Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Six

Robin challenges Guy of Gisbourne to a duel. Guy tries to say "I do not duel with vagrants" but Marion says

"You may tell him that Sir Guy is afraid."

and this convinces Guy to accept the challenge.

Litle John worries that Guy won't fight fair, and he wonders why Robin is so confident. This prompts Robin to tell him of the prophecy from back in part one that he can only die by a woman's paw. This also reminds the viewers at home about this, because otherwise we might not remember it because it hasn't been mentioned since then. John asks

"Did she say by a woman's hand, or for a woman's hand?"

since he knows Robin is fighting for Marion's sake more than just to avenge the death of her uncle Sir Kenneth.

Robin and Guy have a big fight in a wood while the Merry Mannys and some soldiers look on. As one would hope for a big climactic fight in the final episode of the series, this is the best choreographed fight so far, so even though it goes on for a while it does not get boring. Eventually Robin wins, and Guy lies down as though to have some sleeps.

Robin rescues Marion and takes her to her uncle's house, which is now her house.

Meanwhile, Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham have been off in their own plot, which involves having noms with a bishop. The bishop bores them senseless by going on and on about how good King Richard is, which is a shortpaw way of letting us viewers know that he is a goody bishop and not a baddy bishop, so he refuses to team up with them.

It is the law that any series about heroic outlaws has to have a plot where the baddys pretend to be the outlaws in order to discredit them - a typical (though hardly good) example of this can be seen in The Water Margin episode 13 When Liang Shan Po Robbed the Poor. Since we haven't had that plot in this series yet, and this is the last episode, we get that now. Some fake Merry Mannys ambush the bishop and murder him, but let his friends escape thinking this was done by Robin Hood. Previously friendly villagers start turning against the Merry Mannys and helping the soldiers to capture them. Zzzzz.

With the bishop ded, Prince John now has enough power to take over as regent, so he has the current regent arrested. He just has time to sit on the throne and try on the crown before his mother and King Richard arrive to take it away from him.

Some scenes of Friar Tuck walking around while being ill go on for waaaaay too long, and seem calculated to undo the goodwill for the episode we got from the high standard of the earlier fight scene. Between this and the fake Merry Mannys plot this episode has really nosedived in quality.

Fortunately the fake Merry Manny who robbed and killed the bishop is caught when using the items he stole to pay for his drinks, and he admits to Robin that the Sheriff made him do it, so at least this plot is being dispensed with. But I am disappointed in the Sheriff for resorting to such a dreadfully clichéd scheme, mew. Maybe he was just doing it to troll us?

King Richard rounds up all of Prince John's supporters, until only the Sheriff and his henchmanny-of-the-week Sir Brian are left. The Sheriff decides to escape from the castle using the secret passage from part five.

At the same time Robin tells the king about the secret passage, so that when the Sheriff comes out he is immediately captured. The king says the Sheriff has done so many crimes that "the pity is you can only die once" - yet another reason why mannys (even ones played by Paul Darrow) are rubbish and cats are best.

This is the last we see of the Sheriff of Nottingham, but at least we know Paul Darrow will be back the next time the BBC decide to make a series about outlaws. The king pardons Robin, and there is a happy ending if you turn the DVD off at this point.

Robin goes to his house at Huntingdon now that he has been made the earl again, but then he gets ill with the same sickness as we saw Friar Tuck had earlier on. Guy of Gisbourne's sister comes in and gives him poison instead of medicine.

This is followed by another tedious scene of Robin staggering around, which clearly seems to be the director's preferred method of padding out an episode to reach the required length. Eventually Robin goes

This series is very variable in quality. Every scene with Paul Darrow in it is great (as you would expect), and the bits where he has his top off even more so, but you have to sit through a lot of padding and questionable story choices to get to the good parts.

Made in the mid-70s, this series was clearly a reaction against earlier versions of the legend of Robin Hood (clang!), most obviously the superb Disney animated movie made only a couple of years before this. Generally these earlier film and TV adaptations featured larger-than-life characters and swashbuckling adventures, so perhaps this was an attempt to make a down-to-earth, realistic version by way of contrast.

