Doctor Who review: Episode 3. in Rambling sane thoughts of the terminally me

Hmmmm. What can I say about this episode.

Fucking. Loved. It.

I know, right? Your minds are blown. After all the ranting in the previous two episodes I pick this one to fall in love with? Why? WHHYYYYYYY, God Adam Why?!

Well, let me try and explain. We’ll have a quick look at the plot and then I’l talk about what made this episode so damn glorious. Oh, as always. Spoilers sweetie.

So the episode starts with the Doctor and Clara in the TARDIS trying to pick a destination for their next adventure. The Doctor tells Clara it’s her decision and she picks… le sigh… Robin Hood. The Doctor obviously thinks this is a ridiculous notion as well and suggests a couple of alternatives but Clara is adamant so they set sail for the 12th century. Ish.

They arrive and lo and behold bump straight in Mr Hood himself. The Doctor doesn’t believe it and this pretty much sets up the core conflict for the rest of the episode. The Doctor doesn’t believe in Robin Hood. Anyhow, this will not stop Robin from trying to make off with the TARDIS and the two of them duel. An epic battle ensues with sword clashing on… er… spoon and eventually the Doctor is victorious. Kinda.

Robin takes Clara and the Doctor back to meet his merry men and, as the Doctor continues to try and prove they’re fakes, Robin tells Clara of the contest of the Golden Arrow, probably the most iconically recognised of all the Robin Hood myths.

Of course, every episode needs a baddy so the next scene sets this up with the Sheriff of Nottingham kidnapping some lass and murdering her father. Well I can’t imagine that she could be any way tied to the Robin Hood mythology. Best not to worry about her then. Nope, really, no surprise twist here.

The next scene takes us to the archery contest where Robin (in his cunning disguise of a hat) is facing off again against the Sheriff with the golden arrow at stake. He splits the sheriffs arrow and it looks like he’s won when suddenly the Doctor appears and splits Robins arrow. He refuses the golden arrow as a reward and demands information WHEN SUDDENLY Robin splits the Doctors arrow and then the Doctor splits Robins arrow and then Robin splits the Doctors arrow and the Doctor was obviously getting as annoyed by this as I was so he blows up the target with his Sonic Screwdriver. So the screwdriver doesn’t work on wood but can blow up hay? Oh well.

Anyhow the Doctor gets them all captured after he sees that the Sheriffs men are god damn robots so he can work out what’s going on and this leads to the weakest scene of the episode. The Doctor and Robin Hood arguing. It’s still a pretty good scene, to be honest but definitely the worst one. I’ll talk about why in a bit.

Next up, lets get some more Clara scenes in because she’s not done a lot this episode so far. She gets taken off to meet the Sheriff and managed to get all the plot exposition out of him. Because the Sheriff is a FUCKING MORON! Despite being conned in such a way the Sheriff has fallen for Clara and says he’s going to make her his consort.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Robin have hatched the lamest scheme in history to escape. They’re going to convince the jailor one of them is ill and get the key off him when he comes over to check. Now, to be fair, it was probably a fairly new scheme in the 12th century.
The scheme works but the continued arguments between the Doctor and Robin cause them to lose the key so they have to escape by carrying the block and chain they’re attached to, to the Blacksmith. This done, they go to find Clara.

En route they discover a crashed spaceship and the Doctor is convinced that it’s this ship that has created the Sheriff, the robots and Robin Hood. He even finds the legends of Robin Hood on the ships hard drive to prove the point. Oh, there’s also a reference to the robots trying to reach the promised land.

Heading back out the two heroes are confronted by the Sheriff who tries to kill Robin Hood. The Doctor does’t intervene, believing it to be a pretence but Clara does and the scene ends with Robin and Clara falling into the moat and the Doctor being dragged away.

The Doctor is captured and questions the Sheriff about whats going on. He eventually works out that the robots ship is damaged and they’re using gold to repair the damaged components. He’s knocked unconscious, wakes up trapped with the girl who was kidnapped earlier who I’m still sure if of no importance to the Robin Hood myth and they lead a prison riot. He also finds out that Robin Hood isn’t on the Sheriffs side.

Robin and Clara turn up and Robin duels the sheriff to the death, eventually emerging the victor but not before he has been injured (I guess to double prove he’s not a robot). But it’s too late because the alien ship is trying to take off and they don’t have enough gold to achieve orbit.

