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.