Unfortunately, I think they went way too far in that direction, and the decision to kill off many of the main characters - starting with Will Scarlet and finishing with Robin himself - was a mistaik because it made the series much less fun to watch. Not to mention greatly reducing any chances of there being a second series with further adventures of the Sheriff of Nottingham Merry Mannys, possibly with them getting in a new manny to be Robin Hood.

What was really needed was a middle ground between the OTT heroics of the earlier Robin Hoods and this all too grim and gritty interpretation of the 12th century. Perhaps ITV would have more success with their retelling of the legend of Robin Hood when it was their turn to have a go in the 1980s...

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Five

The news from the crusade is that King Richard has been captured by Leopold of Austria, who is demanding 150,000 moneys as ransom. This sounds like quite a lot, if only there was a well-known idiom to describe it, mew.

The Merry Mannys find out that Prince John has been keeping the taxes for himself instead of sending them on to the Chancellor.

Prince John tells the Sheriff of Nottingham his latest scheme is to pay Leopold even more moneys to keep the king prisoner forever. The Sheriff says

"Such skill. Such a simple plan. And so watertight.

The future begins to look very bright."

He's a poet and he know it.

Sir Kenneth has finally realised what a baddy Sir Guy of Gisbourne is, and regrets getting Marion engaged to him. He summons Robin to meet him, and swears Robin to secrecy before bringing in Queen Mother Eleanor (last seen by us in part two). She asks Robin to help her raise the ransom moneys for Richard, and he tells her about the moneys that Prince John has been keeping. Eleanor makes Robin her deniable agent and gives him an mission to steal the money for her, if he chooses to accept it.

One of Sir Guy's spies tells him about Eleanor and Robin's meeting, and Sir Guy tells the Sheriff, who quickly deduces what the meeting was about, making Robin's mission even more impossible. When the Merry Mannys find out about the increased security that Sir Guy puts on the moneys, Friar Tuck deduces that they know that they know about it.

Little John knows about a secret passage into Nottingham Castle, so the Merry Mannys sneak in. Robin captures the Sheriff and Sir Guy, and the Sheriff makes an "oh noes!" face, lol.

The Merry Mannys escape with the moneys in sacks, and leave the Sheriff and Sir Guy tied up. As soon as they are gone, one of the henchmannys frees the Sheriff and he shouts

"Guards! Guards!"

The guards, guards chase the Merry Mannys and have a fight with them, but we don't see much of the fight because it is dark outside.

Most of the Merry Mannys escape, but Little John gets captured. The Sheriff tries to seduce Little John into betraying Robin and the others, and I use the word "seduce" advisedly...

"You're a big, strong, healthy fellow, well able to enjoy the pleaseures of life, I'll wager. They will be yours, in abundance, when you tell me what I want to know."

Purr. Well I'd be convinced, but somehow Little John resists the temptation.

Sir Guy has a different plan to find out where the Merry Mannys are headed with the moneys. He kidnaps Marion to try to force Sir Kenneth to tell him, but all this results in is Sir Kenneth having a swordfight with him. This ends with Sir Guy stabbing Sir Kenneth, who goes

The rescue attempt for Little John involves the Merry Mannys infiltrating the castle grounds in a variety of disguises, including a couple as women for some good old-fashioned komedy hijinks when one of the guards takes a fancy to them.

Before sending him to be hanged, the Sheriff asks Little John one last time if he will tell him where the rest of the Merry Mannys have gone, and it seems as though Little John has finally succumbed to the Sheriff's charms (well... he's only a cat manny) because he says he will tell him.

Sheriff: "Excellent! Where have they taken the money?"

Little John: "Next time you see a rainbow, run as fast as you can. They're going to bury the money at the end of it."

Lol, he totally pwned you there, Sheriff! This makes the Sheriff very angry, and so he demands that the hangmanny make Little John dance.

The hangmanny is revealed to be Robin in disguise, and he rescues John instead of making him dance (or hanging him, mew). When they get back to their base, they find out about what happened to Sir Kenneth and that Marion is still Sir Guy's prisoner.

This is a proper cliffhanger, what with it even ending on a sudden cut to Robin's mildly concerned-looking face.

