Be Excellent To Each Other

Looks good to me, somewhere inbetween Robinhood and Dr Who...

Malc

We watched a bit of this. Conclusion? Meh.

Richard Wilson is poorly cast in anything, as he can't be anyone other than Victor Meldrew and ruins any chance of suspension of disbelief.

It is quite clearly Robin Hood with magic, as they're apparently using the same sets and the same "slightly modern medieval" costumes.

Watched it, but didn't really enjoy it. Wasn't a fan of Robin Hood either, though.

I didn't like Robin Hood, so didn't bother with this.

No, I never heard of it. Is it a serial? One off? Is it on BBC?

I quite liked it. As I never really watched One Foot in the Grave, I thought Wilson was great (and scarily old).

Watch the Sam Neill - Helena Bonham-Carter miniseries instead. That was thoroughly ace.

Better yet, buy a copy of Excalibur.

Rather liked this, thought it much better than Robin Hood, though not a patch on Doctor Who.

I quite liked it.

Could someone please tell me if this is the first episode as I real quite fancy watching it. I have heard nothing about it, apart from in this thread, but I like a good fantasy tale.

Yes, that's it.

Malc

Cheers Malc, didn't want to accidentally start with episode 2 or 3 and not get to watch the first

They've only aired that one so far. Episode 2 (Valiant, I think it's going to be called) is on next Saturday at 18:00 (Why the hell do they mess around with the times of these things so much?) which means we can watch it before Pauline and the Kids watch X-Factor.

Malc

I've been trying to watch it this evening but iplayer has been constantly crapping out after 10 minutes which has made it difficult.

Bad things so far:

Bloody Gwen from Torchbloodywood
Richard Wilson is just far too well known
Merlin seems a bit crap.
It's really just robin hood again isn't it?

I'm just about to watch last night's episode.

I may report back later, if it was exciting.

Starling!

How odd - I was thinking of your just yesterday for reasons that will seem too creepy to explain (not really, it was because the snooker was on, which made me think of WCS and HOW YOU NEVER PLAYED ME!)

I am also about to watch Merlin and enjoying it

Hehe! Yes, on the snooker thing, I recall saying at the time, "I'll be getting broadband in a few months, then will get sorted".

That was, what, 18 months back...

Oops!



I have got broadband now though (yay!), but must be truthful, I don't use the 360 enough to justify the online wotsit. I still play the snooker though, which remains a darned fine game.

On Merlin, I really enjoyed this latest episode, and it made me think of Lord of The Rings in places (always a good thing for me). I do think this is approx. 72% better than Robin Hood, but one annoying thing (also in RH) is the way they have the characters speak in 'modern' ways, i.e. saying "hi" and "prat" and such.

Instead of watching any of this tat, save time and just go and buy Robin of Sherwood on DVD. Fantastic cast, well made and totally enjoyable. No sops to soap stars or wanky camerawork. And anything with Richard O'Brian as a bad guy has to be good right? Actually the entire cast are just awesome and the DVD extras have Ray Winstone enthusing about his time on the show (and being a minted film star these days he's still happy to talk about the show and how proud he still is of having worked on it).

I was speaking to someone who works on a number of high profile series a few months ago doing design and helping create the "look" of shows, he was in total agreement that Sherwood was terribly under-rated and he lamented that nobody was taking that kind of care anymore. He pointed out that in all probability Sherwood cost more than the new BBC series even though it looks cheaper because shows were so much harder and expensive to make in those days. These days you can shoot the lot on video and sort everything out in post production. Sherwood did everything as live action on film and when it worked it looked a thousand times better than a load of CGI and wanky camerawork.

Yes. It's horrible. At least they did away with the "modern" clothes. Robin Hoodie? No thanks.

Anyone still watching this?

I am, and I think it is great! I don't mind the anachronistic language or any of the other criticisms. We've had the tales of Camelot presented in a more traditional way many times before, and i think this is quite fresh. I like the casting of Richard Wilson, and the oher characters I did not take to at first have grown on me. The emotional side to the storylines makes me cry each week, but mostly because I am soft as the inside of a new loaf.

Yep, still cracking on with it here (though not seen last night's yet).

I think it's mostly very good. I like the magic side of things, and this isn't overdone and can be quite creepy sometimes.

Also Wilson's good, as you say.

I've seen some episodes, but they had broadly a similar plot - character gets poisoned/injured/magicked and lies down half conscious in Richard Wilson's surgery, then other character(s) go and race against time assisting Richard Wilson in healing the poisoned/injured/magicked character.

Mehlin more like.

That sums it up, not bad for a family / kids show.. Really quite enjoy it

I keep watching it, even though I think it's gash... so clearly I like it.

Annoyingly, that chmipy one from Skins was on it yesterday. Thankfully he got shotted thought and died. That made me feel better.

Pft, it's the original late 50's Richard Greene Robin Hood for me, Chinny! Leo McKern! As a fat baron! Awesome!

(And action scenes that cost about 50p, natch.)

Another Chinny Trufact:

When writing Prince Of Thieves, they included a Saracen character called Nasir. Problem was that this character wasn't part of the original legend, but was introduced in Robin of Sherwood! There was a quick name change when Terry Walsh (stuntman on Sherwood and Prince Of Thieves and course Jon Pertwee's stunt double) pointed out the problem. But the Saracen character remained, just with a name change.