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I really enjoy this episode. It’s just good, and
probably has the least to comment on out of the Capaldi episodes so far, and
probably isn’t Gatiss’s best episode, but out of the stories written by him,
it’s the one I enjoy the most. It’s just a genuinely enjoyable 45 minutes, and
that’s a good thing to be. The move away from the split season format helps
here: in a full season, there’s more room for the lighter episodes that are
vital to the spirit of Doctor Who.
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And this is definitely a lighter episode, which
is important at this point for Capaldi’s Doctor, as the two stories before this
one, and the one following it, all fit the darker tone promoted for this new
Doctor. It’s useful to have a lighter episode in the formation of the Capaldi
era to establish a little variety of tone and aesthetic, and this one really
stands out as a contrast to the episodes around it, with the warm, bright
aesthetic of Sherwood forest , Clara’s period dress, and the open, outdoor
settings bringing a having a very different feel, to the claustrophobic sets
and darker colour schemes of the “Deep Breath”, “Into the Dalek” and Listen.
This is an important statement of intent for the Capaldi era: it may be giving
us a darker take on Doctor Who, but it is not giving us a grimdark,
unremittingly bleak, take on Doctor Who, and this is an important statement of
intent in that regard, given mostly through visuals.
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And while Gatiss is far from the funniest writer
the show has, he writes a better Williams era throwback than Hinchcliffe era
one: for all his fascination with horror, he’s a far better fit for the
historical comedy than he is for the “scary story”. Some of the jokes fall
flat, but the best ones – “first Derby, then Lincoln, then THE WORLD!” - are
outright hilarious.
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One of the less admirable parts of this episode
is its treatment of Maid Marian, which is, to put it gently a little
problematic from a gender politics perspective. Marian barely gets anything to
do, save for freeing the Doctor from his shackles, and is literally a prize for
Robin at the end of the episode: the Doctor even calls her his “present” to
Robin which, ugh. Gatiss scripts are nothing if not old fashioned, occasionally
in ways that are at least a little awkward.
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Luckily, the episode’s gender politics are
rescued a little by Clara continuing to get good material, with Jenna Coleman being
on sparkling form once again. Her fangirling over Robin Hood is great fun, and
once again we get a terrific sequence of her successfully figuring out the
Villain’s plans, this time, by appealing to the Sheriff’s ego, and tricking him
into talking about his pans to use the Robots to steal the throne of England.
·
Perhaps most significant in this story is the language
of the impossible surrounding the Doctor and Robin Hood. Robin calls the TARDIS
a “magic box”, from the start creating a link between the nonsensical nature of
the Doctor, while the Doctor constantly tries to unpack the fairytale aesthetic
of Nottingham forest, suggesting the leaves are “too green” for autumn, missing
the similarity between the two heroes that Robin’s dialogue has already
highlighted. Upon finding the Robot’s spaceship, the Doctor happily declares
he’s found something “real”, much like a fanboy insisting Doctor Who should be
“proper sci-fi”. As with “Hide”, we have a genre competition tension running
through the episode, this time between Doctor Who as science fiction and Doctor
Who as a fairytale. Given what we’ve seen of the Moffat era so far, it’s no
surprise which of these wins out. While it’s a very different fairytale to the
Smith era, the Capaldi era is still ultimately driven by a storybook, fairytale
logic, just one that’s grounded in more of an everyday aesthetic than the Smith
era. However, it is interesting how the fairytale logic wins out: the Doctor
realises that his “logical” explanation for Robin Hood doesn’t, in fact, make
any sense. In a story whose framework can support a hero as outlandish as the
Doctor, there isn’t a form of logic that can shut the storybook Robin Hood out
of the narrative.
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This realisation is key to the episode’s
wonderful “Stories can make us fly” conclusion. The speech is a continuation of
Clara’s speech from into the Dalek: “I don’t know if you’re a good man, but you
try to be, and I think that’s the point”, this time, tying that to the Moffat
era’s exploration of the power of stories. Robin agrees that he and the Doctor
are not heroes, but says that if they “both keep pretending to be – Ha-ha! –
Perhaps others will be heroes in our name”: being a hero is something of a
fiction, that Robin and the Doctor both perform, Robin’s little “ha-ha”
suggesting his laugh that annoys the Doctor so much is part of that heroic performance.
The Doctor insists that he’s not a hero, but as Robin says, that’s not the
point: he’s a hero to Clara, and many others. By trying to be better people
than they believe they are, Robin and the Doctor can create a story that gives
others, and themselves, an ideal to live up to.
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