This instalment feels like a proper Robin Hood story, and on top of that it has loads of good scenes for the Sheriff in it, so this is comfortably the best episode since part two.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Four

Here's a promising start to the episode, as the first scene features the Sheriff of Nottingham (purr) who was badly underused in part three. He meets with a messenger (played by Roy "Sandbaggers" Marsden - alas he has no scenes in common with Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) acting on behalf of a mysterious "superior." It seems there is another secret plan being hatched. Sir Guy of Gisbourne is worried that Robin Hood will interfere, what with him being the hero, so the Sheriff tells his henchmannys to try and catch Robin.

Robin and his Merry Manny Ralph are not so merry when they find a village has had all of its noms taken by Sir Guy and the Sheriff's soldiers as taxes. The village head manny is played by William "Crown Court barrister Martin O'Connor" Simons, but even his extensive legal experience can't help him here when the laws are whatever the Sheriff says they are.

Robin and Ralph get into a fight with the Sheriff's henchmannys at the same river where Robin first met Little John (well you can't blame them, really... location scouting is a tricky business, mew), and things look bad for them until the other Merry Mannys arrive to help. This victory makes Robin bold, so they decide to go on the offensive against any baddys who enter Sherwood Forest, robbing from them to give to the poor.

The first manny we see them rob tells them "[the Sheriff] shall hear of this!" to which Robin replies

"I hope he will. And be sure to tell him that you have also paid Robin Hood's taxes."

The Sheriff doesn't take this news well, and again threatens his henchmanny with punishment if he doesn't catch Robin. He also takes it out on the villagers Robin helped, increasing their taxes "by half." I think that means he has just reduced their taxes to half of what they were, which is nice of him.

When he sends out henchmannys to tell the villagers this, the Merry Mannys capture them and hang them up in just their underwear, lol.

The Merry Mannys capture a knight called Sir Richard of the Lea, and we can immediately tell he must be a significant character because he's played by Bernard "Marcus Scarman" Archard - and you don't waste him on a small part unless you're Krull.

Sir Richard says he knew Robin's father, and then tells his tale of how he owes the "Abbot of St Marys" 400 moneys and was on his way to tell the abbot he could not pay it. Robin gives him 400 of the moneys they had robbed as a present before he sends Sir Richard on his way.

This evil abbot isn't the one who got stabbed back in part two - he is a different, other evil abbot, played by Kevin Stoney. Roy Marsden's character turns out to be his Brother Prior, and presumably one of the other ones is an equally dickish Brother Jerome. Sir Richard comes in and begs the abbot for more time, but then when the abbot says no he throws down the moneys and insults him, calling him "a shame to his office" in front of all his monks. This is a serious diss.

Sir Richard thanks Robin for his help by telling him that the abbot will be meeting with the Sheriff and Sir Guy to discuss their latest plan to team up and help Prince John become king.

Several long, slow scenes of Sir Guy leading the baddys - both monks and soldiers - through the forest do their best to build suspense send us cats to sleep, before the Merry Mannys finally spring their ambush. There is a big fight and Will Scarlet goes

but the goodys win in the end, and this convinces the evil abbot not to team up with the Sheriff and Sir Guy. The story ends with the Sheriff making a 'whyioughtta...' face at Sir Guy for his failure, lol.

This is a better episode than part three, with a lot more Sheriff of Nottingham in it, but it is still quite ponderous and surprisingly unexciting - even in the action scenes.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Three

With Robin outlawed and the abbot who used to live in it ded, Sir Guy of Gisbourne has been given his house to live in. Robin and his Merry Mannys have a new house - a secret studio set which Friar Tuck found hidden under Sherwood Forest.

One of the Sheriff of Nottingham's henchmannys reports having seen Robin in the forest, causing the Sheriff to make an 'oh noes' face because he thought Robin was still captured by the monks from part two.

Prince John wants the Sheriff to capture Robin alive so that he can talk to him "privately" - which I suspect is code for something naughty, based on the way this series has gone so far. He says he admires Robin for defying the king, something he has so far only been prepared to do secretly.

