The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) is scribbling on a random blackboard and asking Clara (Jenna Coleman) where she wants to go. He also feels the need to restate the rules of the TARDIS. Fortunately, Clara doesn't care, and also she's always wanted to see Robin Hood, because he's awesome. Kudos, Clara! The Doctor says that he's made up, which Clara sort of expected him to say. All heroes are made up, explains the Doctor. Clara claims that he is a real hero. He looks awkward. I feel awkward. The Doctor wants to go to Mars with his shiny spoon, but Clara refuses to be dissuaded, even though he waves the spoon around to punctuate his words. The Doctor sets the co-ordinates for Earth, England, Sherwood Forest circa 1190 AD, and warns her that she'll be disappointed. The new TARDIS is sparkly when it takes off. So is Sherwood Forest.
Um, wow. Is that in Wales? "There's no such thing as Robin Hood!" the Doctor proclaims loudly, so naturally Robin Hood shoots an arrow into the side of the TARDIS (that's, like, the third time this has happened) and poses. Obnoxiously. Cue new title sequence! I don't like it.
Robin Hood likes appearing box tricks. He has a stupid hat and an unattractive wig. He's going to steal the TARDIS, because that's Robin Hood's defining trait, right? He steals things. The Doctor threatens violence. Hypocrite. Clara emerges from the TARDIS. She's put on a fancy dress! Well done, I suppose. She also put on hair extensions. Robin Hood is intrigued by the attractive women that the Doctor keeps in his 'magic box'. Clara is thrilled by Robin Hood. They're distracted from their staring at each other, though, because Robin Hood intends to take the TARDIS. He prepares to duel the Doctor on a log above a river. With a spoon....that is, the Doctor has a spoon. Oh, it's the shiny spoon from earlier! Chekhov's Spoon. Clara stands by awkwardly and watches in her fancy dress. Could she really find nothing productive to do? The Doctor explains that he has had a lot of swordfighting experience. He names Errol Flynn, who had the most enormous... Clara clears her throat meaningfully. Ego, the Doctor says. Did they just pause there to imply that they were going to say enormous penis? Inappropriate. Anyway, by holding his arms out and seemingly preparing to take the hit, the Doctor manages to disarm Robin Hood and throw him into a lake. Fortunately, Robin's a good swimmer, so he comes up behind the Doctor and chucks him in too. He and Clara laugh together. Robin Hood misses his best thieving opportunity. Fail.
Nay, I'm not going to steal the box which I claim to have wanted all along! I'm just going to stand here and laugh vigorously!
Meanwhile, in a nearby peasant village, some lady is being dragged out in manacles by black-clad guards and an old man is protesting. This is all the Sheriff's doing! The old man longs for the chance to tear out the Sheriff's black heart... and then the Sheriff arrives and the old man quivers. He begs the Sheriff to take him instead of his... daughter? I guess? But the Sheriff laughs in his face. Old Man gets over his quivering, spits in the Sheriff's face, and subsequently gets murdered. Well, yeah. Lady In Manacles cries as she is dragged away.
Back in the forest, Robin Hood introduces his Merry Men to Clara. The Doctor is busy trying to prove that none of them are real. He's being super obnoxious about it, and doing silly things like pulling out their hair, stealing their shoes and stabbing them to take their blood. Without permission. I... don't like rude people. This is uncomfortable. Little John is not suitably huge. Actually, I can't tell if Little John is the very tall man or the very short man.Oh dear. The Doctor mentions episodes past. Meanwhile, Clara gets down to business and finds out what's going on. There's a douchey Sheriff and everyone hates Prince John. Average Robin Hood days then. Robin flirts with Clara. Clara is good at psychoanalysis. She deduces that Robin Hood is sad, and he wants to continue being Earl of Locksley, but he can't. Clara is enthusiastic, because he's ROBIN HOOD. Robin lost Marian, and Clara... hero-worships Marian as well? What? Are we forgetting that in the books, Maid Marian was a wimpy wimp? It was only in the BBC Robin Hood that she was an awesome badass. Unless Clara's seen that, I can't understand why she'd be a fan.
Dame Autumn has draped her skirts around the forest, or so Robin says. The Doctor thinks it's weird that everything is green and sunny. Robin is going to try and win the Sheriff's golden arrow. Clara warns him that it's a trap. Of course it's a trap! But he's going anyway. The Doctor hates bantering and Robin Hood and heroes. He's just a real grump today. Clara continues to be nice to him regardless. The Doctor eats spontaneous apples.
Suddenly, a castle!
It's the arrow contest, yeesh, that was fast. And there have already been ten rounds! Robin Hood is in disguise, except everyone totally knows who he is. Also, this archery contest is full of shoddy archers. There is not one single decent shot on those targets! The Sheriff is a good archer... except not in real life. Robin Hood is equally bad in real life, but in the show, he splits the arrow! What a waste of good wood. He's about the claim the golden arrow when the Doctor marches in and splits the splitted arrow. He then spends some time stroking his own ego by boasting about how he is the Doctor, and he is awesome at all things. However, Robin splits the splitted splitten arrow. They then engage in an arrow splitting contest. "This is getting silly," the Doctor proclaims. I agree. He then blows up the target with his sonic screwdriver. WTF? Robin Hood whips off his hat and also his disguise. He chops off a man's arm (rude) and the man is a robot. Okay then.
