Robot of Sherwood

I've just watched a trailer for the next episode Robot of Sherwood and noticed that the Sheriff looks remarkably like the Master as played by Anthony Ainley.

Also, the BBC, as well as Australia and New Zealand, will be editing the episode for broadcast. No word yet if this will occur in the U.S. or Canada.

Just added a poll. we needed an episode discussion thread for this one...

Well, that was different-I was not expecting Robin to be the real thing! Not quite as good as last week's, but very funny, I thought.

I'll have to watch this episode again to see what I think about it.

As of now I thought it was a little bit silly.

I don't like silly.

I think they probably felt they needed a lighter episode after last week's to balance things out. Into the Dalek was pretty grim.

I've just watched Robot of Sherwood again, paying more attention this time, and just spotted Patrick Troughton in the episode.

When the Doctor and Robin begin to look at the computer banks history of Robin Hood, the third image to appear on the screen is a black and white image of Robin Hood. It's a photo of Pat Troughton.

According to Wikipedea, in 1953 he became the first actor to play the folk hero Robin Hood on television, starring in six half-hour episodes broadcast from 17 March to 21 April on the BBC, and titled simply Robin Hood.

This is the image that appeared in the episode:

karatattoo wrote:I've just watched a trailer for the next episode Robot of Sherwood and noticed that the Sheriff looks remarkably like the Master as played by Anthony Ainley.

Also, the BBC, as well as Australia and New Zealand, will be editing the episode for broadcast. No word yet if this will occur in the U.S. or Canada.

Why editing the episode for broadcast? Was there something that shouldn't have been in there, or was it for something like time?

MajorHoy wrote:

karatattoo wrote:I've just watched a trailer for the next episode Robot of Sherwood and noticed that the Sheriff looks remarkably like the Master as played by Anthony Ainley.

Also, the BBC, as well as Australia and New Zealand, will be editing the episode for broadcast. No word yet if this will occur in the U.S. or Canada.

Why editing the episode for broadcast? Was there something that shouldn't have been in there, or was it for something like time?

There was a scene in which the Sheriff was decapitated and then replaced his head during his fight with Robin, having proved to be a cyborg. They cut it out because in light of recent real world events, they thought a beheading was unacceptable. Bloody terrorists are even buggering up our Doctor Who, now.

That scene was also edited out of the BBC America broadcast.

Will it be restored for the DVD/Blu-ray release, or perhaps presented as an extra?

karatattoo wrote:That scene was also edited out of the BBC America broadcast.

Will it be restored for the DVD/Blu-ray release, or perhaps presented as an extra?

I hope so. Personally, I think editing out a fairly key scene and changing the whole ending just because of an unrelated news story was ridiculous and totally unjustified, but maybe that's just me.

tony ingram wrote:

karatattoo wrote:That scene was also edited out of the BBC America broadcast.

Will it be restored for the DVD/Blu-ray release, or perhaps presented as an extra?

I hope so. Personally, I think editing out a fairly key scene and changing the whole ending just because of an unrelated news story was ridiculous and totally unjustified, but maybe that's just me.

It may seem unrelated, but it may have also seemed in poor taste to others by airing it so close to actual events in the world. It's harder to "unsee" things, so better to err on the side of caution and perhaps restore the material at a later date that's farther removed from the real-world insanity.

It's sort of like the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC. Any movie that was planning to use those for any key scenes so close to September 11th, 2001 had to rethink those plans. (I believe there was a Spider-Man movie that was suppose to have him swinging between the towers, which would have looked impressive.) But later on, for stories set in the past, it wasn't quite such a big deal. (I still feel strange if I see pictures of them, though, just because I use to take them for granted and now they're no longer there.)

I can see that's how they were thinking, I just think they were wrong. The BBC never used to be this touchy back when the IRA were active and blowing people up on Britain's streets, so I don't see why they're being so cautious now. All that does is let the nutcases who are carrying out these atrocities know they're getting to us.

I don't know if they're going to view (temporary) editing of a Doctor Who episode as a moral victory or anything . . .

No, but they know they're getting to us because we're all talking about them and worried, and governments are talking about how we have to stop them, and a poll showed recently that US citizens think that ISIS/ISIL/EIEIO have sleeper cells in the USA! And now they want Obama/Cameron to bomb them.

More bombing. Yay.

Lucy McGough wrote:No, but they know they're getting to us because we're all talking about them and worried, and governments are talking about how we have to stop them, and a poll showed recently that US citizens think that ISIS/ISIL/EIEIO have sleeper cells in the USA! And now they want Obama/Cameron to bomb them.

More bombing. Yay.

But that has nothing to do with editing a Doctor Who episode.

Yeah, I kind of went off on a tangent.

Lucy McGough wrote:Yeah, I kind of went off on a tangent.

Are you sure you're not a politician?

I'm not very good at lying.

Lucy McGough wrote:I'm not very good at lying.

That's not a very nice way to talk about elected public servants!

After watching the episode again I like it more than I did after my initial viewing.

karatattoo wrote:After watching the episode again I like it more than I did after my initial viewing.

I've heard that from a few people...

I finally got around to watching it last night (I know, I'm really behind) and it's probably one of my favorite episodes ever. I'm predisposed to love anything with Robin Hood in it, though, so take that endorsement with a grain of salt.

Sam_Vimes wrote:I'm predisposed to love anything with Robin Hood in it, though, so take that endorsement with a grain of salt.

There's a Big Finish Robin Hood audio series. I just bought the first one, haven't listened yet. Richard Armitage is in it.

Mbast1 wrote:

Sam_Vimes wrote:I'm predisposed to love anything with Robin Hood in it, though, so take that endorsement with a grain of salt.

There's a Big Finish Robin Hood audio series. I just bought the first one, haven't listened yet. Richard Armitage is in it.

Really? Is he playing Guy of Gisborne again?

Big Finish are diversifying a lot these days, aren't they? It's pretty much impossible to keep track of everything they produce now. And they've only been around for 15 years.

I was rather hoping the DVD release of this story would restore the unnecessarily cut scene, but apparently not. A shame. I really don't understand the BBC's rationale for this decision.