Robin of Sherwood, season three (part two)

The Betrayal

Come back Anthony Horowitz, all is forgiven. The series finally resorts to the worst cliché of all, that of baddys impersonating Robin and the Merry Mannys in order to discredit them. It was shit when The Legend of Robin Hood did it, and it's shit here. The only series ever to have gotten away with this plot is Monkey, and even that is only because the monsters who impersonated the pilgrims looked so utterly ridiculous in their true forms.

This is the only episode of Robin of Sherwood to be written by Andrew McCulloch and John Flanagan, better known - as a writing partnership - to us cats for writing Meglos. Or Mew-glos as we call it. Yes, that's right, we are plumbing those sorts of depths here.

John Flanagan is better known to us as an actor for his role as regular barrister John Lloyd (not that one) in Crown Court. Let's just say he should have stuck to acting.

Andrew McCulloch was also an actor. I don't particularly know him from anything, but I think it is safe to say that he should have stuck to acting too.

The villain-of-the-week is King John, played again by Phil Davis, returning after having been last seen at the start of season two. His henchmanny-of-the-week is played by Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer, in between the film and the TV series that made him famous but which I must admit I have never seen. He's the one that impersonates Robin himself, so is the only impersonator to be given any significant screentime or personality, before Robin kills him in single combat.

The presence of the king in the episode relegates the Sheriff of Nottingham to henchmanny status, and he is on the receiving end of the king's bullying just as Sir Guy of Gisburne is normally on the end of his. At times the Sheriff is reduced to comic relief as the naughty king demands he be provided with women to entertain him. Then when Marion appears (as part of the Merry Mannys' plans to turn the tables on the baddys) the king acts quite rapey towards her, though the uncomfortableness of these scenes is paid off when Marion turns the tables on him and humiliates the king in front of the Sheriff, whose warning not to trust her proves to be entirely accurate.

I'm worried that paragraph might make the episode sound better than it is. Trust me, it is shit, and the lowest point of the series so far.

Adam Bell

This one is barely a step up from the previous episode's low point. Anthony Horowitz asks us 'what if there were an evil band of outlaws, with an evil version of Robin as their leader?' and the placement of this episode immediately after another episode with its own take on the same question is unfortunate.

Unlike in The Betrayal, this group of outlaws aren't impostors, just a different band, led by the Adam Bell of the title. He is presented as being like an older Robin Hood, but jaded and with what morality he may once have had eroded by years of surviving as an outlaw. It isn't helped by his not-so-merry mannys consisting entirely of immoral cutthroats, each of whom is after his leadership role - like an entire band of Will Scarlets.

Speaking of Will Scarlet, the only one of this band to have a personality other than Adam Bell is Moth, who is someone Will knew in his backstory from his time as a soldier, before he became an outlaw, and we see a flashback of Moth betraying him because of course he did. It has only been three episodes since Horowtiz used the same trope where the baddy-of-the-week's henchmanny had a history with one of the Merry Mannys, only that time with Nasir.

The plot sees Adam Bell kidnap the Sheriff's young nephew Martin - presumably not named after the Merry Manny Martin from season one? - and the Sheriff needs to get him back, both to avoid the wrath of his sister-in-law (wasn't this exact plot point later parodied by the series Maid Marian and her Merry Mannys?) and so he can keep hold of the lands he holds in trust for the boy.

The Sheriff, who very conveniently since the pre-titles sequence has a captured Much in his dungeon, offers to trade Much to Robin if Robin can recover Martin from Adam Bell. Obviously the Sheriff plans to betray Robin after the exchange has taken place but, oh look, what a twist, Adam Bell sacrifices himself to help Robin and Much escape from the trap.

It's a very clumsily plotted episode, full of clichéd plot points, and multiple scenes see Robin and other characters having to act stupid in order to get the plot where it needs to be, a trope I always hate. Connery's non-acting style means he just can't paper over the cracks the way a better actor might have been able to.

For instance, the only character coming out well from this episode is the Sheriff of Nottingham, who gets a larger role than he's had for a while. Scenes with him and Sir Guy see them explaining things to each other that they should know, but Nickolas Grace and Robert Addie just about get away with this by almost (but not quite) winking at the camera as they do so.

Grace can save his scenes, but he can't save this episode from being another stinker.

The Pretender

There's a terrific set of guest actors in this episode - you've got Patricia "Portia of Chambers" Hodge, Reece "Threads" Dinsdale, and Bill "Ploppy, son of Ploppy" Wallis. And if that's not enough for you, there's also William "Ian Chesterton" Russell as the Duke of Gloucester.

The Merry Mannys get involved in a conspiracy to set a "pretender" (hence the episode name) on the throne instead of King John. This is led by the king's former queen Hadwisa (Hodge) and her kinsmanny the Duke of Glouctester, with a manny called Arthur (Dinsdale! Dinsdale!) as their puppet. He's obviously a con artist, as is shown to us when we see him trying the old shell game trick on the Merry Mannys. Sir Guy ends up joining the conspiracy, against the advice of the Sheriff.

Speaking of the Sheriff, this episode is instantly elevated to classic status by a subplot in which the Sheriff has been bitten by a doggy. After treatment by his barber-surgeon (Wallis), the Sheriff has a fever dream that might just be the greatest single scene in the whole series, and even gives the dream sequences in Twin Peaks a run for their money in terms of hilarious weirdness, as the Sheriff hallucinates grinning, giggling Sir Guys and Ploppys loling at him while lit by eerie red and green lights. If you've not seen this episode, the screenshots below may give you some idea of what it is like, but you'll just have to trust me that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

So now there are two factions of baddys - Sir Guy siding with the conspiracy against the king, and the Sheriff sticking with the mad cunt he knows. The conspiracy plans to assassinate the new queen, Isabella, and blame it on Robin Hood. Arthur's job is to lead the Merry Mannys into the right place at the right time so that the blame can be put on them. Robin smells a mouse and he ends up teaming up with the Sheriff (I love it when that happens), so that the conspirators get killed or arrested, except for Sir Guy who manages to bluff that he was against the conspiracy all along.

The plot fills the episode's run time nicely and there's just the right amount of twists and turns with the various factions. Even without the dream sequence it would have been a good one, but with that added on top it becomes a series highlight.