A bunch of robots unmask (literally) and start shooting random villagers, the Doctor, Clara and Robin get arrested, and the Doctor is rather pleased. He says that getting captured is a good plan. I tend to disagree. In the dungeons, there are a bunch of miserable people, because obviously. The Lady In Manacles from earlier wonders what kind of a gargoyle the robot is. She tries to help a tired man, but the robot decides his usefulness has expired and terminates him with purple laser beams. Okay then. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Clara and Robin are just casually sitting in their own dungeon with more manacles manacles. Ohhhh is Lady In Manacles Marian? Hm. She totally is. Anyway, the Doctor and Robin argue for no reason. The Doctor doesn't like laughing. Their arguing is unbearably pointless and boring and annoying and OMFG please end this scene already.
Yes please, please do.
Thank god for Clara and her yelling, is all I can say. She shuts them up very effectively, by screaming at them to shut up. Well done, Clara! We discover that no one has a plan. A dude with rotten teeth (the guard) arrives and claims he's been spying to find out for the Sheriff who the true ringleader is. Since he's been listening the whole time, he obviously knows it's Clara. Yep, there he goes, he takes her away. The Doctor, far from being stressed at her imminent demise, is cross that he's not the true leader. Rude.
Back in the forest, the Merry Men are ogling their golden arrow. They also wonder why it is that the Sheriff only ever steals gold. So, obviously gold is relevant to the robots. Allan a'Dale sings a song while we see a bunch of gold being smelted. Is that the right word? It's being smelted in a complicated electronic pattern or something. I'm not quite sure. More on that later. Up in a fancy dining hall at the castle, the Sheriff also thinks Clara is attractive and he likes her directness. She had a packet of crisps this morning, in case anyone was wondering. The Sheriff cleverly figures out that she is from beyond the stars.
In the manacle-rich dungeon, Robin wants the Doctor to moan to attract the guard. The Doctor refuses to moan, preferring to argue pointlessly instead. Fortunately, Robin is brave enough to moan and move the plot forward by himself. The Doctor seizes his chance to badmouth Robin to a random guard for no reason, claiming that he's a wuss, and he's soiled his linen from fear. The guard leans in to hear what Robin is moaning and Robin tells him that his breath 'stinks like a serpent' and then headbutts him to death. Or unconsciousness. I'm really puzzled by that insult. Snakes don't smell! Anyway, having successfully disarmed the guard, the Doctor and Robin fight over the key and... lose it. Oops.
Well that was clever.
In the dining hall, Clara flirts a little bit with the Sheriff to try and find out about the robots. She's actually really good at this psychoanalysis stuff, I'm very impressed. By pretending that she already knows all about the arrival of the robot ship from the stars, she gradually gets the Sheriff to reveal his plan. The Sheriff feels unappreciated by Prince John. A skyship came to Earth in a fury of fire. Or a crash, Clara interjects. The robots arrived with miracles and... the Sheriff gets distracted by flirting, but Clara gets him back on track. The robots imparted their secrets to the Sheriff. Soon, he intends to be King, although he doesn't specify exactly how. Also, he's a little bit unstable and wants to take over the world.
Robin and the Doctor escape through means unspecified and have to carry the huge block that they are manacled to along with them. Robin laughs some more, the Doctor is rude to him, and I feel it's worth pointing out that Robin is carrying the huge stone block, so the Doctor should really be less nasty. Back in the hall, the Sheriff wants to hear Clara's story, but she doesn't have one, and she explains her genius psychological tactics to him. The Sheriff tries to kiss her because apparently every King requires a consort. He's surprisingly undetermined about it, though, and Clara squirms away quite easily and tells him not to do that again. I suppose it's lucky that this isn't trying to be historical, because rape was rife back in the day and Clara can't run away in her stupid dress, so she'd be totally screwed.
I spy... shiny blue exposition!
The Doctor finds some exposition! There's a spaceship in the heart of the castle, and it's 29th century, I think. The Doctor checks the databanks and finds that the spaceship was looking for 'The Promised Land'. So that's the story arc of this season, is it? It feels a bit heavy-handed to me. The Doctor says that the spaceship is trying to disguise itself, hence the robot knights. The engines are damaged, and leaking radiation, which is why everything is so irritatingly sunny and green. He also says that Robin is an illusion and a silly story to keep the peasants hoping. Poor Robin makes a distraught face. The Doctor finds legends of Robin Hood in the databanks and tries to tell Robin that he is a robot because he has perfect teeth and an attractive jaw. They argue some more for no reason about whether Robin is a robot or not, and then some actual robots arrive with the Sheriff and Clara. The robots try to shoot Robin with their purple lasers and inexplicably miss. Clara very bravely stands in front of her hero to protect him, so Robin grabs Clara and jumps backwards out of a window and into a lake. Seems legit. They vanish beneath the surface of the water and don't emerge. The Sheriff says it is a shame, because Clara would have been a great Queen. Wait a minute, she was a consort before! She's been promoted. Luckily, the Doctor spies Robin carrying an unconscious Clara off the far shore. Unconscious why? No, really, why?
