Sunday 25 February 2024

That 1190s Show


The second episode of the second series of the BBC's notoriously anachronism-prone 2006-09 Robin Hood series, "Booby and the Beast": The plot of breaking into the Sheriff's booby-trapped strongroom bears an uncanny resemblance to the 90s gameshow The Crystal Maze. (It's kind of hard to sum this up in a single screengrab, so you might want to just watch the episode.)


The sixth episode, "For England..!": The setpiece of Robin and traitorous Merry Man Allan-a-Dale being forced to fight each other over a pot of boiling oil bears an uncanny resemblance to the 90s gameshow Gladiators.


The eleventh episode, "Treasure of the Nation": The plot of a treasure hunt around Sherwood with devious cryptic clues bears an uncanny resemblance to Treasure Hunt, which was actually a gameshow from the 80s, but oh well. (It would also seem remiss in all this to not note that Little John is played by the original host of the National Lottery draw, Gordon Kennedy.)

So, clearly someone on the production team, quite probably one of creators Dominic Minghella and Foz Allan, was taking inspiration from somewhere, even if it was kind of an odd place to find inspiration for your Robin Hood series tasked with providing a contemporary feel to the legend.

And would you believe that the thirteenth episode, "We Are Robin Hood!", features an actual Gladiator, Mark "Rhino" Smith?

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