Let me just check who wrote this one... Fucking hell, it was Anthony Horowitz. It's a miracle.

Rutterkin

Sounds a bit like something from Ghost Light with that title, doesn't it?

Richard Carpenter is back for the last three episodes, and for the third-last part he's revisiting a trope he used in the third episode of the series The Witch of Elsdon, namely anachronistic witchcraft.

King John is also back, last seen by us in The Betrayal, and this'll be the last time we see him in the series. There's a guest-villain-of-the-week instead of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and he's Robert/Robin's wicked uncle Lord Edgar, played by Ian "Drusus" Ogilvy - hope he doesn't turn out to be the brother of Marion's father in this as well, that would make things awkward.

Evil Lord Edgar wants to get his hands on his older brother's lands and titles, so he frames the Earl of Huntingdon for trying to get a witch to curse the king, in spite of that not being a thing in that time period. Michael "whoever's been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating into space and in my book that's murder" Craig returns from the season opener as the Earl.

Edgar then bites off more than he can chew by trying a second plan at the same time, that of capturing the Merry Mannys to get into King John's good books. He succeeds in capturing them all except for Robin and Nasir. Robin then has the dual tasks of clearing his father's name and rescuing his friends at the same time, which of course he does.

The twist at the end is - look, you can stop reading this sentence any time you like if you want to avoid the spoiler from 1986 - that the woman Edgar forced to confess to witchcraft in order to frame the Earl is - have a guess, go on, before you read the end of the sentence, just have one guess - actually a real witch. She curses Lord Edgar so that he dies while trying to get away.

This is a pretty good episode, but it has the issue that it follows after a really good one, so maybe doesn't shine out as much as it deserves. But Carpenter can always be relied upon to deliver on the set piece for the episode, which in this case is the last-minute rescue - it's similar to stuff we've seen before in the series, yet with enough differences to still feel fresh and interesting.

The Time of the Wolf - Part 1

So here we are at the first half of the series finale, and Richard Carpenter has decided to pack a lot in to make the series go out with a bang.

Richard O'Brien returns again as Gulnar who, having been defeated twice this season (in the opening two-parter and then at the midpoint episode), now has a plan to destroy Herne. This involves teaming up with some Welsh Vikings (where do I start?) called the Sons of Fenric Fenris to take over a fortified abbey.

The Sheriff and Sir Guy, meanwhile, have been ordered to send food to the king's army, and when the Merry Mannys nick off with it - as usual - the Sheriff's attempt to pin the blame on Gisburne is the last straw for poor Guy, and he goes renegade. He then runs straight into the Sons of Fenris and is forced to join them or die. On the grounds that even they are probably better employers than the Sheriff was, he signs up with Gulnar and is given a snazzy new wolf-themed uniform.

The Robin and Marion romance, which has been kept on a low simmer throughout much of the season, largely due to Jason Connery's inability to convey any subtle nuances of its progress, finally comes back to the fore as they decide to get married. But they postpone the wedding until after their current mission, which is a sure sign that something is bound to go wrong before then.

The episode ends on a clifhanger, as Robin and most of the Merry Mannys get captured by the Sons of Fenris and Sir Guy, which must make him feel like he has finally sided with a competent outfit for the very first time.

The Time of the Wolf - Part 2

The second half of the story introduces a plot element that was wholly absent from the first part - having captured Robin, Gulnar creates a kind of homunculus copy of him out of clay. Was this Richard Carpenter taking the piss out of Anthony Horowitz, Andrew McCulloch and John Flanagan by showing them how to write a much more original take on an Evil Robin? Once it is animated, it is also played by Jason Connery, with the only difference in appearance being the bestial fangs the duplicate has in its mouth, preventing it from speaking. This is a positive boon to Connery's performance, and he is far better as the copy than as the real Robin. Yes, he plays the one made out of clay better than the one made out of wood, lol.

The evil Robin then turns upon its creator, and Gulnar gets the last line

"I am your master!"

before he gets strangled to death. It's not quite 'Stop! No! I created you!' but it's the next best thing. The copy then tries to kill Herne, but Herne sees through the deception and holds it off long enough for the real Robin to arive and kill it.

This seems like the Merry Mannys have won, but there's still quite a bit of the episode still to go, as the dead body of Robin's duplicate left lying in the middle of a stone circle then sets off a chain of events that leads to the real climax. Marion finds the body and, by not checking Robin's teeth, thinks this is the real Robin lying ded.

The Sons of Fenris ended up getting defeated pretty easily, but they did manage to capture the Sheriff of Notingham first. He then once again proves how he is easily the best character in the series as he refuses to join them even when threatened with death (his standing up to Gulnar is also the first time we have seen him hint at his own occult knowledge since at least season two), and then spends his time in captivity insulting Guy of Gisburne before they end up teaming up to escape together.

They also find the dead Robin copy and take it for the real thing, believing they will get pardoned if they bring back his body to the king. The last we see of them is as they ride off along with a luckless peasant carrying the body on a cart, with us viewers being made aware that the body is starting to return to clay, but the Sheriff and Sir Guy don't notice it. Thus it is left ambiguous whether or not they will ever receive their pardons or not.

The series ends upon the anticlimactic cliffhanger of Marion, believing Robin dead, going to the abbey and becoming a nun, and refusing to leave when the real Robin turns out to be still alive after all. Er, well, I mean when the second Robin turns out to be still alive after all.

I understand there were plans to make a fourth season, so this wasn't intended to be the final end of the series, but it was. As either a cliffhanger or as an ending it's pretty poor, because it feels very contrived that Marion would suddenly act this way. The final scene before the end credits helps a little to redeem it, which sees the rest of the Merry Mannys (sans Marion) rallying round Robin for manly handshakes, back in Sherwood where they belong: all boys together, no girls allowed.

The third season is, as I'm sure you can tell by now, a big step down from the first two in pretty much every respect, with only the Sheriff and Sir Guy remaining at the same high level in terms of how entertaining they are to watch. For everything else, the ideas don't seem as fresh, the writing isn't as polished, and the acting has a gaping hole at the centre of the series where Jason Connery stands as the supposed lead.

