Episode One: Gisborne's Motorbike

I'll be putting the Robin Hood recaps here as well as my personal journal, ankaret.

Well, so I gave the BBC's new Robin Hood a try. It had its moments, but not enough of them.

So, first there is the 'The Sheriff's men [1] catch someone shooting a deer' scene out of every Robin Hood series ever, apart from the Matthew Porretta one, which opened with a certain novelty by pitting Robin Hood against invading Mongols. In the course of this we meet our Hero and his servant Much, who have conveniently set up a rope-based contraption to waggle the branches so that it looks like the Sheriff's men are surrounded by outlaws. Because they knew that the confrontation would take place in that particular clearing. This would be halfway reasonable if it turned out that they were all already outlaws who had lured the Sheriff's men into a trap. Actually, it transpires that they don't know the poacher from Adam, or rather, as it turns out later, Alan, and they're on their way home, having been granted some kind of honourable discharge from the Crusades.

Sam Troughton was absolutely great as Much. Give the man his own series. He was given a rather thinly written part which seemed to have been turned in by someone who had spent the last few years overdosing on bad hobbitfic ('Hey, he's... loyal like Sam... and... a bit stupid like Pippin!') and made a character out of it. He has 'Headed For Better Things' written all over him to the same extent that Ray Winstone did in Robin of Sherwood.

I'm not even going to start on the costuming, as others have already gone over that thoroughly, but I do have to ask: why was Much wearing a tie-dyed string vest? Was it supposed to be the latest fashion from Outremer, or was he merely hoping that people would mistake it for flashy titanium chainmail? [2]

They hide under a tree, and the nasty black-clad riders sniff around in a Ringwraith-like manner which only confirms my suspicions concerning the writers' previous career in hobbitfic.

So they continue home to Locksley Manor. On their way, they entirely pointlessly are hired to help a man dig a ditch. Robin is a bloody earl (and can I just say, on a tangent, that I really hope he stays a belted one, as he looks like the sort of man who has a really hairy bottom) and he's stopping for this? It's not even 'let's show what a man of the people he is', as he lets Much do all the work and buggers off inside the strange gazebo in which the Ditch Man apparently resides in order to be chatted up by a woman who, I am morally certain, pops up in the credits as 'Wench'.

The wench takes a moment to prove India Knight's dictum that wearing black eyeliner all round your eye is a good way to make yourself look ten years older and as if you've been around the block a few times. Robin does not seem that impressed. Possibly this is because his own eyes are a bit close together and he knows that if he tried it his eyeliner would meet over the bridge of his nose and make him look like a comedy burglar raccoon. The wench persists. You remember that bit in the montage in the first episode of Casanova where a cheery-looking Nanny Ogg type approaches David Tennant and he does the 'shrug and twinkle to camera and embrace woman' thing? Robin tries to do that. The effect is a lot less 'merry man' and more 'slightly pissed sixth-former deciding he doesn't want to die a virgin'.

Despite Much's attempts to distract Ditch Man into providing a bit of exposition, Ditch Man notices, and he and Robin have a fight in the gazebo. I am describing this sequence in so much detail for the benefit of anyone planning to watch the series on BBC America, because it couldn't say 'Irrelevant bit that will be cut out to make room for adverts' more clearly if they wrote it with sticks in the ditch.

They return home to Locksley, where they are shunned by villagers! It's going to turn out that the crusader Earl of Huntingdon and his servant died in a delirium somewhere between eating their horses and trying to eat sand, and these two are either ghosts or zombie revenants! No, it isn't. It couldn't be anything that interesting. Will Scarlett's dad recognises them, and the shunning villagers realise they've been a bit silly. Will is quite brooding and his brother bears a disconcerting resemblance to Adric.

Gisborne shows up. He is dressed as a biker, which also explains the lamentable helmet-hair he's got going on. Robin kicks him out of his house, where he has been acting as steward, and he buggers off back to Nottingham in a cloud of rancid diesel and bad attitude. His Ringwraiths follow him, muttering severally that if they'd had Kawasakis it'd all have gone differently at the Ford of Bruinen.

Much has a bath. This is mildly interesting. Robin declares that the villagers should all be fed and that he won't eat until they've all had their fill. Hmmm. So far Robin's behaviour has been erratic to say the least and now he's gone all shouty and is refusing to eat. Could he be hypoglycaemic?

They go and see 'the old Sheriff'. He shouts at them to bugger off and his daughter Marion points a bow at them. Marion is bun-faced and has that expression of vaguely smirky, vaguely stroppy vacuity that generally goes with a serious Top Shop habit. Having failed to get anywhere there, they sod off to Nottingham, where it all comes out in a lump of badly digested exposition (Aah! Better out than in) that the new Sheriff is going to hang three men from Locksley and Alan A Dale, and that he wants Robin to read the death warrant as a sort of welcome home present. Robin rants inexplicably about economics. I think. He's very hard to listen to - three words, tops, and my brain drifts off into trying to remember exactly which boyfriend-of-a-friend who had a pet theory about politics, animal testing, or the decline of goth they liked to pontificate about it is that he reminds me of.

Then there's the 'rescue from hanging' scene during which the Sheriff procures Robin's assistance by threatening to throw Much off a tower. Someone shows up who I think is going to be Friar Tuck after all, even though I know he's not in it, but turns out to be a man in a false beard. Improbable shooting through ropes! False beards! This is better! Robin, however, does not seem to care whether Much falls off a tower, or at least has forgotten about it. This is supposed to be a leader of men? Eventually he redeems himself through the power of thoroughly improbable sword-throwing. Since Michael Praed once defeated the Sheriff through the power of bees, I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on him.

Robin makes another unlistento-able speech. I think this probably has the 'Will you tolerate this?' line from the episode title in, but, dear God, the man cannot orate. Someone aims a bow at him! Marion saves Robin and manages to puncture leather by flinging one of the nastily decorated awls she has in her hair at the bloke aiming a bow at him. She then wanders off smirking and making sure everyone gets a good view of the other one. Does anyone in this show have the sense they were born with?

Everyone except Marion flees into the forest. Much says 'So, boss, about freeing me and giving me that small parcel of land?' and Robin, who has clearly forgotten about this too, says vaguely that no, that's probably not on the cards any more. Never mind hypoglycaemia, has someone checked him out for recent head wounds? He probably can't remember whether he's got his pants on the right way round, and no, absolutely no one wants to look.

Enter outlaws over the ridge, led by the bloke out of Absolutely. He does not hold up a piece of cardboard reading 'Get to Falkirk' which is a pity, as it would have improved my enjoyment of the show immensely. Nevertheless, it cheers me up to see him, since, if nothing else, it means that if the outlaws ever get hold of Gisborne's motorbike there's someone old enough to have a licence to drive it.

So, overall? Well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I don't have that huge a problem with the bizarre choice of costumes - it's one of those myths every generation has to reinvent, and I suppose I can put up with bad post-Casanova attempts to punk up the cote-hardie - or with the weird variety of accents. What I do have a problem with is the casting of Robin. I don't actually need actors to be cute - I will watch Warren Clarke with rapt attention whenever he shows up on the screen, for example - but I do need them to have some kind of presence, and he doesn't. He doesn't even have the sort of negative presence that could let him play Robin Hood as a conniving chameleon. He's just there, rather lumpen, in the foreground, like an unloved cousin in a family photograph.

Meh. I think I'm going to have to watch Basil Rathbone [3] now to get the taste out of my mouth.

[1] I think they're actually Gisborne's men, but it's not very relevant.
[2] Yes, this series is set in the sort of universe where flashy titanium chainmail is a distinct possibility.
[3] Oh, the movie does have Errol Flynn in as well, doesn't it? I'd forgotten.