Robin Hood BBC series

[Ernest Rister]

The problem with the series is that Robin is adept at breaking into Nottingham Castle whenever it suits him, or engaging in all kinds of derring do, but if he only stopped on one of those trips into Nottingham and shot a few arrows into the right people, he would alleviate all the suffering of the townspeople, end the repression, end the danger to himself and his men, and restore justice to the land.

Does this ever happen?

Nope.

Why?

Gotta keep the series running. So Robin runs away. There's an episode where Robin catches the Sheriff and has him tied to a tree. Does Robin kill him? Well, he certainly wants to, and he struggles the whole episode with the question. If you think about it logically, though, you know what the outcome is going to be. Of course, Robin can't kill him. It's a TV series, and he's a high-profile character. He has to be back next week.

It's that kind of internal logic gap that frustrates me about much of episodic television. There was an episode of The X-Files in its eighth season when Dogget was killed, and then an Indian Shaman regurgitated gallons of grey goo into a body mold, and then the body mold formed into a new body for Dogget. Now one would think being reincarnated via the vomit of a Native American would tend to make one more open to extreme possibilities. Nope. Next week's episode, Dogget was the doubting thomas again.