C+Q - Robot of Sherwood (2014)
If there's one thing Mark Gatiss does well, it's a historical script. Whether it's An Adventure in Time and Space, Victory of the Daleks, The Crimson Horror, or The Unquiet Dead, Gatiss always does his research and fills his episodes with subtle period details to really sell the atmosphere. Robot of Sherwood is no exception. After running around in some good old sci-fi corridors last week, it feels immediately refreshing to jump into the green and lush world of this episode. The premise here is very RTD-esque with the Doctor meeting Robin Hood, our first real historical celebrity (the meeting of whom has been part of the main pitch to audiences) since Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut.
The twist here obviously is that Robin Hood is not a historical figure. This lets the episode walk a fun tightrope between how historically accurate and how not it's going to be, culminating in a sequence where Robin Hood blows up a spaceship by shooting an arrow into the side of it. It's a neat trick that keeps the tone light and the limits of believability just elastic enough to be fun. After Deep Breath and Into the Dalek, Robot of Sherwood is a refreshingly family-friendly romp with swashbuckling action and some great comedy moments, most notably the scenes in the dungeon between the Doctor and Robin. The usual formula for a historical celebrity episode has the Doctor meeting Shakespeare or Dickens or Agatha Christie and drooling over them for 45 minutes, talking about how much of a fan they are of their work and quoting lines from books they haven't written yet. Robot of Sherwood draws a lot of its comedy and impact from having the Doctor meeting a historical figure that he absolutely despises. It works well, especially as only the third episode of a new Doctor's run, so we can immediately see how unlike his predecessors Capaldi is. You get the feeling Smith would have been a bit more excited to meet Robin. It's all very funny and light-hearted, but there are unfortunately a few minor logical leaps. If the Sheriff of Nottingham wanted gold, why was he giving away an arrow made of solid gold at the archery tournament? Where did robots from space get suits of medieval armour that are built into their faces? But again, it's supposed to be slightly camp, over-the-top, and unbelievable for the joke to work, so I guess I'll let it pass.
Peter Capaldi has settled into his role in no time at all and despite this being only his third episode, it seems like the Twelfth Doctor has been with us for years. Clara gets a lot of focus for the third time in a row, the highlight of which being when she interrogates the Sheriff while he thinks he's interrogating her. She's proven in the past her ability to think fast under pressure (for instance when she encounters Skaldak in Cold War, another Mark Gatiss script), and this series seems to be putting her to the test more than ever. As I've said before, I think Clara is going to have a lot more fans after this reinvention of her character in Series 8 and it's great to see how much she holds up on her own now that her "impossible girl" mystery has been solved. The guest cast this episode are also exceptional, with Tom Riley as Robin Hood and Ben Miller as the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff in particular has a powerful screen presence and it's a real shame Ben Miller's Doctor Who appearance is just a one-off role.
While not being perfect, it can't be denied that Robot of Sherwood is a lot of fun. The dialogue is well written, Paul Murphy's direction is excellent, the acting across the board is superb, and it's a nice change of scenery and pace from the first two episodes of the series. Robot of Sherwood is like that one song on every album that isn't really connected to the others but is just there as a fun single. It isn't nearly as good as Into the Dalek but it's still an entertaining way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
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