Robot of Sherwood Review

Clint Hassell gives his verdict on the third episode of Series 8.

Like “Deep Breath” – which was written to keep Doctor Who’s more-recent fans of Matt Smith’s Doctor interested in the adventures of a Time Lord now played by Peter Capaldi – “Robot of Sherwood” wasn’t written for me. Instead, like “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” the episode checks off an eight-year-old boy’s fantasy wish list: a sword fight, a damsel in distress, the scientifically impossible arrow-splitting-another arrow trick (which even the episode itself refers to as “silly”), juvenile banter, a hero gliding down a tapestry on knife handle, another sword fight, and lots of chaste kissing.

And that’s OK! Not every episode of Doctor Who needs to appeal directly to me. The show has to cultivate new viewers and, without the adolescent-skewing The Sarah Jane Adventures, the series must now incorporate episodes like “Robot of Sherwood” to bring in younger viewers and increase the fan base. (Though, perhaps a better solution would be writer Mark Gatiss as the showrunner of The Dorothy McShane Adventures? I think that would be an ace idea!)

No, despite the episode’s callow disposition and childish humor, where “Robot of Sherwood” really suffers is its inclusion of Robin Hood, a mythological figure. For a show such as Doctor Who – which, despite the increasingly magical sonic screwdriver, is science fiction and not fantasy – to include a character from myth, there needs to be a darn good explanation. And we get one: the Lincoln green-clad hero is part of a wrecked spaceship’s camouflage, meant to disguise its ongoing repair efforts by distracting the surrounding community with a hopeful, live-action adventure tale. Despite the Sheriff’s insistence that this “would be a terrible idea,” it’s actually a brilliant one.

Oh, but wait: that’s not, in fact, how “Robot of Sherwood” explains Robin Hood’s presence. Despite Mark Gatiss crafting such a well-formulated plotline, the outlaw is revealed to be real, in order to create a story in which the normally infallible Doctor is wrong. This can be interesting; Ten realizing, at the end of “The Waters of Mars,” that he’d taken things a step too far is one of the defining moments of the character. However, in “Robot of Sherwood,” this narrative point comes at the expense of the fun of the premise. When familiar legends are adapted, part of the entertainment factor is seeing how aspects of the story are portrayed in the new context (i.e.: reinterpreting the “three little pigs” as, say, the Porcine triplets, diminutive owners of a house building firm; reconceiving Dorothy’s ruby slippers as bright red sneakers; recasting Scrooge as a Kazran Sardick in “A Christmas Carol,” complete with his own clever version of experiencing Christmases past and future). It is also fun to see how parts of the legend begin, often due to events specific to the new adaptation (examples: van Gogh begins to paint sunflowers at Amy’s suggestion, in “Vincent and the Doctor”; the Doctor proposes Shakespeare’s famous ruff in “The Shakespeare Code”). To portray Robin Hood as “historically accurate” within the show’s narrative, complete with all aspects of his legend intact – including the many additions from 20^th Century American culture, for no explained reason – robs the episode of what makes an adaptation of a myth fun to watch.

To include a character of myth within the narrative of the show, but not adapt him to the science fiction world of Doctor Who, is a slippery slope for the series. Doctor Who is a show about “all of time and space,” not “all of time and space and fantasy and myth.” Following “Robot of Sherwood,” the Doctor might as well pal around with the cast of The Lord of the Rings. Heck, with the Universe being infinite, there has to be multiple hobbit-esque alien races, at least a few of which having someone named Bilbo; surely, one of them has a ring? Why, the probability of infinity practically necessitates it! (Thus, the problem with infinity: with a space big enough, or a time long enough, everything that can conceivably happen does/has/will, provided it is possible within the laws of physics.)

While I dislike the inclusion of the mythical Robin Hood, it does allow for grand comparisons with our new Doctor, continuing Series 8’s redefinition/development of the character. “Old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned storybooks,” the Doctor claims, as if to say he is not a hero – or that he is, but not a standard, expected one. This stands in stark contrast to Eleven, who was such the classic hero that “A Town Called Mercy” pitted his noble sheriff against the black-hatted Gunslinger. At three distinct points, “Robot of Sherwood” stops to remind the audience that the Doctor and Robin Hood are both the stuff of legends, and “impossible heroes” to those around them. That may be one time too many. “And remember, Doctor, I’m just as real as you are,” is a meta reference that crosses the line between “not-at-all-subtle” to “heavy-handed.”

The pinnacle of Gatiss’ script is the clever revelation that the Doctor’s story so closely resembles Robin Hood’s. This is not the first time that the series has mythologized the Doctor; the concept of the Doctor-as-legend forms the basis of the Series 3 finale. That Clara could be just as excited to tell everyone the story of the Doctor as she is about reading the legend of Robin Hood draws close comparison to Martha Jones. “But, if we both keep pretending to be [heroes], perhaps others will be heroes in our name,” states Robin Hood, voicing the Russell T Davies-era theme that the Doctor brings out the best in his companions. Note how closely Clara now mirrors the Doctor as she tells Robin Hood, “Be safe, if you can be, but always be amazing.”