Monday, September 8, 2014

Who Review: "Robot of Sherwood"

"I'm just as real as you are."

The Doctor and Clara meet the famous outlaw of legend, but is he the real thing?

When the Doctor takes Clara to 1198 Sherwood Forest, they discover the truth of Robin Hood, the mad Sheriff of Nottingham, and climate change. With nods to previous Doctors ("Hiya!") and an affectionate look at the importance of legends, stories, and impossible men, "Robot of Sherwood" delivers an entertaining ride with the season's strongest showing yet as the Prince of Thieves meets the Last of the Time Lords.

Episode Summary

When the Doctor offers Clara the opportunity to go anywhere in time and space, she chooses to go back and see Robin Hood because she loved the story when she was a little girl. The Doctor assures her that no such person existed but takes her to Sherwood Forest in 1198 anyway. Stepping out of the TARDIS, the Doctor reiterates that Robin Hood does not exits. Half a second later, Robin Hood shoots an arrow into the TARDIS and declares his claim on the Doctor's blue box.


The Doctor derides Robin and his claim as equally false but accepts the outlaw's challenge for the TARDIS. Armed with only a spoon, the Doctor duels against the sword-wielding Robin Hood. He knocks the green-clad swordsman into the stream only to have Robin emerge moments later and return the favor. Clara watches with equal parts fan-goobering and horror as her hero and her friend try to kill one another.

The Sheriff takes a young woman and her father captive for fomenting rebellion. To demonstrate that he's really a nasty fellow, the Sheriff executes the old man. Because he's evil.

Robin introduces the Doctor and Clara to his band of outlaw brothers, and Clara - in a great example of a predestination paradox - labels them the Merry Men, which they had not been previously called. The Doctor analyzes every member of the Merry Men, trying to determine who and what they are. He just cannot believe that Robin and his men are the real thing, and he points out that the sun is too bright, the sky too blue, and the foliage too green as evidence that the world around them isn't what it appears to be. Also, every laughs too much. In the meantime, Robin announces that he's entering the Sheriff's archery contest to determine the best archer in the land even though everyone knows it's an obvious trap.

Robin easily wins the contest, but the Doctor steps in and splits Robin Hood's arrow with a shot of his own. The Sheriff asks the Doctor what he wants if he does not want the golden arrow offered as a prize. "Enlightenment," the Doctor replies just a moment before Robin fires another shot to split the Doctor's arrow. The two bicker and banter (despite the Doctor's earlier protest that he doesn't banter) until the Sheriff orders them and Clara taken into custody. The Doctor yields, but Robin and Clara put up a bit of a fight. Robin takes off a guard's arm, but the soldier turns out to be a robot. The Doctor giddily allows them all to be taken into custody so he can discover what's going on in Sherwood and Nottingham.

In the castle dungeon, Robin and the Doctor wave their metaphorical sonic screwdrivers about for a bit, each claiming to have a plan to escape. When Clara allows them each to explain their plans, neither actually has one. Well, the Doctor plans to use his sonic screwdriver, but - as Clara reminds him rather pointedly - the Sheriff confiscated his sonic screwdriver. Given Clara's take-charge attitude, the guard outside their cell believes her their leader and takes her to the Sheriff. The boys rant at one another a bit before rather reluctantly working together to trick the guard into letting them out.

The Sheriff oozes his slimy charm all over Clara, but Clara uses some clever banter of her own to get him to reveal his plans. Turns out he discovered a crashed spaceship full of robots, and he's helping them collect gold to repair themselves so that he can conquer England and the world! Cue evil laughter.


After escaping the dungeon, the Doctor and Robin discover the starship control room at the heart of Nottingham Castle. The Doctor accesses their data banks and learns that they were searching for the "Promised Land" prior to their crash, much as the clockwork robotic crew of the S.S. Marie Antoinette in "Deep Breath" were. Robin sees references to the legend of Robin Hood, and he goes pale when he realizes that in just a few hundred years, no one will believe he ever existed. The Doctor believes that Robin is one of the robots, created to give the Sheriff an adversary and to give the people hope. When the Sheriff enters with Clara and several robot soldiers, Robin makes his escape with Clara while leaving the Doctor behind.

Clara awakens in Robin's camp, and he wants to know all about the Doctor and the legend of Robin Hood. The Doctor, in the dungeons once more, meets the young woman whose father was killed by the Sheriff. He gets her and the other prisoners out of the castle before running into the Sheriff. 

The Doctor tries to explain to the Sheriff that Robin is one of the robots, but the Sheriff points out that the Doctor's idea is pretty silly. The Doctor protests for all of five seconds before he acknowledges that, yeah, it would have been rather stupid of the robots and the Sheriff to make their lives harder by creating a nemesis to fight. Robin and Clara arrive to save the Doctor, who then explains that all the gold was being used to repair the ship but that there isn't enough for the ship to make orbit, let alone fly to the Promised Land.

