TV Watch: Robin Hood, Season One

Being sick really kinda sucks. Sure, you get to do all of the things you normally would love to have an excuse to do - eat ice cream for dinner, shuffle around in pajamas, laze around on the couch and generally moan when someone asks you to do something responsible (this, unfortunately, turned into a kind of moaning recursive loop since The Girl was at least equally sick at the same time). You get to catch up on all sorts of video games and movies - but at the same time you feel like you're just waiting to feel better.

Basically trying to relax and have fun actually turns into a chore. It's evil.

So let me preface that my view of Robin Hood, BBC's recent television show about the classic, might be a bit colored by the above facts. That's not to say we didn't enjoy the show - and in fact devouring the entire 13 episode first season was a pretty decent chore while we shuffled about moaning like zombies.

Basically the show boils down to a very British version of Xena. The plots aren't terribly complicated, there's a bit of touch and go when it comes to history, and most of the plot points involve fight scenes involve fight scenes. It's not nearly as cheesy as the old Raimi shows, mind you, at least not usually - and by the end of the first season you see the some shadow of depth forming. The show tries admirably to flesh out Robin as a war veteran, hero of the people and lovesick puppy. When it works, it works well and when it doesn't - well, he's generally doing something tricky with a bow so you don't really care.

If anything sells the show, though, it's the Sheriff. The basic theme of the character is "someone evil who really enjoys his job" and it is played out for every ounce. Most of the other characters are moderately two dimensional, but still enjoyable and the while the show doesn't fall into the "he's good with knives" formula of story telling too much - we certainly hope the second season finds more plot motifs than "break into Nottingham Castle and get something out".

Recommended in that beach read kind of way.