Doctor Who 8x03 Robot of Sherwood

[kerravonsen]

Not much to say about this one, except that It Was Fun. Very much a romp.

I suspect that the illogical stuff about the gold-powered engine was solely because the author wanted to manufacture a reason to have all three of them shoot the Golden Arrow at a spaceship. Not that they could have shot a golden arrow anyway, gold is rather HEAVY, and hardly aerodynamic. Though I had to laugh to myself when the Merry Men were passing the golden arrow amongst themselves, since they were handling it as if it weighed nothing -- which of course the prop did, since it was doubtless gold-painted wood or plastic. (shakes head)

That being said, I reiterate what I said before. That was FUN.

I so much enjoyed seeing Clara (a) being taken as the ringleader because she got the other two to SHUT UP, and (b) being clever enough to hold her own with the Sheriff, and get his story out of him.

And all the bits at the start where the Doctor was taking samples, oh that was just so much fun. I mean, it isn't as if the theories he was propounding were impossible in the Whoniverse, as he'd encountered things like that before.
A pattern, however: this Doctor seems to be set on declaring things not to exist: "the promised land", "a good dalek" and then "Robin Hood". Mind you, I was right - he should have asked the Cyborg in "Deep Breath" what/where he thought The Promised Land was, since here we come up against it again: the destination of the spaceship was "The Promised Land". So that's two space-ships, both tossed into the past, both looking for The Promised Land.

Question: did both spaceships come from the same time, or not?
Question: in "The Girl in the Fireplace", do we know what the destination of The Madame de Pompadour was?

Am I mistaken, or did the Sheriff imply that he himself was a cyborg? Though I suppose the point is moot since I'm pretty sure that nothing could have survived that ship exploding.

Another pattern: questioning the nature of goodness and heroism. I mean, we have in "Deep Breath", Clara's expectation that the Doctor will be there when she holds out her hand, that he will rescue her. Then we have in "Into the Dalek", the question of whether the Doctor is really a good man (and whether he will inspire heroism in that Dalek...). Then we have him and Robin discussing heroism, and whether or not they are both heroes. I think it's fair enough that Robin basically says "let's keep faking it, in the hope of inspiring others" -- because a hero often doesn't feel themself to be a hero, because they know themself to be imperfect, full of doubts and fears and mixed motives.

I rather liked Robin's reaction to being a Legend and forgotten to History; that he was glad to be free of the burden of history. And after all, a Legend is more likely to inspire others, really. Something I've been pondering recently... that the History of Historians is that of dusty tomes, while the History of the People is that of minstrels and storytellers.

Comments

[travels_in_time]

The Sheriff did imply that he was a cyborg. Apparently a scene was shot where, during the fight, his head would be cut off and then continue speaking to Robin, so that would have been more explicit, but they cut it out because a woman had been recently beheaded in London and they didn't want to appear insensitive.

[kerravonsen]

Ah, that explains why it seemed to come out of nowhere.

(OH, LOVE THE ICON. Wish someone had written Sherlock/Who crossover to go with.)

[kalypso]

I do remember a rather nice crossover in which the Eleventh Doctor helps John after Sherlock's supposed death when he turns up looking for Clara - who is in fact John's ex-sister-in-law, as mentioned in A Study in Pink.

[kerravonsen]

URL?

[kalypso]

Found it! It's Narrative Multiplicity.

[kerravonsen]

Thanks!

[kalypso]

Though I couldn't see that it mattered very much whether he was a cyborg or not (apart from providing the episode with a title). I really prefer the idea that he was an ordinary Sheriff who was looking forward to using these handy robots to take over Derby and Lincoln.

[kerravonsen]

They didn't need him to be a cyborg to provide the episode title -- it could have been from the robots. In fact I still think it's from the robots, because cyborgs aren't exactly robots...

But actually I do think it mattered that he was a cyborg -- it explains why he was such a good shot in the archery competition. Robin was the only one who wasn't cheating.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I'm not a DW fan but I watched this episode and thought it was good fun.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

It was a romp that got decidedly meta in places. I enjoyed it, especially Ben Miller's Sheriff. He makes a good panto style baddy.

This came across a bit like a panto actually - all good fun!