How is this resolved? Simple. The Doctor, Robin Hood and Clara work together to pull a bow to fire the golden arrow into the ship. This fixes everything. Well, no it doesn’t, the ship still blows up. It doesn’t destroy england though. We’ll call it a win.

So, everything resolved the Doctor and Clara head on their way and Clara calls the Doctor out, saying that he actually liked Robin Hood. The Doctor admits he did, saying he left him a present and as the TARDIS vanishes we see the girl from earlier who, it turns out, is Marian. Much rejoicing all around.

So that’s the plot and it’s, frankly, ridiculous. Completely and utterly ludicrous. There’s so much I should hate in this episode, including some of the things I’ve made mention of in previous rants. Let’s just do the quick review.

1: The resolution to the plot is definitely a maguffin. There’s not reason it should work as a resolution and if it were a viable resolution it should have been much easier than it was to resolve the plot. The entire room the sheriff and Robin fight in is FILLED with gold. Why didn’t the Doctor just dump that in the engines whilst they were fighting? Also there is no way at all a golden arrow would fly that far or have sufficient sharpness or density to stick in the engine upon impact.

2: The bad guys are not well explained or defined other than being monster of the week robots.

3: The language and costume of the episode is completely and utterly inaccurate.

4: Very little actually happens in the episode because so much of the time is spent between the Doctor and Robin arguing.

5: All the other bad things I can’t be bothered to mention because let’s be honest WHO FRAKKING CARES?!

This episode was brilliant. It was fun, it was interesting and it felt like Doctor Who. There’s some absolutely beautiful moments in this episode and I’m just going to point out a couple of my favourites.

1: The Doctors spoon. The Doctors love affair with spoons continues. Quite apart from being a brilliant sword fight with a really cool twist (I love the idea that the Doctor has a duelling glove but no sword) the Doctors spoon is actually a reference to the Seventh Doctor. Sylvester McCoy can actually play the spoons so they wrote it into the character for him. It’s been used a few times since including in the animated TV episode: The Infinite quest.

2: Venusian Aikido CHOP! Another reference to a previous Doctor, this little nod shows that the 12th Doctor is still a master of this little known fighting style.

3: The Doctor doesn’t banter. Except he does. All the way through that episode. You can see the grumpy veneer and it just occasionally sloughs off so you can see the little bits of the earlier incarnations coming through. A lot of this episode plays as a homage to previous Doctors and it’s done beautifully.

4: The hug. The Doctor gets hugged by Marion on her way out and he is startled by it. Seriously. The shot goes on a little longer and you can see the surprise on his face. I can’t confirm but I think this is a William Hartnell reference to his relationship with Susan who was always hugging him but he never looked very comfortable with it. The other way you can read this is that for the first time in this regeneration someone is actively thanking him for his help and he may be starting to remember why he went to such extremes to be such a big damn hero in previous regenerations. A little hug goes a long way, Dear Doctor.

5: Robin and the Doctor fighting. I know I should hate this as it is absolutely the weakest moment of the episode but it is played up so wonderfully poe-faced. I can’t imagine how many times they ended up breaking down behind the scenes but you do get the feeling that the Doctor is just being dragged down to this level because of his ego.

6: Robins reveal. I think my favourite moment. It’s all built up to the end throughout this episode and I consider this the real resolution to the episode, rather than the thing with the golden arrow. The Doctor tells Robin he’s having trouble still believing his tale and Robin draws a direct comparison between the two of them. It works so well. Think back to previous Doctors and then think what this Doctor was accusing Robin of. The Banter, the laughing in the face of danger, the bizarre language, the odd out of place costume. Everything. Robin says it to the Doctor wonderfully when he says

“I am as real as you”

We know the odds are extremely against the idea that there ever actually was a Robin Hood. Most likely the name is taken from “Robbing in a Hood” which was essentially describing a hoodie now. Over time he got turned into the peoples peasant but, just maybe, on the very edge of the possible, we can believe that once there was a man who wanted so much to be a hero that he went to extreme lengths to make himself into one. If you think it’s so impossible I invited you to google search Phoenix Jones

So, yeah. I should hate the episode. I don’t. It feels like a classic Doctor Who episode and one that I think people will be divided on forever. Whether or not you can accept the absurd nature of it in favour of enjoying it, however, I think most people will agree it is definitely the most cleverly written of the episodes this season and, personally, my favourite Mark Gatiss episode to date.

Till next time gang.

Ramblerambleramble.