Daily Archives: Sunday, 26th November 2006
Robin Hood – Tattoo? What Tattoo?
Now this was a slightly different episode. In the pre-titles sequence, we’re taken back to Robin’s time on the Crusade. He’s involved in a slight altercation with a Saracen who, having stabbed Robin, tries to kill King Richard. Naturally, it’s a dream, and Robin wakes up just in time for the opening titles.
The outlaws raid Marian’s home, just in time to hear Gisbourne tell the assembled nobles that Marian has agreed to marry him. After relieving people of their valuables, Robin takes the ring that Gisbourne has just placed on Marian’s finger, which gets Gisbourne a bit upset. The usual fight follows, during which Robin cuts Gisbourne on the arm, revealing a tattoo that Robin has seen before…
Lots more fun and games follow. Djaq is captured by the Sheriff’s men, and it takes them a quite unbelievably long time to notice that she isn’t a boy. Robin, realising that the “Saracen” who tried to kill the King was actually Gisbourne, completely loses the plot. I mean seriously loses it. Forgetting his vow to never kill anyone, he has to be stopped by his friends before he can kill Gisbourne.
There’s lots of the usual silliness – a rescue attempt that goes wrong (“It’s a trap!”), a side-plot involving a vial of acid, and the Sheriff’s attempt to get Djaq to make some more, and a very long fist fight between Robin and Gisbourne.
In the end, the evidence is destroyed (that acid came in handy for the Sheriff), and the outlaws escape just in the nick of time, as you might expect, and head back to the forest, where they all settle down again. Though there is the little matter of Will Scarlett having said that he thinks he’s in love with Djaq. I wonder where that will lead…
Related posts
Torchwood – Countrycide
There’s something nasty going on in the Brecon Beacons. People are disappearing without a trace, and concerned that something nasty might have come through the Rift[1], the Torchwood team leave their usual city location for the countryside.
It all gets a bit messy very quickly – bodies stripped of all their flesh, mysterious figures seen fleetingly, and a general atmosphere of menace. And it’s all a quite lovely piece of misdirection. Given the stories so far, what we’re expecting is some nasty alien wossname, or maybe even some supernatural thingy that’s come through the Rift. And it all builds up nicely along those lines.
So when the real horror is revealed, it’s even more shocking. Jack gets quite upset about it and comes to the rescue of the rest of the team at the traditional last moment[2], doing an action hero routine with a pump-action shotgun.
Gwen is still having a wee bit of trouble adjusting to the new world she’s found herself in. And it’s the horror she’s experienced, and knowing that she can’t talk to anyone else about her new life, that leads to her starting an affair with Owen. All that bubbling sexual tension had to go somewhere, I suppose…
I’m deliberately not revealing the details of this episode – if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll understand why when you do. Let’s just say that it’s really nasty. A good slice of horror, and a bit more insight into the characters. Good stuff. 
[1] Odd spacetime thingy in Cardiff. Stuff drops through it all the time, some of it strange, some of it very nasty indeed. And yes, I am from Cardiff, so stop laughing at the back there!
[2] Oooooh, about five seconds later, and Ianto would have had his throat slit…
