Sherwood – Just Why!

I should have known better than to watch anything on the BBC IPlayer. Like Disney these days, anything made or on the BBC misses the mark, is dreadfully politicised, and seems to pride itself on being painfully modern.

So I don’t mind a complete and utter fantasy/sci-fi type reimagining of the classic Robin Hood story, not in principle anyway. In fact, that was exactly what made me watch it. So here’s this total girlboss Robin Hood (which should probably be spelt Robyn given it’s a girl’s name, but never mind). She’s got red hair (don’t they all), and she can leap about the place, already able to do everything perfectly without any backstory, or explanation. She comes across as bossy and rude, which isn’t surprising, because you can’t be a girlboss without being bossy and rude, right. 

I have always been one to say I prefer action and bore quickly otherwise, but this feels like too much action. It is right in your face somehow, and feels exhausting. The other characters just come across as tools for the narrative to play around with and make Robin-spelt-wrong look better or able to show her feisty side with some back-and-forth. 

There is enough plot, or there should be, but the feeling of stagnation means that somehow the more that is going on, the less you feel is happening. Probably because you feel so removed from what you are watching. 

There is too much showing and too little telling. It feels like every visual is a lore drop you are never able to process because the next comes along a few seconds later.

It really doesn’t help that there a soulless pop songs playing in the background whenever any running around or whatever is going on – so, most of the time. The lyrics, are so generalised that they almost don’t fit out of being too vague. This show also has the obligatory race-dumping, and by that I mean the creators put as many different races as possible, not for representation, not because it makes sense, but for the sake of it. It’s sort of like anti-representation. 

The Robin Hood story itself is basically non-existent in this show with less references than one show might randomly make to another. The show might actually have been better if it hadn’t been based on anything. I mean, the show has barely pulled more than a couple of convenient names just to keep the ruse going. If anything, it’s distracting.