blog@cliffdweller

OK, I'm hooked. I love this BBC series about Robin Hood. What's not to like? They've managed to take a story that usually takes an hour or two to tell and draw it out over a couple of whole seasons.

I've always had great respect for screen writers who could do that. I mean, we all know the story of Robin Hood, right? We've seen it represented a dozen different ways. Whether it's Kevin Costner, Mel Brooks, or even an animated fox, it's always the same.

Robin robs from the rich and gives to the poor. He terrorizes the wealthy friends of politicians as they cruise through Sherwood Forrest. He gets smoked out by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham because of his pride and how he can't possibly pass up an archery contest, even though he knows it's a trap. He preservers, throw in a few scenes with Maid Marian, and then let Patrick Stewart, um The King, ride in at the end and make it all worthwhile.

But not when it's a TeeVee series. Noooooo.

First episode: establish that Robin is of the wealthy elite, and he's been out of town for a while fighting in the oh-so-noble crusades. Except make sure everyone knows he thinks fighting is wrong, and the crusades are wrong. And then have his peasants welcome him home with a feast, but have him be at odds instantly with the sheriff. In fact, have the sheriff arrest some of his peasants (a couple of familiar names there, like Will Scarlet), and have Robin himself forced against his will to read the decree at the public hanging. Then have Robin save the four of them with his perfect arrow shooting and run away into the woods.

That took 42 minutes. But is was a good 42 minutes.

Next episode: Oh wait, there's mean folk in the woods. A really big guy named John who doesn't take much to Robin and his nobility. And a few other outlaws who's names haven't been revealed yet. Tie Robin up. (yes, please!) Then he and his new band that he saved in episode 1 escape and capture the other woodsmen and tie them up (!). Meanwhile, the evil sheriff is in Loxley, cutting out the tongues of Robin's peasants one by one to get them to tell him where Robin is. So Robin turns himself in and gets put in jail. Marian shows up to help him escape, but while she's trying to help, the guys from sherwood forrest show up and make it so. He won't leave though until he has embarrassed the sheriff in a public way. Then they run off into the woods again and start giving stolen money to the peasants.

That took 42 more minutes, and we're not even to the Merry Men yet.

I do find it interesting that in the original stories, Maid Marian was not there. Wikipedia has this to say about Robin's love interest:

"Stemming from another, older tradition, she became associated with Robin Hood only in the sixteenth century … The earliest Medieval Robin Hood stories gave him no female companion. The Robin Hood character at this time was a rather brutish woodsman and a female companion would have been out of place."

woof!