The series as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The Robin Hood myth is told across multiple hours of televsion instead of being crammed into a single film's duration, which helps a lot. If you only watched a single episode, you might think the supporting characters such as the Merry Mannys don't get much development or much to do, but when they have even a little to do in every instalment across 26 parts it does add up, and so we are left with a strong impression of who Little John, Tuck, Much, Will Scarlet, and even Nasir (who, as a new addition to the mythos, suffered the most from his backstory and personality being made up as they went along) are as characters and how they relate to each other.

The show will always be best remembered for its unique* replacement of the lead halfway through, and it really does divide the show neatly into two halves with a distinctive feel to each. It was a shame that Connery was such a letdown after the amazingly well-cast Praed, who helped the show capture the zeitgeist of the mid-80s, but the problems of season three cannot be entirely put down to him. Just... mostly down to him.

* in terms of Robin Hood retellings, mew.

Robin... The Wooden Manny

Robin of Sherwood, season three (part one)

Herne's Son (Part 1)

The series returns with a stunning opener, so seamlessly following on from the events of The Greatest Enemy that you'd swear writer Richard Carpenter must have planned it this way all along. Footage taken from the end of season two is skilfully interwoven with brief bits of new footage to retroactively reveal that the myterious hooded manny that rescued the Merry Mannys after Robin's death is the son of the Earl of Huntingdon, Robert, as played by Jason "shun of Sean" Connery.

Historically, the Earl of Huntingdon between 1184 and 1219 (when this series must have been set due to King John, who reigned between 1199 and 1216) was David of Scotland, so it is appropriate that Robert is played by a proud Scot such as Connery. Although the earl himself is played by Michael "whoever's been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating into space and in my book that's murder" Craig, whose level of Scottishness is unknown.

Having done this one favour to Herne, Robert then rejects Herne's offer of permanently becoming the new Herne's Son (definitely Herne's fault for raising the matter at this time, when the fate of the previous Son would have been foremost in Robert's mind) and returns to his life as a noblemanny. That is until a year later, when his destiny catches up with him.

Alone of the Merry Mannys, Marion has been pardoned and has returned to live with her father (George "Tiberius" Baker, returning from The Prophecy), who is visiting the Earl of Huntingdon's castle. The Sheriff of Nottingham, his brother Hugo and Sir Guy of Gisburne are also visiting, and we get some lovely scenes of courtly intrigue that have scarcely been possible in the series until now due to so many of the main characters being outlaws. The Sheriff is shown to be a skilful politician when he wants to be - namely when he isn't only surrounded by social inferiors whom he can bully and boss around.

Into this mix comes Lord Owen of Clun, a fairly forgettable villain but with a very memorable sidekick - Gulnar, played by Richard O'Brien (to be fair, aside from being immediately recognisable as Richard O'Brien, he doesn't actually do that much in part 1 of this story, but I know he will make more of an impact in later episodes). Owen is a horrible cunt, but the nobles all have to be nice to him because he controls strategically important lands and a castle. He's an even bigger cunt than the Sheriff, who is reduced to a secondary antagonist (in a not dissimilar way to when Baron de Belleme was the villain-of-the-week). Lusting over Marion, he promptly gets into a fight with the gallant Robert, giving our new hero a chance to show he is no slouch at swordfighting.

Owen kidnaps Marion and takes her back to his castle, also capturing Nasir along the way when Nasir just happens to show up in time to rescue Marion's father from also being captured. This episode is so pacy and full of incident that I can completely forgive it for this contrivance.

The rest of the Merry Mannys are scattered, and have been since after Robin's death. With Herne's blessing Robert sets out to find them to get them to help him rescue Marion - as good a pretext as any for getting the band back together. By the end of this first part he has only found and recruited Tuck.

After spotting Robert and Tuck together, one of the Sheriff's spies reports this to him and Sir Guy, and we see that Sir Guy is for once ahead of the Sheriff - perhaps Carpenter allowing Sir Guy a little bit of character development to take him away from his brutish, Travis-like role of the first two seasons - when it is him that puts the clues together to find out the identity of "the hooded man."

I do love all the ways that Carpenter makes Robert different from Robin, and how he isn't just immediately slotted into the Robin Hood leader role. A pity then, that the weak link in this otherwise fantastic episode is Connery himself, who can handle the action scenes fine (the swordfight with Owen is a highlight) but falls down whenever he is required to show emotion. This would have been hard enough on him had this been a brand new series, but he also has to follow in the footsteps of Michael Praed who, even though he may not have been the best actor in the world himself, was miles better than Connery, especially when it came to the instant chemistry he had with Judi Trott as Marion.

Herne's Son (Part 2)

The first half of this has to follow through with where part 1 left off, with Robert needing to put the Merry Mannys together again. It does its best to not become too repetitive, by mostly avoiding copying the ways in which the first Robin assembled them back in Robin Hood and the Sorcerer, but the scene where Robert has to fight Little John to a standstill to prove his worth has to live in the shadow of the original fight over a river.

This is followed not long after by a scene where Robert has to fight Will Scarlet to a standstill to prove his worth. All the stops are pulled out to make this as different as possible to the earlier fight with Little John and disguise that the fundamental narrative effect is identical. This one is played for lols, with Will being drunk the whole time, and then when Guy of Gisburne shows up he has a terrible time trying to convince the local watch (led by Comic Strip Presents regular Daniel Peacock as their sergeant) to help him arrest the outlaws.

It's all passable stuff, that first half - flawed, but hiding its flaws well, yet with nothing to make it outstanding. This all changes once the the rescue attempt gets underway. From that point on it's all action for the rest of the episode, with the highpoint being when Robert has to fight Nasir in Owen of Clun's pit-fighting ring. Nasir doesn't know who Robert is, but as soon as he sees Little John and Will, he immediately susses out what's going on and teams up with Robert to fight against Owen. Fantastic stuff.

Richard O'Brien as Gulnar, Owen's pet magician, comes into his own here with his eccentric mutterings (I could well believe O'Brien made up his own dialogue) as he hypno-eyeses Marion. If I have a complaint about this plot, it would be that Carpenter does like leaning on the 'one or more of the heroes gets hypno-eyesed' trope, which he already used twice (in consecutive stories) in season two, so it would be nice to see evil wizards doing something other than this.

