This is late. I had a long day yesterday and I went to bed right after the episode. Deal.
- This felt a bit like a Sixth Doctor episode. At least, Twelve was acting very Six-ish.
- The Doctor fights a man wielding a sword with a spoon, I’m really not sure what to make of that. Also, where did he get that glove?
- Boy, the Doctor really stuck with that “None of this is real!” thing up until the bitter end, didn’t he.
- Nice bit of business with the Doctor wondering where Clara got her belief in heroes, and Clara being all “Duh!” What Clara is doing here is what a companion should do, showing the Doctor the best parts of himself.
- The sheriff was suitably dickish for the setting. I liked it.
- Check out Robin Hood getting all Merida up in here! Or was Merida getting all Robin Hood? Whatever.
- And the Doctor showing off in order to get captured. Nice plan. /sarcasm
- I actually kind of liked the design of the robots. I’m sure it was just a function of where and when they crashed, but it shows the amount of thought that Gatiss put in to the writing.
- The part in the dungeon with the Doctor, Robin and Clara was the part that reminded me the most of Six. With Clara being a much more proactive companion than Perri or Mel were.
- Props to the Merry Men for figuring out what was so weird about the sheriff’s plundering of the people.
- This show has a long history of overly ambitious humans allying with bad guy robots, and it never turns out well for the human. In short, the sheriff really should have known better.
- There’s a neat little easter egg in all those Robin Hood pictures that the databank on the ship displays. I didn’t notice it until someone pointed it out; but apparently, Patrick Troughton once played Robin Hood.
- You have to feel for Robin when he finds out that as far as history is concerned, he never existed. For a minute there, I was convinced he wasn’t real either.
- Of course Robin has a sword fight with the sheriff. Why wouldn’t he?
- I liked that Robin came to terms with being a legend instead of a slightly flawed real person. Of course the Doctor has been a legend in the past (the whole Oncoming Storm thing) it didn’t exactly work out well for him.
Overall this really did feel Six-ish to me. Not that that’s a bad thing, I happen to like Six, but the humor did seem to overwhelm the episode. But I didn’t hate it by any means.
Next week looks to be really creepy, things grabbing people from under beds and all that, I look forward to it.