Robin hears about another outlaw, John Little, who already has the nickname "Little John" because, having spent a full third of its duration on Robin's backstory, the series has no time to waste on anybody else's. Robin makes friends with him in the traditional manner - by having a fight with him until they both fall in the river and get wet.

While they probably didn't enjoy getting wet, they certainly enjoyed the next bit where they got to dry off together while topless. This really is something of a theme for this series, isn't it?

One of the new Merry Mannys that joined along with Little John is a fake, and he betrays Robin to Sir Guy so that Robin gets captured (again). From the tower where he is imprisoned, Robin sees Marion and she sees him. She sneaks in to see him disguised as a servant, and smuggles a knife in for Robin and a message out for Will Scarlet.

With help from the knife and from the real servant, Robin escapes from the tower. Thanks to the message, the Merry Mannys are waiting outside the castle for him and he is able to leap to freedom.

The Sheriff's henchmanny chases them, but he gets covered in noms while they get away. While this is an amusing bit, it gets even funnier in the next scene when the henchmanny is still covered in the noms while Sir Guy does the traditional angrily-calling-him-a-fool-then-saying-he-wants-Robin-found bit, lol.

Robin knows he was betrayed, but not by whom. Little John tells him that one of their mannys was found ded that morning, and from this he deduced that this was how the manny was rewarded by Sir Guy for his treachery.

Little John also tells Robin about a madwoman who lives in a cave, and from this Robin and Tuck deduce where the next bit of plot is. Tuck persuades the madwoman to tell them her story, about how every other manny from her village was captured by the Sheriff's henchmannys and taken to do W-word in a silver mine. Oh noes!

Of course they all have to be topless while they do it, like Blake and Vila in Horizon. I can't imagine why Prince John (who turns out to be in charge of the mine) would insist on that, mew...

The Merry Mannys rescue the prisoners, and Robin confronts Prince John. This is so that Prince John knows who did the rescuing. As one John (Little) helps Robin steal the silver, the other John (Prince) shouts threats at Robin about what he will do to him when he catches him. These are along the lines that he wants Robin to be well hung. Mew.

When Robin doesn't hang around (so to speak) to listen to him, the prince has to resort to addressing his threats directly to the camera - an oddly effective way of demonstrating his impotence in the present situation. It is upon this moment that the episode ends.

While part two was always going to be a hard act to follow, this is definitely a big letdown, with a minimal appearance by the Sheriff and a plot that wouldn't have been out of place if used as filler 4 episodes into a 13-part serason - suffice to say this seems much worse when it forms part three of an only six-part series.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Two

Part two is written by Robert Banks Stewart so good luck seeing this on the BBC iPlayer any time soon.

The bandits have a fight with Robin and knock him out, but decide not to kill him when their leader, Will Scarlet, recognises the ring he wears. Will tells Robin about the evil abbot who has been living in Robin's house, and then they go to the house where they find the abbot has gone, but he has also stolen all of the furniture - including the DVD player. Oh noes!

All that has been left behind is Friar Tuck, as played by Tony "Ensor" Caunter. Tuck leads them to where the abbot has stashed the stolen items in a barn, and Robin and Will set it on fire. This is only a distraction so that they can ambush the guards and then steal back Robin's things.

Tuck tricks the abbot into going back to Robin's house for some treasure that had been "left behind" but instead finds that Robin has got there first, just like Blake getting there ahead of Travis in Seek-Locate-Destroy. The abbot is sent away with only the things that actually belong to him.

There is a rather dull and historically dubious subplot about King Richard's mother Eleanor of Aquitaine trying to persuade him to make Prince John regent while Richard is away on crusade. Dubious because Richard was Eleanor's favourite son, while John was the favourite of their father King Henry, so she would have been unlikely to side with John over Richard. If the writer had watched The Devil's Crown then he would have known this, but we have to let him off since that wasn't made until three years after this, mew.

All things considered, so far this has been a bit of a dull episode in general, but don't worry, because it is about to get really very good indeed...

Purr purr purr!

Prince John and the Sheriff are having a sauna together. This is completely gratuitous and absolutely wonderful, purr. I think some plot happens as well but you can hardly expect me to concentrate on a thing like that when Paul Darrow has got his moobs out.