More exposition is provided. The Doctor knows that the robots want gold. They are creating a matrix of gold to repair the engine circuitry! The Sheriff says that when the spaceship departs it will go to London and he will obliterate the King. Technically, the King isn't actually in London... that's Prince John. King Richard should be in the Holy Land right now. Oh well, I suppose. Anyway, the engines are too damaged for it to possibly work, or so the Doctor seems to think. The ship is basically going to act like a giant bomb! The Sheriff doesn't care, and orders his robots to knock out and subsequently manacle the Doctor. Back in the dungeon (although in the main part, now, with lots of other peasants), he talks to himself to give the audience information. The engines are not strong enough, and the ship will never reach orbit. In Sherwood Forest, Clara wakes up and makes moony eyes at Robin. In the dungeon, The Doctor provides exposition to Lady In Manacles. He's basically reiterating what he's already said about the ship exploding. Somehow, Lady In Manacles manages to unmanacle the Doctor. In the forest, Robin decides to interrogate Clara. He wants to know what the Doctor knows about him, and also exactly who the Doctor is. Clara looks puzzled. In the dungeon, the Doctor and Lady In Manacles use golden trays/plates to deflect the purple robot lasers. Really?
Hooray for golden tray-plate-gong things!
Upstairs, an alarm goes off to alert the Sheriff. He is pissed that the Doctor is escaping, so he punches a metal man for giggles. Oops. Meanwhile, the peasants cheerfully use their golden... items... to destroy all of the robots with their own purple lasers. They use teamwork to destroy the last robot together. Lady In Manacles gets really enthusiastic and yells while violently shaking her golden tray, but the Doctor just sort of stands there looking awkward. That's bad directing. Either deflecting a purple laser beam makes your golden tray shake or it doesn't! Make up your minds, people. Anyway, the robot is destroyed in fire and smoke and the Doctor evacuates the peasants. Lady In Manacles gives him a kiss on the cheek and he stands there for a while touching his cheek and looking freaky. I'm somewhat disturbed. Fortunately, the uncomfortable moment doesn't last, because we're on the tight schedule here! The engines are nearly powered up and ready to go.
The Sheriff arrives, and he and the Doctor banter, until the Doctor remembers that he doesn't like banter. Hypocrite. He says that the ship is going to fail, explode, and alter the course of history. Well, yes, the Sheriff sort of thinks altering the course of history will be fun. The Doctor insists that the Sheriff get his robot-Robin to return Clara, but the Sheriff says that Robin is not a robot. Suddenly, the Doctor twigs. Robin Hood is not a robot! Gasp. Oh, speak of the devil, here are Robin and Clara. They slide dramatically down a tapestry (why is there a tapestry in a dungeon?) and Robin and the Sheriff prepare for a sword duel. They're bantering while they do it. I'm surprised the Doctor isn't complaining. They ride ropes up to a strut over the pool of gold and mimic the fight that the Doctor and Robin had earlier. So, do we know how this will end? Um, yes. After being sliced in the arm and dropping his sword Robin pulls the same move on the Sheriff that the Doctor pulled on him earlier. He barges the Sheriff off the strut and the evil man is swallowed by a puddle of gold. I... kind of feel like that's a bit of a nasty end, but anyway. There isn't time for anything more, because the ship starts to take off and everyone runs!
From the forest, the Doctor, Clara, Robin, the Merry Men and a bunch of peasants watch the ship taking off. It's definitely going to crash and burn - but then the Doctor remembers the golden arrow! He thinks that with the addition of the extra gold, the ship will be able to reach orbit. All they need to do is shoot it up there - oh, but Robin's arm is injured! And it turns out the Doctor can't actually shoot. He cheated, in the arrow splitting contest, with a homing device arrow. Robin decides that they can do it together - a three-person arrow shoot at the engine!
Teamwork: saving the day since forever.
Success! The golden arrow strikes the ship, and even though it's not made clear how a small piece of gold hitting the external hull will help, the engines go up to full capacity and the ship makes it into orbit, where it subsequently blows up. Shame. On the ground, there are celebrations all around! The Doctor is a party pooper and he still hates laughing, but everyone else is happy.
Back at the TARDIS, Robin helps Clara shoot a successful arrow. They give each other quite fond farewells, and Clara tells him never to give up. The Doctor and Robin also say goodbye, but they're not very fond. Robin is intrigued that in the future he is only a legend. He thinks that it's actually better for him to be remembered that way. He also compares his story to the Doctor's, just a little bit. Oh, and Robin thinks that the Doctor is Clara's hero. The Doctor is not gracious about accepting compliments. Robin says that all they need to do is pretend to be heroes and inspire others.
Inside the TARDIS, Clara thinks that the Doctor secretly liked Robin by the end. The Doctor points out that he is leaving Robin a present. In the forest, as the TARDIS disappears, we see Lady In Manacles - who totally IS Marian. I win. She and Robin kiss, and everyone is thrilled. Happy ending note! Well, that was fun. Now go and read the review!