposal, this is 1109, after all.) followed by Lincoln, then…'THE WORLD!' was a bit blasé. If the Knight's ship can time travel, couldn't the Sheriff orchestrate himself becoming king, rather than John, in the past, removing the need to fly to London in the present, 1109, to overtake the throne there. Perhaps he isn't smart enough? He is a mediaeval man using future tech. He could've done a Master/Harold Saxon, circa 2007, and ingratiated himself into the monarchy, in his own time, without needing to use much force. Why bother when he has big metal Knights, I suppose (despite their weakness)?

Altogether, Robot Of Sherwood was a reasonable, mixed bag of an episode that improved on second viewing but next week's Listen looks like a return to form.