Did nobody tell Terry Nation that they were allowed to have scenes like this on Blakes 7? Countdown could have looked very different if they had. Or maybe they just didn't have the budget to have a space sauna on the Liberator? Mew.

Robin finally meets the Sheriff after he hears about the previous scene Sheriff hanging a manny from his estate.

Robin suspects the Sheriff of being economical with the actualité after he describes the hanged manny despite claiming to not have met him. When challenged on this the Sheriff says he saw him when he was hanged - you're going to have to go to bed earlier than that if you want to catch the Sheriff in it, Robin!

When Robin leaves, the Sheriff is convinced he knows nothing that can hinder his secret plan, which he tells to the abbot... er, that Robin knows nothing, I mean. The abbot already knows their secret plan, presumably. However, by the time Sir Guy arrives to do some more plotting with them, the Sheriff is having doubts about what Robin might know.

Robin has kiffs with Marion, but the king finds out about it and he doesn't like Robin having kiffs with anybody else. And in case you think that's me making a little John joke, here is his line of dialogue:

"Do you think I don't know about mutual affection? I didn't ask to take a liking to you, but you appear and I made you my squire, and now in a sense you betray me."

The abbot gets stabbed off-screen and confesses the secret plan, but the priest he is confessing to is more concerned with stealing all of his jewellery. This means Robin is the only one who finds out about the plan to kill the king once he is sailing away to go on crusade. Unfortunately, he then gets captured by Servalan's randomly Scottish henchmanny from Gambit.

The manny who stabbed the abbot turns out to have been one of the Sheriff's henchmannys all along, and he tells the Sheriff that Robin heard the confession. To prove that he is really a competent henchmanny, he then gives the Sheriff Robin's ring to let him know they have captured him, which makes the Sheriff do an Avonesque smile and a Cybermannyesque

"Excellent."

"What's to be done with him?"

"Oh... kill him."

The Sheriff gives the ring to the king as evidence that Robin has run away, and the king is so enraged by this that he outlaws Robin on the spot. And about time too, it took Blake half the time it took Robin to become a convicted criminal, and that in a much longer series. I was beginning to think this whole series was going to be one long origin story for Robin Hood, like one of those Marvel movies we hear so much about.

Will Scarlet rescues Robin from the randomly Scottish henchmanny, and Robin rushes to warn the king about the secret plan to murder him. The king takes his advice about the plot on board, but he also tells Robin to go away and that he is still outlawed. And that's the end of the episode.

A practically purrfect piece of television. Shame about the Robin Hood stuff.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part One

Sadly nothing to do with Legend from Gladiators, this is a little-known BBC adaptation of the legend of Robin Hood (clang!) from 1975.

It lives in the shadow of other film and television versions of the Robin Hood story, both before (such as 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood film, starring Errol Flynn, or the 1955 TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, with its famous theme song) and since (for example 1984's Robin of Sherwood series, or the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) this was made.

But this version has one thing that none of the others have, that sets it clearly above them in the eyes of all cats. Only Maid Marian and her Merry Mannys or Disney's animated Robin Hood can even come close... and there's not enough Cats in the latter.

It begins with a pre-titles scene in which we see Robin Hood as a little baby, who is to be hidden away so that his father's enemies can't kill him.

The first thing we see after the low-key titles is the grown up Robin is good at archery. He has an argument with a couple of Norman soldiers, which establishes that he doesn't like Normans.

Later, Robin is told who his real father is - the noble Earl of Huntingdon. Robin takes this news a bit better than Luke Skywalker did, but maybe that was because he hadn't just had his paw cut off? He is told to go to see King Richard to claim his inheritance, and given a ring and a letter as evidence since all the mannys who the king might believe are ded. The only trouble is that he has to do this quickly, because the king is expected to soon be off abroad on his holiday crusade.

The next scene introduces us to the main character - the Sheriff of Nottingham, as played by...

Paul Darrow! Purr.

