The Doctor has met with many genuine historical figures in the past, but he has also encountered several myths and legends. Battlefield introduced him to King Arthur. The Time Monster saw him encounter the Minotaur of Greek myths. Now, after being persuaded by Clara, the Doctor takes the Tardis back in time to Sherwood Forest and is surprised to come face to face with the legendary Robin Hood, who shouldn't exist.
Normally there is an alien dimension to events, so the Doctor understandably starts picking holes in Robin's story. Robin himself is just like the legends. The Merry Men also make an appearance, though sadly, they do not contribute very much to the plot. Clara loves the whole situation, enjoying the chance to meet Robin Hood.
The science fiction element finally makes itself clear when our heroes encounter the Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Ben Miller. The Sheriff has
teamed up with a group of metallic robots to help collect the gold needed to relaunch the Robots' crashed spaceship and take over the world. The Robots themselves look like impressive creations. The spaceship apparently crashed while searching for Paradise. Forget Missy though, what I want to know is what is causing all these spaceships to keep crashing. They're as common as modern day earth was to the RTD era.
The Doctor does not deal with this whole situation particularly well. Some have said that it could have been done by Matt Smith. There's certainly some truth to that, in that there is less dark or surprising moments in this episode. But the script still plays to Capaldi's strengths. Had Matt Smith been in this story, it might have been two young men trying to impress Clara. The age of the Doctor helps. He is cynical about the whole thing, though there are moments, such as the brilliant spoon-fight, where you feel he secretly loves it.
Clara is a properly giggly fangirl around Robin Hood. Still, she is able to hold her own when she brandishes a spear to help the Doctor and Robin. She also gets a nice scene with the Sheriff of Nottingham where they try to outdo one another. The writers have done well in giving Clara more variety this year.
Tom Riley does a good job playing Robin as an arrogant but loveable rogue. He appears to play the theme park version of the character, which makes it surprising when the Doctor finds out he is actually real.
Sadly, although the early part of the story does well, it proceeds towards a very weak resolution. When the Spaceship takes off, it will explode, but the Doctor, Robin and Clara manage to fire an arrow into the hull of the ship. It doesn't need to go into the engines or anything. Maybe all I needed to fill my car was to throw the petrol over it.
Another weak point is the character of Marion, who only appears briefly in the story as a Ward and prisoner who helps the Doctor start the revolution against the Robots. She has no real personality.
The story ends with parallels drawn between Robin Hood and the Doctor. It's less well done than the "we're all stories in the end" moment in The Big Bang, but at least Gatiss found a way to tie it in with the notion of the Doctor questioning his own heroism.
There isn't much to really say about this episode. It does what it does reasonably well. As a genre pastiche, I found it less funny that Unicorn and the Wasp, but maybe that's because I knew more about Agatha Christie.
7/10
Next Week: The first time since Series Five that Steven Moffat has written a story that is not an opening, a finale or a Special. Should be interesting to see.
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