We have to presume that as soon as Owen of Clun gets killed - a great and fitting death scene for the character - the spell wears off, since the next time we see Marion she is free of Gulnar's influence. Gulnar himself is still alive, to return later in the series - this is good, since we really didn't see enough of him in this.

The episode ends with Marion returning to her father, rather than going with Robert and the rest of the Merry Mannys. This suggests the status quo for this season won't be a carbon copy of the first two seasons'. Robert takes Robin's old position as their leader and Herne's Son. There's practically a jump scare into the end credits when we see Herne suddenly standing among them.

"Robin of Sherwood" now being a bloke called Robert is an odd situation to engineer. I suppose it would have stretched credulity too far if the new lead had been named Robin as well? I can see why they felt they needed a new Robin Hood for their Robin Hood series, rather than have the now-leaderless Merry Mannys having adventures on their own for 13 episodes. On the other hand, it worked for Blakes 7, mew.

The Power of Albion

Richard Carenter is obviously having fun with the shake-up of the format, since here we see something that was never possible with the first Robin Hood - Robert of Huntingdon living a double life as earl's son (and the nearest thing the 12th century has to a millionaire playboy) by day, Robin Hood by alternate day.

What a shame then that Jason Connery is particularly wooden in this episode, worse I'd say than in the opening two-parter. His line delivery is flat and he has zero chemistry with Judi Trott. At one point Robert gets taken out of action by an arrow and remains off screen for several minutes while the Merry Mannys fetch Marion to cure him. While an important plot point when his injury gives away that he is the new Robin, I wonder if this served a dual purpose in giving Connery time off filming to go and take some acting lessons?

He is better (a low bar) in scenes where he is bluffing the Sheriff and Gisburne that he is not Robin, and these wind up being the most fun parts of the episode. The dynamic between Robert, the Sheriff and Sir Guy is great, as we see the Sheriff siding with Robert against his suspicious minion, with us (and Robert) knowing that Guy is right all along.

The Inheritance

Mew, the moment I've been dreading even more than the arrival of Jason Connery as the second Robin has now arrived - the point at which writers other than Richard Carpenter were allowed to have a go. The first of these is Anthony "I've done no research" Horowitz, a writer who never met a cliché he didn't like.

Here we can immediately see why I called him Anthony "I've done no research" Horowitz - this episode begins with a Tarot reading (150 years before their earliest recorded appearance in Europe) and ends with Robin Hood meeting King Arthur. Now, to be fair, I don't know if that was part of Horowitz's brief, to include the King Arthur and Round Table elements, or if he just thought "ah, sod it, Robin Hood, King Arthur, what's the difference, it's all the same English medieval mythology, isn't it?"

To make matters worse there's no appearance by either the Sheriff or Sir Guy in this story, and their usual place is taken by a disposable villain-of-the-week, played by Derrick O'Connor as a Sahf London thug straight out of some gangster series. He might have gotten away with it if he had only shared scenes with Ray Winstone, but alas...

The one part of the episode I will praise is the climax, when Robin and the gang discover the actual Round Table of the Arthurian legends, and then King Arthur and his knights appear to them in a mystical vision. The SFX for this bit are quite Excalibur-y (appropriately enough) or, given the silver armour and the tall shape of the knights' helmets, one might even say quite Dark Towers-y. Anyway, this mystical bit is quite good and helps the otherwise out of place Arthurian mythos fit in more with the previously established magic of the setting.

The Cross of St Ciricus

Richard Carpenter takes the writing duties back, but this is one of his more workmannylike scripts where you can see the mechanism of the plot as it turns. Having decided that New Robin/Robert and Sir Guy should turn out to be half-brothers, and that Robert should find out about it, he just needs to move the pieces into place so that the revelation can come out.

It is quite clever that only Robert and Tuck discover the secret out of the regular characters, and there are other things to like in the episode - most obviously the lengthy section when Much and Will Scarlet think they have caught leprosy from a group of lepers they encountered. Ray Winstone does his best to act his socks off to convey the terror this held for medieval people, but the episode itself wants to play it for rofls, with us not supposed to take the threat seriously - they're main characters, after all, and aren't about to get removed from the series that way.

The twist is that they weren't real lepers, but Sir Guy and some henchmannys in disguise, on their way to rob an abbey that... is a bit too nice to the poor for the Sheriff's liking (the Sheriff doesn't actually appear in this episode). It's not the best excuse for it to be Sir Guy in this role in the plot, but as mentioned he has to be involved so that he and the Merry Mannys can meet his mother at the abbey, from whence Robert and Tuck get to learn about how Robert's father, the Earl of Huntingdon, is Sir Guy's real father as well as Robert's.

Sir Guy treats his mother about as poorly as you'd expect for such a horrible character, but unfortunately the way Robert Addie says

"Mother!"

is a bit too close to the way his Mordred said "Mother!" to Morgana in Excalibur. There are times when this series just can't get away from the influence of that film.

The Sheriff of Nottingham

Anyone reading this who thought I was perhaps too harsh on Anthony Horowitz's first scripted episode The Inheritance should give his second episode a try. It contains easily the second* worst cliché of the entire series, when the Sheriff of Nottingham is sacked for his repeated failure to kill Robin Hood, and replaced with somebody even worse.

This is Philip Mark, the "Butcher of Lincoln," played by Lewis "Bodie" Collins, who immediately tries the old 'hang villagers until Robin Hood surrenders' plan, itself not exactly a sign of originality (though if you're going to steal a plan from another series' villain-of-the-week, stealing from Blakes 7's Raiker might be the way to go). Mark even comes with his own henchmanny, a Saracen who - of course - knows Nasir, and they have a backstory together that means they are deadly enemies. The slow-motion flashback showing their last fight is a highlight of the episode. Perhaps that is because in it Horowitz spares us from any dialogue, mew.

Collins plays Philip Mark as an evil homosexual (yet another overused cliché), who takes a fancy to Sir Guy of Gisburne, which Sir Guy seems to like, either because Mark's Saturday teatime innuendos are going over his head, or else because it means he gets treated a lot better than the previous Sheriff treated him.

Our usual Sheriff, meanwhile, gets captured by Robin and co, and offers to show them the secret passage in to Notingham Castle, which is yet another cliched contrivance, not to mention something used in the BBC's '70s Legend of Robin Hood.

