Robin Hood

Over the past couple of months, I have offered you a couple of TV viewing options that you might have otherwise missed (Knights of Prosperity ["stealing from the rich to give to themselves"] and Andy Barker, P.I.). With that in mind, I am offering up another new show, Robin Hood; which premieres this Saturday, March 3rd, at 9 PM Eastern on BBC America (BTW, BBC America is my second most DVRed channel [behind NBC, naturally]. I currently record Spaced (Shaun of the Dead guys before they had Shaun of the Dead. When’s this going to get a DVD release?), Hardware (Starring Martin Freeman), and Hyperdrive (I don’t watch this one much though) and now Robin Hood.

Last night, I was able to watch the first 25 minutes (the show is an hour long) of the premiere episode (A little sneak peek is on BBC America On Demand right now). As you may have guessed, the story is about Robin Hood (“‘No Duh’ is a product of fear” – Kitty Farmer). So, you have your traditional characters (Robin, Little John, Maid Marian, and so on). I have to say that I enjoyed the first 25 minutes to the point that I was audibly upset when they cut it off.

There was a lot of good going on through out what I saw. The character of Robin is kind of arrogant but in a suave way (instead of a blunt way like Prince of Thieves’ Costner). The character comes of as a rebel with a heart of gold type. Cool enough to make out with a girl will her murderous father has his back turned, but nice enough to feed the families of people around him before he eats for himself.

Another bright spot is the combination of action, drama, and humor. Right from the beginning, we get started with some action. Soon after we get a few little quips to make us chuckle. Then some more action. Then the drama. I really dug that.

But as good as the story and characters are, there are some down points. First and foremost is the direction of the sword fighting scenes. It made me feel like I was watching a more serious episode of the Power Rangers. It was pretty cheesy. While we are talking about directing, I also did not enjoy the amount of slow motion used (has slo-mo ever been a good thing? [Don't you say the Matrix, because we all know that that was a terrible movie. Third out of the three Virtual Reality is reality movies that came out that year {#1 is Thirteenth Floor; #2 is Existenz; and #3 is The Matrix}]).

Overall, I would place it as the really successful, better looking, more charismatic cousin of Hercules/Xena. The action sequences are similar (but Robin Hood doesn’t use all that shitty CGI) and they carry a similar feel (legendary figures in a lower budget TV show).

So, if that sounds good to you. You should check out the Robin Hood on BBC America Saturdays at 9 PM Eastern.