How the meeting of two legendary heroes would look like? Two characters that everybody knows, who’s story are just amazing and almost fantastic, but you wish they had existed because the world would be better and more wonderful then if they weren’t a part of it. Well, such meeting would be exactly as this episode of Doctor Who. Or, eventually, close enough. Mark Gatiss’ story is quite good, but it could be (much) better: after an important part of the episode the Doctor did not believe that Robin Hood and his merry companions were real (the climate change and the radiation the kept the trees very green helped him in keeping that belief), he was, finally, convinced they were, indeed, real. Considering that the tendency of series 8 is being dark and the Doctor is heading into darkness, maybe a robot Robin Hood would be better. And cutting a sequence of the episode just because some people may be offended (it presented the Sheriff of Nottingham’s decapitation, just to discover he was a cyborg, half man-half robot, before throwing him into the tub full with hot liquid gold) because of the reportes decapitaded by the Muslims is gale. They should have kept it.
If the episode 3 preview did not make you sure about the Doctor’s distrust about the Robin Hood’s existence, maybe their duel, when the Doctor fought Robin with a spoon, cleared you perspective. A sort of. “No damsels in distress, no pretty castles, no such thing as Robin Hood” said the Doctor after he give in Clara’s request to travel in 1190’s Brittan, just second before finding out how wrong he was. Entering the territory controlled by Robin’s merry men the Doctor had to defend his TARDIS wanted by Robin Hood. On a log over a creek. With a spoon. And he won with a hip move. You know Robin Hood’s story or do you need to tell you that? 🙂 Robert, Earl of Locksley lost his fortune and he found himself in the position to fight with and for the peasants against Sheriff of Nottingham who was oppressing the people of the land, stealing their good, especially their gold, in the name of the regent John, Richard the Lionhearth’s brother, the king left to fight in the crusade. The Doctor, Clara and Robin, accompanied by the merry men, participate to a content to find the best archer in the area (you know the story, right?) to win a golden arrow. A trap, of course. A contest won by te Doctor who used an arrow with a homing beacon. At its final the Doctor, Clara and Robin get in the same prison cell, in the pretty castle the Doctor was excluding at the beginning of the episode. The escape was not as expected, they had to save a pretty damsel in red dress (Clara) in distress.
Until the the of the episode the three of them had to become allies (whatever they wanted or not) to save themselves and to save the world from the danger come from the stars (again), that means the robots-knights whose ship crash landed in Notthingham, in Sheriff’s head (that’s the reason they made him a cyborg). The robots were looking the same Promise land as the robot from the first episode, Deep Breath, but they were much more advanced. You’ll have to discover yourselves how they succeded and what’s the surprise in the end of the episode.
Directed by Paul Murphy based on a story by Mark Gatiss, producer Nikki Wilson, executive producers Brian Minchin and Steven Moffat. Credits: Peter Capaldi (the Doctor), Jenna Coleman (Clara), Tom Riley (Robin), Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Quayle), Sabrina Bartlett (Quayle’s Ward), Ben Miller (Sheriff), Ian Hallard (Alan-a-Dale), Trevor Cooper (Friar Tuck), Rusty Goffe (Little John), Joseph Kennedy (Will Scarlett), Adam Jones (Walter), David Benson (Herald), David Langham (Guard), Tim Baggaley (Knight), Richard Elfyn (Voice of the Knights),
The fourth episode is Listen, written by Steven Moffat, and when the ghost of the past and the future crowd in their lives, the Doctor and Clara are thrown into an adventure that takes them to the very end of the Universe. What happens when the Doctor is alone? What scares him?
