Will You Tolerate This?
It’s pretty common these days to bemoan popular culture for not having any original ideas. That’s as may be, but something that often gets forgotten in all this is that some stories deserve to be retold again, and again, and again. For me, the story of Robin Hood is such a tale. Though obviously no adaptation can expect to reach the heights of the Disney film, the BBC have bravely decided — based on the huge success of their new Doctor Who — to make a new, family-friendly TV series based on his exploits.
Things don’t start well though. For the first ten minutes or so, the show plays more like a Hercules rip-off than anything worthwhile, which is a bit painful. Bad jokes, an irritating sidekick, gratuitous cleavage, awkwardly established danger and somewhat contrived violence. I was concerned.
But then the story starts properly. Robin of Locksley, for those embarrassingly unfamiliar with the tale, has returned home from the Crusades to take his land back, weary of the bloodshed and violence.1 He returns to find Locksley, and the rest of Nottingham, under the oppressive thumb of the Sherrif of Nottingham — played so far over the top by Keith Allen that he probably can’t even see the top from where he is. People are having their hands chopped off for illegal hunting, and getting hanged for stealing. And so he’s faced with a choice; play the political game and try to make a difference slowly, letting some be sacrificed, or…
Well, you know the other one. Save the day, form a band of men who might be merry, cause problems. It’s when the story starts focussing on this decision that it suddenly takes a huge step up.
Casting Robin Hood is of course, a bit of a trick. Jonas Armstrong has a British accent, so they’ve dodged one arrow right there. He’s a bit young-looking for a war veteran, but everyone did things younger back in the olden days. He’s got a good level of Robin Hood roguishness, and a reasonable amount of authority, but I’ll be expecting him to get a bit more stature as the show progresses and Robin finds his niche.
As for his manservant — it’s probably not Sam Troughton’s2 fault that Much is so irritating most of the time; the dialogue is pretty dire for the most part. The scene where he recalls the horrors of the war he’s come from evens this out nicely, however, and I just hope they keep hitting this balance between fool and wounded man. Marion seems good too, though not quite as foxy as I might have hoped.3 Guy of Gisbourne is brilliantly smarmy, Alan a Dale is annoying, and no sign of Little John yet.
By the end, the episode proves itself as a respectable bit of television, but there are a few missteps. They need to bring in someone clever to be in charge of the Witty Repartee division. The violence could be a bit more polished. The Sheriff could stop crushing birdies just to prove how gosh darn evil he is. A general reduction of cheesiness wouldn’t go astray. But there’s potential.
- Yep, there’s a costly and somewhat controversial war going on in the middle-east. Early indications suggest that the show might have a little fun with this. Or, possibly, make ham-fisted political references. I’m hoping for the former. ↩
- Grandson of Patrick Troughton, Doctor Who Number Two. ↩
- How can she compare to this? ↩
andy
October 19th, 2006 at 12:26 am
Bandwidth theft? Getting into the spirit of the show?
Marion isn’t nearly as hot enough, but I like her uninterested attitude towards Robin.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 1:18 am
Who’s stealing bandwidth? It’s not stealing to link to a picture on someone else’s webpage. Only to put it on your own site.
They’re clearly holding off so as to provide years and years of UST.
andy
October 19th, 2006 at 1:45 am
That’s regular stealing. You’re stealing bandwidth.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Did you read that page before you linked it? I think you’ll find all the links in this review are the regular sort, and not hot in any way.
Jack
October 19th, 2006 at 2:43 am
How is the other pages relavant? Aren’t we talking about this site?
Anyway the picture of Marianne isn’t hotlinked because it isn’t actually shown on this site, although the sentence “It’s not stealing to link to a picture on someone else’s webpage” is incorrect depending on how you interpret it so perhaps it’s best to avoid ambiguous comments.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 2:51 am
I meant that page with the review on it. That was badly written. I’ll fix it because I have that power.
My comments here today have been peppered with inaccuracy and ambiguity but I think we’re losing track of the fact that what I’m trying to say is undeniably right. When I said “link” I meant with an a tag and nothing else but that’s not necessarily always what it means.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 2:53 am
Say, how about that Robin Hood, eh?
andy
October 19th, 2006 at 5:21 am
On the three computers I have used this afternoon, your link to http://www.vickifox.com/Pics/Anim/celrh03.jpg has given me the error message ‘Forbidden. You don’t have permission to access /Pics/Anim/celrh03.jpg on this server.’ That’s usually because you’ve linked straight to the picture rather than the webpage. It’s not different to having the picture embedded in the review; readers are still going to view the image from vickifox.com without going to that website.
I’m not watching this show if there’s going to be years of UST.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 7:37 am
What’s wrong with UST? It’s like the garnish on a good show. Of course, if the show’s no good the UST’s pointless, but it makes a good show better. Once they started milking it a bit, The X-Files got a lot of life from the UST.
Ah, wish you’d mentioned the error in the beginning. I’m now linking to the page. It had multiple pictures on it, some not of Marion which was why I went for the individual image (which worked for me initially) but it’s not a problem.
That said, it is different — people are going to the website, they can see they’re going there, they click a link to get there, it’s in the address bar. It’s not hotlinking by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just linking to content on someone else’s server. The main reason for hotlinking being a problem is that their image gets loaded every time your page is viewed which is patently not the case with a link. It’s not as generous as linking to the page but it’s better than taking the picture to our server and it’s not bandwidth stealing. Ahem.
andy
October 19th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
The website I linked to states that ‘Bandwidth theft or “hotlinking” is direct linking to a web site’s files (images, video, etc.).’ which you did and admitted too. I know there is a slight difference; you didn’t show the image on the review page so you’re not guilty of first degree hotlinking but you’re still linking straight to their stuff, using up their bandwidth. People don’t look at the address bar; I present as evidence of this, the success of phishing scams currently. So Your Honour, you have no choice but to find this man guilty!
I think it’s better to host the image on your own server than to link to it like you did if you want to use it. Neither options are ideal but at least you’re not in danger of the link becoming broken or having the image changed without your knowledge.
It worked for you because it’s in your browser’s cache. The link works for me too if I copy the address into the address bar to get the pic into my cache and then use the link.
If I’d mentioned the error at first off, you’d’ve known what I was talking about, which what SunTzu in his Art of War warned people not to do. “Never let the enemy know your position”, he said. Besides, I wanted to make a point that you should link to the page for reasons other than preventing an error message.
I don’t watch Dawson’s Creek or Smallville but I have a friend who says that the UST there is very frustrating. I guess Marion has to act neutral to remain on the inside.
Tom
October 19th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Indeed. There’s a plot reason for the UST. That should be justification enough for at least three years.
Your honour, I submit that Sun here is splitting hairs and that there is a huge difference between hotlinking and linking directly to images. One can have a huge impact on bandwidth due to the image being sought out every time the page is loaded (whether by human or bot). The latter only arises when someone specifically clicks on the link. I respectfully submit that folks taken in by phishing scams are not the sort of people who come to this website.
Nevertheless, the best solution would have been to take the picture here and credit it to the website with a link to their page.
auxOff
March 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Just want to express gratitude for information :)