Fazzinchi

Christmas Review #4 of 12

Debuting with a more than respectable 8m viewers and keeping 5m or 6m of them happy throughout its 13-week run, the latest incarnation of Robin Hood was a curious beast.  Trying to capture the newly formed family viewing slot of “Saturday at 7pm on BBC1″ it was roundly panned by critics to begin with but I felt quite comfortable with it all along assured that it would get better as everyone settled down.  By the time the final episode aired last week (the oddly titled “A Clue: No”) things were indeed somewhat better.  Marion’s ‘fake death’ (expertly deduced by The Other Viewer) provided the first and only cliffhanger of the series and led to a belter of an opening as Jonas Armstrong’s eponymous hero got nasty on the Sherriff and his henchman, Guy and then got nasty with poor old Much for good measure too.  Other than a faintly ridiculous ricochetting arrow shot at the climax, it was a great episode.  Classic ‘good versus evil’, adventure yarn that did exactly what it said on the family viewing tin.

So where does that leave us, as we wait for the now commissioned second series…

• Jonas Armstrong.  A little too bland of a performance but the edge we saw towards the end and the fact that the Robin/Marion relationship is moving on at last means the only way is up.
• Bad guys.  I’m really liking the characters that Keith Allen and Richard Armitage are bringing to life but I feel the need for a more prominent role for another castle dweller or two, perhaps the chief guard or the prison warden could be given a name and bit more depth.
• The Merry Men.  Not bad at all.  Alan is my favourite but all of them have been given some good lines and stories to get their teeth into.
• Marian.  Perhaps my favourite character of all and definately has the most to deal with given her presence in the castle, the relationship with her dad, the Nightwatchman storyline, and the love triangle.
• The Production.  The writing has been a little hit and miss although the lovely Paul Cornell’s two stories have been up there with the best.  High production values have meant that I haven’t become bored (as I had feared would be the case) with the limited settings…. Castle, Forest, Village, Forest, Castle and “Oooh look!” Village.  However, that infernal thwacking arrow and on screen reminder that we are looking at “Sherwood Forest” has really gotta go!

All in all, a solid show and fun for all the family.  The widely vaunted introduction of Friar Tuck next time round needs to be handled well though, I’d hate to see him as a comedy outlet (we already have Much for that), let’s have a new take.

Tags: BBC1, Castle, Christmas-TV, Jonas-Armstrong, Keith-Allen, Marian, Nottingham, Period Drama, Richard-Armitage, Robin-Hood, Sherriff, Sherwood-Forest

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Period Drama . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.