Robin Hood 1.2

The Dominic Minghella Robin Hood is still curiously missing heart and soul, I'm afraid. The annoying thing is that it's watchable but there are frequent moments of pain. Robin's and Much's vests looked as if they had been bought from Marks & Spencer and rolled in some Hungarian mud, and damaged the mediaevalness of the Robin experience. A decision has clearly been made to give these characters a hard fight towards heroism, but none of them seem particularly attractive and if anything they remain weak. Little John and his men spent too much time declaring their self-interest, to the effect that their eventual journey to Nottingham to rescue Robin seemed implausible; the exchange between John and his son didn't ring true somehow. The series seems far more interested, and to believe in, the sheriff and Guy of Gisburne; their motives seem credible, underlined by the sheriff's casual but effective tongue-cutting sadism. (Notice that this Sheriff is called 'Vesey', not Robert de Rainault; while the latter name wasn't original to the Nickolas Grace sheriff of Robin of Sherwood it's been put aside in a clear attempt to avoid Richard Carpenter's lawyers knocking on the door.) I'm not convinced by the dynamic between the outlaws, either.

Still, Paul Cornell writes next week's, and he's been defending the series stoutly on his blog.