While Robin and the rest of the Merry Mannys are getting captured by the new Sheriff, Nasir and his enemy - played by an English actor with a merciful lack of blackface - have their rematch, which for some reason involves them duelling with samurai swords (developed over a century after Robin of Sherwood is set, historical research fans). Highlander only released in cinemas the same year as this was made, so there probably wasn't enough time for it to be an influence, but clearly innapropriate katanas was just a theme of 1986.

The second highlight of the episode is Nasir's rescue of the others at the end of the story - you can see the twist coming a mile away, but it's still a great action set-piece, so some credit to Horowitz there... though more to the director, actors, etc. There's even a Terry Walsh trademark soldier falling off a high wall stunt.

* Two episodes to go until the worst and, yes, it is a cliché that was also used in The Legend of Robin Hood, among many others.

Cromm Cruac

Annoyingly, I have to give Anthony Horowitz some credit for this one, easily his best episode up to this point by a considerable margin (although that is quite like giving Jason Connery credit for his best acting). This magic-heavy tale actually sees Christianity come to the rescue for once - perhaps the biggest clue that Richard Carpenter didn't write it?

Richard O'Brien returns as Gulnar, out for revenge on Robin and the Merry Mannys for their defeat of Owen of Clun in the season's opening two-parter. The other main guest actor of note is John "Doc Morrisey" Horsley as a grumpy but friendly abbot.

Most of the Merry Mannys end up in the titular village of Cromm Cruac, which is a magic village not dissimilar to Brigadoon. Only Tuck and Marion avoid it, and end up going to Tuck's old abbot for help with rescuing their friends, plus getting some exposition and some holy water from him - this will obviously come in handy later on in accordance with the law of conservation of narrative detail.

The village begins manifesting the dreams or nighmares of each of the Merry Mannys until they lose their memories and personalities and act like they have always belonged in the village. Much, Will and Nasir succumb, until only Robin and Little John are still themselves.

Gulnar and some quite effectively realised demonic henchmannys then attempt to feed Robin to the demon (also called Cromm Cruac) that has given Gulnar the power to do all this magic, and this is another example of this series having a demonic entity that they keep off screen as much as possible to make it more effective. Because otherwise the temptation to shout

would be overwhelming.

Richard O'Brien overacts throughout the episode, and his evil laughter in the demon summoning scene would give Mordred from Battlefield a run for his money.

Other weak spots in the episode include some wooden acting by some of the evil villagers, and the quite frankly baffling directorial decison to have the fight between Robin, Tuck and Nasir with the demonic henchmannys take place in slow motion that gives away just how fake the fighting is (even Jason Connery, who is normally at his best in his action scenes, looks rubbish here). They might have gotten away with it if only they hadn't intercut this fight with Little John, Will and Much in a separate fight scene against the evil villagers, which was filmed at normal speed, so the contrast makes the slow-mo fight seem ten times slower worse slower and worse.

On the whole, though, this is one of season three's better episodes so far.

Big Gay Longcat and Expensive Luxury Cat review James Bond: For Your Eyes Only

After having gone into space in Moonraker, where could James Bond go next? This was the challenge facing the filmmakers in 1981 when they came to make the next expensive luxury James Bond film.

Thinking they couldn't go bigger, they chose to go smaller, but at the same time brought back some of the elements of earlier Bond films that had perhaps been lost along the way: the Cold War, baddys who didn't want to take over the world, and, of course, henchmannys that aren't Jaws.

Mew, I'm not sure that last one wasn't a terrible mistaik.

The result was For Your Eyes Only, the fifth of Roger Moore's seven expensive luxury James Bond films.

It starts with Bond putting flowers on the grave of Teresa Bond. The gravestone says

"TERESA BOND 1943 - 1969 Beloved Wife of JAMES BOND We have all the time in the World"

which, apart from the irregular capitalisation which suggests a cat was in charge of the engraving, all but insists that the James Bond of On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the same as the current James Bond, despite the former being played by George Lazenby and the latter by Roger Moore. Unless, that is, the new James Bond is putting flowers on the grave of another manny's wife as part of an elaborate, decades-spanning ruse. Hmm, no, I don't  think this proves anything conclusively one way or the other, mew. Also, a full third of the gravestone is taken up with being sarcastic.

A helicopter arrives and Bond gets on it. As it flies away the camera cuts to...

SECTRE Number One!

This immediately makes this the most expensive and luxury James Bond film since we last saw Number One in Diamonds are Forever. As usual, he has a new Blofeld with him, who is a bald (classic choice there, Number One!) manny in a wheelchair with a lot of controls in front of him. He uses the controls to electric the helicopter driver and the helicopter starts to crash, but then it turns out that Blofeld has the helicopter under remote control.

Blofeld flies Bond around for a bit while taunting him. Bond gets out of the helicopter and climbs along the outside. He spots Blofeld and Number One sitting on a roof. Bond gets in the driver's seat and unplugs Blofeld's remote control. Number One hisses, because he has realised that Bond is about to turn the tables on this Blofeld so soon he is going to have to start looking for another one. Bond gets control of the helicopter and Number One does a mew. He jumps out of Blofeld's lap and, sadly, that is the last we see of him in this film.

Bond flies the helicopter to pick up Blofeld and his wheelchair. In his panic at being captured, Blofeld improvises a very strange poem:

"Mr Bond! Mr Bond!

We can do a deal.

I'll buy you a delicatessen

In stainless steel!"

Bond drops Blofeld down a very long, tall chimney (long chimney is long!) and then it cuts to the opening titles.

The title sequence is unusual in that we can see one of the ubiquitous nudey ladies is actually singing the song. Other than that it is pretty standard for the era - there seems to be an underwater theme to it, which if we are lucky means that this will be as expensive and luxury as The Spy Who Loved Me. Or if we are unlucky then it will only be as expensive and luxury as Thunderball.

This would seem to be borne out by the first scenes after the titles, which start with the camera rising out of the sea to show a ship. Some mannys are catching lots of nomable fish, meanwhile inside the ship some other mannys are doing the far less interesting job of secret spy stuff. 