The Sheriff is meeting with Prince John, who is played by David "not from Guildford after all" Dixon. They are plotting what to do once King Richard has left the country, and John has the expectation that he will be left in charge as regent. The Sheriff is shown playing chess so that we know he is intelligent, and the fact that he is playing against himself suggests that he hasn't yet met anybody whom he considers a worthy opponent.

Robin is travelling to London when he meets Sir Kenneth Neston (John "moral duty" Abineri), Lady Marion (Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) and their entourage. Their cart has broken down and Robin helps them to mend it. After they have gone, Robin meets an old woman who prophesies that he

"will never die, save by a woman's hand, heh heh heh."

In accordance with the law of conservation of narrative detail, this is now certain to come true in some way by the end of the series. And given it involves the title character's death, likely to be at the end of the series. Robin tries to follow the old woman, but finds she has vanished... mysteriously.

Robin meets Sir Kenneth and Marion again at an inn, and now Robin finds out that Marion is supposed to soon be marrying Sir Guy of Gisbourne, who is a Norman. This prompts a cut to another scene where we see Sir Guy for the first time - he is being played by William "bargain basement Oliver Reed" Marlowe, last seen by me in Doctor Who's The Mind of Evil where he played second fiddle to another great acting baddy - so it looks as though there has been no change in his fortunes since then, lol.

Sir Guy is sat having noms with an abbot and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and he talks about how he might reject Lady Marion while staring right at the Sheriff. You can't marry him instead, Sir Guy! Although I can understand why you might want to. Again we see that the Sheriff is the level-headed, clever one out of the baddys when he is forced to explain the advantages of the marriage to Sir Guy in terms of inheriting her uncle's land.

The next day Robin again saves Sir Kenneth, Marion and their mannys, this time from an attack by some bandits. Then Sir Guy arrives and takes over, sending Robin on his way.

A scene at the royal court introduces us to King Richard, here played by Michael-John Jackson - not to be confused with anyone with a similar name that you may have heard of. He has no intention of making Prince John regent so John has a temper tantrum and, strangely, this doesn't get him his way.

King Richard meets with Robin to prove his identity. He tells Robin to take off his tunic and shirt and turn around, at which Robin hesitates - he must have been hoping this would happen when he met the Sheriff, not the king, lol! The king sees Robin's birthmark and agrees that he is the Earl of Huntingdon. For an Earl of Huntingdon, Robin doesn't sound nearly as Scottish as the real Earl was around this time in history.

The Sheriff's abbot friend has been living in the Earl of Huntingdon's house, and now the king commands that he move out so that Robin can move in. He goes straight to the Sheriff to complain, but the Sheriff coolly describes it as only "a temporary setback."

The abbot says it is worse than that, because he is in debt and now the moneylender wants his moneys back. This makes the Sheriff's eyes go wide and he says

"You're a fool!"

The abbot nearly gives away a secret plot of theirs, but the Sheriff interrupts him in time by grabbing the abbot by the collar.

"We're alone! No one can hear us!"

insists the abbot, but he has forgotten that we the audience can still hear them. The cunning Sheriff hasn't, though, so we don't get to find out what their secret plot is... yet. The Sheriff then holds a knife to the abbot's throat and makes him swear to "be as silent as the grave, my dear abbot."

This is a great scene, with Paul Darrow getting a chance to be properly villainous. It's just a shame he hasn't actually met Robin Hood yet.

Speaking of Robin, he is out riding on a horse when some outlaws see him and get ready to ambush him. Robin rides on unawares, into the end credits. It's sort of a cliffhanger, but there's no crash zoom to his face.

This is quite a slow first episode - it is very talky, with only one short action scene (when Robin rescued Marion and Sir Kenneth) - but it does have to introduce us to quite a lot of characters. In that regard it is pretty effective, since by the end we are left quite clear on who the main players are and what their key traits are. The Sheriff of Nottingham, for instance, seems to be a manny of reason, not action.

On the other paw, there is such a thing as being too leisurely in your pacing - we haven't even met the Merry Mannys yet! Blakes 7 may have taken multiple parts to introduce its main characters, but there were 52 episodes of that - here there are only six.

On the third paw, we can clearly see that the Sheriff has claws when he needs to...