Robin duels the Sheriff but finds himself disarmed above a kettle of molten gold. Using the same slick move that the Doctor used against him at the beginning, Robin tosses the Sheriff into the pot. He does not manage to turn the tables on Robin moments later.

Outside the castle, the wounded Robin, Clara, and the Doctor work together to fire the golden arrow into the space craft to give it just enough gold to power it into orbit. However, the ship's engines are still unstable and explode safely above the planet. The Merry Men celebrate with Clara and the Doctor. Robin says his farewells to Clara then approaches the Doctor. They exchange a few words about how maybe it's better to be thought a story than a real man because people will do good deeds in the name of a good legend. So they might as well go on pretending to be good men. The Doctor agrees and leaves, but the TARDIS' departure reveals one final surprise for Robin Hood, the girl with whom the Doctor was briefly trapped in the castle dungeon: Robin's beloved Maid Marion.

The Not-So-Good

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, but it wasn't perfect. The Promised Land / Missy / Heaven storyline has yet to snag my interest. The golden arrow providing Just Enough Gold to get the ship into orbit is a bit of a stretch. I would like to have seen more of the Merry Men and Maid Marion. The running time felt a bit too short for all the story and character that this episode had. In fact, given this episode's ties to "Deep Breath," I find it ironic that the earlier episode felt padded with too much filler and fluff while this one felt like it needed more room to breathe, just a few extra minutes to let us get to know Robin and his world just a little better.

Also, when giving Clara a choice of where and when to go, not visiting Marcus Aurelius feels like a missed opportunity after such a big deal was made about his importance to Clara in "Deep Breath." I hope we see something come of it in the future, but given how good the Robin Hood story is, I'll forgive that for now.

The Really, Really Good


Mark Gatiss is one of my favorite modern Who scribes. His stories, better than almost any other, acknowledge the maturity of the character. Too much of the Doctor under Steven Moffat has portrayed the Doctor as childish and immature, viewing topics such as love and sexuality as icky things that only grown-ups do. "Day of the Doctor" tried to address this by saying that it was part of the Eleventh Doctor's reaction to his actions in the Time War, which was a brilliant explanation. But that didn't make it any less annoying. Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor has shown a lot more maturity and seriousness than Matt Smith's version of the Doctor thus far, so it's rather amusing that Mark Gatiss gives us an episode where the Doctor behaves rather childishly when confronted with the impossibility of Robin Hood.

And it works brilliantly. The Doctor believes Robin Hood to be a mere legend, and he hates to be proven wrong. Yet Robin's existence does just that, and the Doctor is offended that the universe would do that to him. He sets out to prove that Robin is an illusion or a hologram or - maybe? - a robot. In fact, his whole plan to be captured by the Sheriff has nothing to do with saving the people of Sherwood and Nottingham from a crazed, power-hungry lunatic. He just wants to satisfy his curiosity. He's out to prove Robin Hood is a fake, and his ego won't let him accept anything else.

Part of the magic of this episode is Mark Gatiss' delightful script, full of clever banter (which the Doctor doesn't do, of course) and nice references such as the Doctor's martial arts prowess previously demonstrated by the Third Doctor. What really sells it, what makes this episode truly shine, is the delightful chemistry Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman have with guest star Tom Riley. Riley bounces around the screen as Robin Hood, and he's clearly having a ball. He's charming and funny. He broods when he learns he's a legend in Clara's time. His joy at Marion's return is palpable.

The Doctor continues to grow into his new incarnation, and Peter Capaldi manages to banter with Tom Riley without ever letting it turn silly. Capaldi makes a terrific straight man for Riley, their scenes together showing how much alike and how very different they are to one another, which makes their conversation at the end extremely satisfying. Robin reminds the Doctor of a truth that he needs to remember: sometimes we have to "fake until we make it," so to speak. If they keep pretending to be good men, maybe they'll be good men eventually. Or at least people will believe the legends and do good in their names.

I hate to make Clara's character growth an afterthought here because she, too, gets her moments in the sun. She uses her wits, her observational skills, her womanly charms, and her understanding of the male mentality to dominate the Doctor, the Sheriff, and Robin almost the entire episode. She channels Princess Leia during the Death Star escape. The boys all lose their heads, so she takes charge. It's good to see how she's coming into her own as a character. I love how much Mark Gatiss' script here respects her as a person and as a woman.

Although I enjoyed "Into the Dalek," this episode is a great step up from that one. The brief reference to the Promised Land plot and my desire to see more of Robin, his men, and Marion aside, this was a brilliant episode that showcases all of the actors well. If we keep improving at this rate, we should see something spectacular by series' end.

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