The mannys doing the fishing accidentally catch a bomb (silly mannys! A cat would never mistaik a bomb for tasty fish, mew) which explodes and sinks the ship. We might have expected this, seeing as they were British mannys doing spy things but neither Bond nor any other of our regular characters were on board.

The Minister of Defence is visited by the First Sea Lord (played by Graham "Soldeed" Crowden), who has come to tell him how many Nimons electronic surveillance ships they have lost today: one, called the St Georges, which by the law of conservation of narrative details was most probably the one we saw sink in the previous scene. He is accompanied by a Vice Admiral, played by Noel "Charles Grover from Invasion of the Dinosaurs" Johnson, and since they both played baddys in Doctor Who we have to suspect that they are secretly up to no good in this film too.

When last we saw Colonel Preston he was in charge of the British soldiers who were held captive in Colditz castle. Since the war he has moved to Greece to become an archaeologist which, as the film Pimpernel Smith made clear, gives perfect cover for espionage. But somebody has obviously found out his secret, because they shoot him from a plane and then fly away, leaving his daughter Melina (Carole Bouquet) and his parrot Max as surviving witnesses. They don't say how many days he was away from retirement, but I'm guessing it wasn't many.

Bond arrives for his briefing in M's office, where he meets the Minister and the Chief of Staff (as played by James Villiers, an actor so posh that he only rarely condescended to play anybody less important than a lord). They already know who killed Colonel Preston, a hitmanny called Gonzales. Bond's mission is to find out who hired Gonzales.

The Chief gives Bond a folder which says "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" on the cover. It probably contains the script, lol.

Bond drives to Gonzales's house in an inconspicuously fancy car and then spies on him for a bit. Bond doing actual spy stuff? Well it has to happen sometimes, mew. He sees Gonzales get a suitcase full of moneys from a manny, which may as well be conclusive proof by the standard of most clues Bond normally has to go on.

Bond gets captured, but then another manny shoots Gonzales and he goes

Bond escapes in the confusion and meets up with the manny that shot Gonzales, who turns out to be Melina. The rest of Gonzales's henchmannys chase them. Two of the henchmannys find Bond's car and try to steal it, but it explodes for no adequately explored reason except that it means Bond and Melina have to escape using her car instead. This increases the peril for Bond since it means he doesn't have access to any of his usual array of car-based gadgets.

A car chase ensues, with Bond using their car's small size to his advantage over the normal-sized cars of their pursuers. This chase manages to be both exciting while also containing moments played for laughs, and the last car full of baddys ends up stuck in a tree, lol.

Like Bond, Melina has a mission to find the manny who paid Gonzales to kill Colonel Preston, only she has given herself the mission, for revenge. Bond tells her:

"The Chinese have a saying: before setting out on revenge, you first dig two graves."

The Scottish have a similar saying: Before setting out for Perth, you first make two sandwiches.

Bond visits Q to see if he can help him identify the manny he saw paying Gonzales, by using technology. This scene with Q is an outright komedy scene, with Q being portrayed as an absent-minded professor who, while he may have invented all these gadgets, can't actually use them properly without Bond's assistance.

But after some silliness along the way they are able to identify the manny as Emile Locque, a known baddy. Bond sets out to find him. which naturally means going on a skiing holiday. There Bond makes contact with Luigi Ferrara, whose job it is to get killed off in a few scenes' time. Ferrara introduces Bond to Kristatos, played by Julian "Scaroth" Glover, another former Doctor Who baddy who will turn out to be the baddy here as well. One does not simply get Julian Glover in to not be the baddy, even Blakes 7 managed that.

Kristatos pretends to be friendly and helpful to Bond, telling him Locque W-words for Columbo. On the face of it this seems implausible at best, since Columbo is an American police lieutenant and not a Bond villain, but it turns out he does not mean that Columbo.

As they say goodbye Kristatos gives Bond a manly handshake, which is surely a bit racy for 1981. Ferrara also wants a manly handshake but Kristatos evidently isn't into threesomes since he turns away from and ignores Ferrara instead.

Bond turns down an offer of naughtiness from Bibi Dahl, Kristatos's ice-skating "protégé", which might be because Bibi is on the young side even for Bond, or (since that doesn't always stop him) it could be because he only just recently had a manly handshake with Kristatos. She tries kiffing him anyway, but Bond is wise to that old game, having used it himself many a time. They do go skiing together, and while doing that they spot Erich Kriegler, played by John Wyman who was the fake Cancer in Assassin. 

Here the twist is that he actually is an assassin, and he shoots at Bond. Bond loses his gun, so he has to escape from Kriegler and his henchmannys on his skis. Locque himself joins the chase, in case it wasn't obvious enough that Kriegler was on his side. This is another great chase sequence, which again mixes the dramatic with the comedic - the latter mainly involves innocent bystanders falling over on their skis, but we also see a manny getting a slapstick cake full in the face, and the blink-and-you'll-miss-it final appearance of Double-Take Manny.

They decided to get him back but not Jaws? Mew!

Bond finds that Ferrara has been killed and a dove badge placed in his paw. This is supposed to be the symbol of Columbo which, very conveniently, the baddys have all started wearing ever since Kristatos told Bond that Columbo was the baddy.

Bond hasn't been to a casino for a while, so he goes there to play Baccarat. Also to meet Kristatos again, to get more manly handshakes clues about Columbo. Columbo is also present, played by Topol "only Dr Hans Zarkov, formerly of NASA" Topol. He has been listening to Bond and Kristatos's dialogue.

No more manly handshakes for Kristatos, next thing we know Bond is after some naughtiness with "Countess Lisl" who he spied arguing with Columbo. The next morning they are walking on the beach when Locque and his henchmannys turn up and attack them. Locque runs over Lisl who goes

and then they capture Bond. This is only for a moment because then some other mannys turn up, scare away Locque, and they capture Bond instead. These new mannys W-word for Columbo.

Oops, wrong picture!

Columbo tells Bond that Kristatos is really the baddy (what a twist!) who is secretly W-wording for Russia - the biggest baddys of all (except when they aren't). Columbo takes Bond with him to see what Kristatos's evil plan is. This immediately turns into a big fight between Columbo's mannys and Locque's mannys.

