Doctor Who: “Robot of Sherwood”
(Episode 8.03)

The “historical” episodes of Doctor Who, much like the Dalek episodes, can be a mixed bag. For every fantastic entry like “Black Orchid,” “The Aztecs” or “Vincent and The Doctor,” there are more underwhelming ones like the pirate-themed “Curse of the Black Spot” or the straight-up abysmal two-parter, “Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.” “Robot of Sherwood” may not aim for grandiosity or emotional resonance like some other installments in its vein, but one would be hard-pressed to say it’s not great fun.
At the behest of Clara, The Doctor navigates the TARDIS to 1190 Sherwood Forrest, England. The Doctor insists their voyage will be fruitless as “Robin Hood” is just a story. Upon exiting, however, he immediately comes face-to-face with a familiar-looking bearded man decked out in bright green and carrying a bow-and-arrow. He proclaims himself “Robin of Locksley,” much to Clara’s delight.
After Robin engages The Doctor in a delightfully silly swordfight (or rather a sword/spoon fight, since The Doctor uses a spoon as his weapon), the jovial hero introduces the duo to his band of Merry Men. Elsewhere the Sheriff of Nottingham is scene doing the kind of evil activities one would expect Nottingham would do—namely, kidnapping the daughter of a poor villager who has been unable to pay his dues. When the villager resists, Nottingham skewers him right in front of his horrified daughter. I should note here that it seems as if this season so far has had the biggest predilection towards a civilian body count since the Russell T. Davies era, which regularly featured the death of one or more innocents per episode. No doubt it has some connection to Moffat’s attempt to make this a “darker” season, but I believe it is worth pointing out that even the light-hearted episode features a potentially traumatic death scene.
Despite the wealth of evidence that this famed literary story involved flesh-and-blood humans, The Doctor is not convinced that any of this is real. For one, the grass and trees are far too vibrantly green for England. In one of the episode’s funnier moments, he even takes a blood sample from “Alan-a-Dale” (the lute player) and, after analyzing it, proclaims “all those diseases—if you’re real, you’d be dead in six months.”
Per the episode title, however, The Doctor soon discovers that all really is not as it seems. After Robin and The Doctor participate in an archery contest against Nottingham (another episode highlight), it is revealed that the heavily armed guards are, in fact, robots. Also, much like in “Deep Breath,” the robot’s ship is disguised as a building—in this case, the castle. It’s not too long before The Doctor learns that Nottingham wishes to uses the alien robots to take England (and soon the world) for himself. Moreover, in order to repair and power their damaged ship, the robots have been collecting gold from across the land. The problem? The gold will not be enough to fix the job, and it will explode while trying to reach orbit, thus taking a good chunk of Sherwood with it.