Robin Hood Season 2 Finale
Watching Robin Hood is a bit like going to the panto and finding everyone on stage taking it seriously. Last year's season finale was a bit bonkers, and yesterday's more of the same.
I missed the first half hour, but I think this was the basic plot: the Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne head off to the Holy Land to kill King Richard. As you do. They take Marian, recently exposed as an ally of Robin, with them for no particular reason. Robin and Men follow, determined to thwart said scheme.
So, machinations lead to Robin, King Richard (sans any kind of bodyguard), Marian and Men wandering about in the desert. Robin does a completely rubbish job of strategising a coherent plan, and they all end up running around a bizarrely deserted village, which culminates in the Sheriff of Nottingham firing an arrow into King Richard's back1. Oh dear.
King Richard then loses consciousness and falls off his horse in the deserted town square. The Sheriff somehow isn't around so Guy of Gisborne is the man on hand to finally finish off the King. Will he do it? He's been having crises of conscience all series - which path will he choose? Up turns Marian, who stands between him and the King in Heroic Fashion. She knows Robin and the other superheroes are around somewhere, so all she needs to do is keep him talking for a few seconds.
Obviously, this is a stressful situation. If I'd been Marian, though, I think I'd have gone with 'Guy, I love you and if you don't kill the King I'll marry you' as opposed to 'I'm in love with your sworn enemy and am going to marry him, you moron, yah boo sucks to you'. The former might help, since he clearly fancies you2, while the latter might, say, get you stabbed in the chest. I actually wasn't expecting that.
Everyone else turns up half a second later. Guy and the Sheriff give up on trying to get at the still-unconscious-and-exposed King Richard - if only they had some kind of weapon that worked from a distance - and instead elect to escape on magic horses. All King Richard's injuries are instantly cured by removing the arrow, so he's back to full health, but Marian dies in Robin's arms. It was actually a little bit sad, mainly because Marian's one of the few you can bring yourself to care about. After that two more cast members announce they're leaving, there're some obligatory Koran references, King Richard doesn't send word to have the Sheriff killed or anything, Robin looks even more depressed than usual, and they walk off into the desert. The end.
In the 1980s ITV 'Robin of Sherwood' the original Robin died heroically and was replaced. I think they should have stolen this plotline. Kill off Robin, 'cause he's annoying, and have Guy, the most watchable character by a million miles, switch allegiances and become the new Robin Hood. His first act would be to fire Little John for being overexcitable, and Much for being a waste of space. Sorted.
Apparently Series 3 is in production. Yikes.
Robin Hood Finale
I have no problem with:
- People appearing dead to medical examinations but actually still being alive.
- People recovering from stab wounds in twenty minutes.
- Knocking people out by hitting them with a bow.
- Firing numerous arrows at the same time, and having them all go into separate bad guys.
- Breaking into Nottingham by climbing over a wall.
- Heroes who do absolutely nothing heroic.
- Bad guys holding a knife to somebody's throat who are happy to wait around while good guys set up an elaborate scheme to foil said bad guy.
- Outlaws who spend all of their time whinging.
- Known criminals who hang about inside the town hall without any kind of disguise, yet go unnoticed by the many many guards.
This is all fine. It is, after all, not supposed to be real. But:
- Arrows will not bounce around a room like ricocheting bullets. This is just stupid.
There, that's off my chest now 
Lazy sunday afternoon
I keep talking back to Robin Hood. I'm turning into a grumpy person, I think, but the show's so full of nonsensical moments that I can't help it. Yesterday's episode had Robin + Merry Men fleeing scent dogs. They ran across the forest, crested a rise and turned to see whether the dogs would follow. Happily the dogs went the wrong way - hooray! Except they're scent dogs - the whole point is that they follow trails, isn't it? And then the group wandered undisguised into a presumably well-guarded Nottingham and watched a speech by the Sheriff, during which Robin fired an arrow across the crowd to get Marian's attention. Nobody noticed. I went out.
My dance teachers organise monthly dances at a local village hall, with tickets available to the public. They've had ups and downs: the first was attended by over 80 but an August evening saw only 14. Last night's had around 50, which was about right for the size of the dance floor. Lynsey and I are slowly improving at floorcraft, although I could do with learning the official names of the steps. Sometimes I'll realise we're heading for a collision, figure out a route around it and struggle to find any way to describe it other than 'the sideways step thing', which unsurprisingly doesn't help much We've struggled to keep going in the waltz and quickstep before, but they worked ok this time. It helps that we've been learning the proper stance, which feels (and sometimes, tbh, looks) odd, but does ease movement. Good fun, plus our friends Nod and Rachel have just started learning and are getting early opportunities to dance on a proper floor, which Lynsey and I didn't do for six months or so. Halfway through the evening we had to stop to find out who was evicted from Strictly Come Dancing. It's two weeks until we're (hopefully) going, and Anton's doing badly. Happily he escaped the chop last night. My equivalent crush is Karen, who happily seems to be in no danger just yet.
Last week I was invited to a meal+quiz tomorrow night. I said yes, and the next morning was talking to my guitar teacher, who turned out to have been invited to the same quiz by my ex-girlfriend's parents. Hmmm. I'm a little nervous, but I'm not sure about what. I don't think they're the kind of people to be impolite, and it's not like they really have any reason to (I hope). I doubt I'll be able to properly relax, but it should be ok.
I'm looking forward to Torchwood this evening. They've done a great job with the trailers, making it look very stylish and exciting. According to John Barrowman it's a 12-episode series, too. I have the occasional problem with Russell T. Davies' plots, but the dialogue and characters are always great.
Robin Hood
What did you think of the new Robin Hood on Saturday? It didn't do much for me, to be honest. That's not to say I thought it bad, just nothingy. I didn't find it at all dramatic, the dialogue seemed dull and I'm not convinced the plot made much sense. 1900 on a Saturday night is a family slot, though, and it's entirely possible it's designed more for young children. There's plenty of time for it to improve, too.
I've always liked the Robin Hood tales, and used to collect anything related. I've never actually seen the rather mystical 80s tv show, although I did read Richard Carpenter's book adaptations. I had all sorts of different versions of the stories, from beautifully illustrated hardback tomes to Enid Blyton's take (she had Robin beat Little John in their first quarterstaff encounter, so clearly missed the point). A problem with many versions is that they lose focus after King Richard returns. How can he stay an outlaw? They generally have the King be just as evil, which feels false. Richard Carpenter's take was pretty good, as I recall - the King was a good guy, but hungry for glory and generally misguided.
Despite the derision it seems to generally receive, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is still one of my favourite films, and not just because Alan Rickman kicked ass as the Sheriff of Nottingham. I have the original cheapo DVD version, but there's a fancier director's-cut widescreen copy available now. I'm waiting until I see it for under a tenner.
That was something else about the new show - Robin was just too good a shot. Kevin Costner's Robin did at least take two shots to snap the rope across the courtyard, and even then it was only once. Saturday night's split two ropes in quick succession, then took out the final pair with two arrows fired simultaneously. What is ever going to challenge him? And don't even mention that sword throw...Yeah, ok, I'm not going to think about it any more.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