Locque tries to blow them all up with a bomb, so Bond chases him and makes Locque crash his car. The car ends up at the edge of a cliff, and before Locque can even say "hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea" Bond helps push the car the rest of the way off.

"He had no head for heights."

Bond quips, though best not think about that one too hard or you might notice that it doesn't make sense.

Bond visits Melina on her ship and he meets Max. They go looking for the wreck of the St Georges.

They know they have found it when they see a very convenient sign telling them.

Bond wants to go inside in order to stop any secret intelligence that might have been left on board from falling into Kristatos's paws, because then he might give it to his Russian friends. They find the ATAC machine is there, which is a top secret coding machine of the kind that Blake was always trying to steal from the Federation so we know it must be important. Also "ATAC" sounds a bit like "Orac".

They are just in time because the baddys have also sent mannys to try and steal it and they have a fight with Bond. The slow-motion nature of underwater fight scenes mean they are never as exciting as the filmmakers want them to be, but they have obviously learned a lot since the days of Thunderball because these are much better than they used to be in the '60s, with an emphasis on making the baddys visually distinctive so that we can always tell which side is which.

Bond and Melina get away with the ATAC machine, but as soon as they get back to the ship they are captured by Kristatos and Kriegler. They are thrown into the water where Kristatos hopes that sharks will nom them, but obviously they escape and Kristatos is too lazy to check, saying

"Ah, the sharks have them. Make for port."

It becomes clear to us viewers that Kristatos and Kriegler do not trust each other, and Kristatos will not let Kriegler take the machine to Russia until after he has ben paid for it. They agree a neutral place where they will exchange the ATAC for the moneys. But it turns out that we weren't the only ones that saw and heard their plan - Max the parrot also heard it, and he tells Bond and Melina that the baddys will be taking the

"ATAC to St Cyrils."

Max would later be recruited by British Intelligence and we will see him again when he returns in a later Bond film. Just the one so far, sadly, but there is still time for him to get his own spinoff since he is clearly one of MI7's more competent agents.

At St Cyrils, Bond goes to a church where he meets Q disguised as a priest. This is only an excuse for a weak joke:

"Forgive me father for I have sinned."

"That's putting it mildly, Double-Oh Seven."

It turns out that this is the wrong St Cyrils. Bond decides that Columbo will be of more help than Q in finding the right one.

Columbo takes them to the St Cyrils that would be the most cinematic location for the film's big climax - he's no fool is this Columbo, perhaps he takes after his namesake?

Bond climbs up the mountain (why is he climbing the mountain?) to get into a fight with Kristatos's henchmannys - one of whom is Ferguson from Smiley's People, the traitor! They try to push him off the mountain but he stays on using a cunning arrangement of ropes and pulleys. Bond is followed up the mountain by Melina, Columbo and some of Columbo's own henchmannys.

They try to be stealthy but inevitably this turns into a big fight. Bond fights with Kriegler until the baddy falls off the mountain. But with General Gogol about to arrive to collect the ATAC from Kristatos, Bond doesn't even have time to make a quip at Kriegler's demise. Or maybe this shows Bond's level of disdain for Kriegler was such that he didn't even consider him worthy of a quip - after all, he was hardly a henchmanny of the same stature as Jaws, was he? Mew. 

Kristatos and Columbo have a fight while Bond nicks off with the ATAC. Melina is about to shoot Kristatos when Bond tells her that killing for revenge is not the answer she really wants. This ties back to the way the film opened with Bond at Tracy's grave. He got his revenge on Blofeld by tipping him down a chimney, but he knows that it wasn't the end of the story for him because the film didn't end there and he still had to do a whole other mission afterwards. Melina decides to shoot Kristatos anyway, but then Columbo gets there first when he throws a knife at Kristatos and Kristatos goes

General Gogol arrives and wants Bond to give him the ATAC machine, but Bond smashes it instead, saying

"That's detente, comrade. You don't have it. I don't have it."

Knowing the embarrassment that Bond will shortly cause to the British Prime Minister will easily outweigh any advantages he might get from killing Bond now, Gogol just laughs and goes back to his helicopter. Also, Gogol is by now an established regular character in these films, so killing Bond would be bad for his chances of coming back for the next one.

For the now traditional final komedy scene, Q telephones Bond just as Bond is about to get up to naughtiness with Melina. She says

"For your eyes only, darling."

Clang! Naughty Melina - dropping the title as well as her clothes.

They leave the telephone with Max, so it is Max that ends up speaking to the Prime Minister. For some reason Q, the Minister and the Chief of Staff all mistaik Max for Bond and so they do not stop this from happening. Although another theory might be that they all well knew this was Max and did it on purpose to troll Mrs Thatcher, lol.

For Your Eyes Only has many great moments, including Roger Moore's only encounter with Number One, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The relatively low rating that Expensive Luxury Cat gives it should not be taken as a judgement that this film is bad, only that there are several other expensive luxury James Bond films that do it better... and not just The Spy Who Loved Me, lol!

Expensive Luxury Cat's rating: Expensive but not Luxury

An Unexpected Crossover

Ridiculous or Ridiculously Awesome moments from Mahabharat: The Road to Kurukshetra

The lesson of Mahabharat is that we took our first steps on the road to Kurukshetra the moment the very first episode began. But now that the Pandavas have completed their years of exile and still cannot come to a peaceable arrangement with their cousin Duryodhan, war between them is inevitable.

1. Duryodhan and Arjun both ask for Krishna's help, and both receive it [Episode 63]

Krishna is the incarnation of Vishnu, who is right at the top of their pantheon of gods. As a prince of the Yadavas he also has a "divine army" of a million soldiers under his command. Duryodhan and Arjun, as representatives of their opposing factions, arrive to ask Krishna to side with them. They arrive on the same day, and find Krishna having sleeps. When he wakes up, he says he will have to help both of them, and proposes that one can take his million soldiers, and the other will get

"I, alone. Unarmed. And I won't take up arms in the battlefield."

He gives Arjun the choice, because Arjun is the younger of the two.

Arjun rejects the army and chooses Krishna, which pleases Duryodhan because it means he gets the million mannys. He can't believe his luck that Arjun didn't choose it and leaves, smiling smugly. Both sides think they have gotten the best out of the arrangement, at least until Duryodhan tells evil uncle Shakuni the outcome - he is quick to tell Duryodhan how bad this is for them.

Arjun knows that, even unarmed, Krishna can still take part in a battle as a charioteer, and he wants him to be his charioteer.

2. Duryodhan tries to arrest god [Episode 65]

Evil Duryodhan's next foolish action occurs when Krishna comes to the court of Hastinapur as a peace envoy, in one last, desperate attempt to avoid war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Krishna speaks to the assembled princes and elders, and in making the case for peace over war he makes the sort of speech that Captain Kirk would be proud of.

Duryodhan not only rejects Krishna's proposal, he also insults Krishna and then calls for his guards to arrest him.

Even surrounded by soldiers, Krishna doesn't stop smiling. He manifests his divine weapon (as previously used to cut off the head of Shishupal) which is enough to frighten the guards, and then becomes giant and glows with divine light. Duryodhan has again forgotten that Krishna is the avatar of the god Vishnu, and cannot be arrested as easily as all that. We don't even need to see what happens next, the story cuts straight to the next bit...

3. Karna gives away his divine protection [Episode 65]

Karna is another character who has sworn an oath that would later come back to harm him. His oath is that if, after he finishes his daily religious worship of the sun god (who is actually his divine father), anyone asks him for a favour, he will always grant it. The god Indra knows that the sun god gave his son divine protection that makes him proof against any weapons, even divine weapons such those possessed by Indra's own son, Arjun. So Indra disguises himself as a mortal manny and visits Karna at the right time of day to ask him for a favour and have Karna be oathbound to grant it.

When asked to give up his divine shield, which takes the form of a golden shield vest and earrings that are supposed to actually be part of his body, Karna recognises Indra. He was forewarned by the sun god that this would happen. Even so, he still grants the god's request, saying

"I am proud to be the only man from whom Lord Indra himself is asking for something."

and then takes a knife and cuts away his vest and earrings.

Indra is so impressed with Karna's actions that he offers him a boon. Karna asks for the "Shakti" weapon to use against his enemy, and Indra is now compelled to grant this - so he has saved Arjun from one power of Karna, only to then arm him with another.

4. "Karna, I am your mother" [Episode 67]

Kunti reveals to Karna that she is his birth mother, and that he is therefore half-brother to the five Pandavas. Since the Pandavas are his sworn enemies, this revelation goes down about as well as you'd expect.

At first Karna suspects a trick designed to make it impossible for him to fight and even kill those he thinks to be his own family members, but Kunti's tears convince him that it is true. Since he has already sworn to kill Arjun or else die in the attempt, he cannot now promise Kunti that he will not do this, but he does promise her that he will not kill any of the other Pandavas so that, whatever the outcome of his duel to the death with Arjun, Kunti will still have five living sons at the end of the war.

5. Sage Vyasa blesses the king's charioteer [Episode 68]

Sage Vyasa visits the blind King Dhritarashtra on the eve of the war to offer him a unique blessing - "divine sight" with which he would be able to see all that occurs in the forthcoming battle from the safety and comfort of his palace. Given that Dhritarashtra knows that many of his relatives, inclusing his own sons, are likely to die in this war, he considers that this would be more of a curse than a blesssing. And given that Vyasa holds Dhritarashtra responsible for failing to stop the war, perhaps he even intended it as such.

With Dhritarashtra declining the offer, Vyasa instead gives the divine sight to Dhritarashtra's loyal charioteer, Sanjay, so that Sanjay might narrate what unfolds to Dhritarashtra.

Since Vyasa is not just a character in Mahabharat but is also the great author of the Mahabharata, this is an extremely meta power for him to be able to bestow: Vyasa enabling Sanjay to tell a tale within the tale told by Vyasa.

6. The armies assemble on the battlefield [Episodes 69-75]

Episode 69 begins with the two opposing armies travelling to the battlefield, to the tune of a ten minute musical number which lists all of the named characters who will be fighting on both sides - that there are so many characters might explain why the song needs to be so long!

You could be forgiven for expecting that this means that the great battle is about to begin, but it will be another six episodes before any fighting actually starts. There's still a lot of character development to come, plus the backstory of Prince Shikhandin (the reincarnation of Princess Amba, calling back all the way to episode 5) and the framing of the rules of war by Bhishma. Not to mention the single most significant event in the whole story...

7. Arjun and Krishna, at Kurukshetra [Episodes 72-74]

With the armies facing each other and battle about to commence, Arjun suddenly despairs at the prospect of having to fight and kill his elders, his teachers, and members of his own family. He refuses to fight until Krishna makes a long speech to convince him of his duty, and then the two of them debate philosophy until Arjun is persuaded to take up his bow again.

Occupying almost three full episodes, this dialogue is known as the Bhagavad Gita and is considered sacred by Hindus. It would not be right for me to make fun of these deeply held beliefs of millions of mannys (even though I do not subscribe to them myself, being a cat made from socks) so I will confine myself to discussing the way this vital portion of the Mahabharata is presented in this TV series, which I think could subjectively be described as being either "ridiculous or ridiculously awesome" depending upon the tastes of the viewer.

Occupying such a long, continuous stretch of the story, the viewers' attention needs to mostly be held by what Krishna and Arjun are saying, but there are some attempts to make things more visually interesting by occasionally cutting away either to Time, the all-seeing Ceiling Cat-like narrator of the series, or to Dhritarashtra and Sanjay who, thanks to the divine sight bestowed upon Sanjay, are the only other characters able to witness and comment upon what Krishna is saying to Arjun. This is used to strongly contrast Dhritarashtra against Krishna since the king hopes that Arjun will not fight, because then the victory of his son's army would be assured.

The importance of this section to the overall story can be seen from its prominent inclusion in the title sequence of every episode. The credits are shown over a series of paintings depicting events from the story, and the majority of these are of Arjun and Krishna, with emphasis on the moment when Krishna reveals his cosmic manifestation to Arjun.

When the time comes to show this event in the series, they pull out all the stops to do it justice, and attempt something much more ambitious than when Krishna last revealed his divine power back in episode 65 by becoming giant and glowing.

Judge for yourself whether their reach exceeded their grasp with this bit of SFX, but either way it certainly makes for an unforgettable moment: