This is one of the lightest stories from the new Doctor Who season.  The past two episodes were dark and more dangerous, however they were still enjoyable to watch.  This episode had a comedic style and a little bit of swashbuckling added to it.  Trying to give Clara something that the previous Doctor would do, he gave her the choice of when or where their next adventure would be.  Clara said she wanted to go meet her childhood hero, Robin Hood.  The Doctor tried to explain that Robin was just a legend and not real.  But Clara insisted, and the Doctor reluctantly agreed.  They traveled back to 1190 A.D., a time and place where supposedly the legend began.  There they meet this boisterous gentleman demanding that since they are at his river that they must pay for crossing.  The Doctor, frustrated and annoyed accepted the challenge and fought the gentleman with a large metal spoon. From watching this scene, we get to see another side of the new Doctor: his playful side.  Clara, who is smitten with the famous outlaw of Sherwood Forest, has to keep the Doctor in check and try to help him to enjoy the moment and not to always scientifically analyze everything he sees.  It was funny to watch Robin Hood and the Doctor interact with each other.  The Doctor’s skeptical approach to the fact that Robin Hood is not real and just a mythical figure rubs the Prince of Thieves the wrong way.

Doctor Who Robot of Sherwood 02The next scene we are seeing the villain come into the picture, The Sheriff of Nottingham.  The Sheriff is seen using knights to pilfer a small village capturing people for work labor.  The Sheriff confronts one of the villagers whose daughter is chained up.  To show that the Sheriff is ruthless and evil, he kills the old villager and takes his daughter to Nottingham’s Castle.  Going back to Robin and his merry men, the story then turns to the more familiar parts of the Robin Hood legend.  Here they are attracted to an archery tournament at Nottingham’s Castle, where the winner will win a precious prize.  Taking from the pages of the Robin Hood’s story, Robin wins the tournament, but then a new twist comes into play.  The Doctor gets involved in the contest and beats Robin’s at his own game.  There you get to see a one on one shooting contest between the two until the Doctor cheats and takes his sonic screwdriver and blows up the target.  The Sheriff is bewildered and demands to take the Doctor, Robin, and Clara into custody.  Then a swordfight begins between the knights and the trio.  From the fight, Robin strikes one the knights arm and a robotic appendage falls off.  The story takes a very interesting turn.  The Doctors suspicion was correct, everything is not what they seem.  Watching the Doctor, and Robin bicker and yell at each other while they sitting on the dungeon floor was hilarious. Clara gets fed up with their childish behavior and scolds them.  Once again Clara has to step in and be the grownup.  The Sheriff sends for the person who is in charge of the motley crew.  The decision is that Clara is the most logical choice.  When she is face to face with the Sheriff, he asks who the Doctor is.  Clara then asks him where the metal knights came from.  He then explains that a spaceship crash landed here quite some time ago.  He used that situation to his advantage. By giving the metal spacemen the necessary gold material to repair their ship, they would in turn help him gain strategic power over the people and the land.  He then decided that Clara would be a great addition to his plan by becoming his wife.  Clara found that revolting.  The Doctor and Robin then put their feud aside, and came up with a plan to escape.  Only to end up in a room that resembles a space bridge.

The Doctor finally confronts Robin about his identity.  He tries to convince Robin that he is not real, but only a robot created by the Sheriff to create a fiction figure for the people to rally behind just like in the legend of Robin Hood, to cover up what was really happening.  They almost got into a fight until the Sheriff busts in with Clara being held against her will.  Robin then finds a way to release Clara from the Sheriff and then Doctor Who Robot of Sherwood 01leaps with her through a window in the lake below.  The Doctor is then again recaptured and thrown in the dungeon with the woman that was captured from the village at the beginning of the episode.  The Doctor again comes up with plan to escape using the reflective plates made of gold to reflect the energy beams from the robotic knights.  Just when the woman leaves, she gives the Doctor a kiss on the cheek thanking him.  He just stands there surprised what just happened.  The Sheriff is aware of the jail break and confronts the Doctor in the dungeon.  When he asks the Sheriff why he would want to create a robotic Robin just to antagonize him, the Sheriff denies it.  That is when the Doctor realizes that Robin was not a robot but a real person, he got it all wrong.  This is the second time since the beginning of the season that his conclusions were wrong.  First it happened in the “Deep Breath” episode where he thought the leader of the cybernetic robots put the ad in the paper that said, “Impossible Girl”, and now when he though that Robin was a robot created by the Sheriff.  I’m sure that there are going to be many more blunders that the good Doctor will be doing in the future. Just then Clara and Robin appears, and now the Sheriff and he fights to the death over a large vat of gold.  Robin defeats the Sheriff by pushing him off in the large vat.  But the ship is already starting to come to life.  The Doctor, Clara, and Robin then climbs up to the bridge to see how bad the damage is.  The Doctor finds out about the ships original destination: “Promise Land”.  This was the destination where the cybernetic people were heading in the first episode, and this is the second time that this place was mentioned.  They finally get to escape the ship watching it rise up in the air.  The Doctor said that it needed more gold to repair the engine.  He realized that the golden arrow from the archery contest would be enough.  With Robin injured, Clara came up with a plan that needed all three to shoot the arrow toward the ship  All three finally was able to shoot the arrow by Clara and the Doctor holding and pulling back the string and Robin would steadily aim the arrow up to the ship.  He fires and hits the target.  The ship rises up into space that safely explodes in space.

Clara says her goodbyes to Robin, and then the Doctor says his goodbyes to him as well.  They talk before he leaves.  Robin mentions that Clara told him all about their adventures and comes to the conclusion that he is a hero in Clara’s eyes.  The Doctor refuses to believe that.  But Robin says to him,” Is it hard to believe that a man born in wealth and privilege can fight for the weak and oppressed, then one night steals a TARDIS and flies away to fight a good fight?”

“I AM NOT A HERO.”  The Doctor says.  Robin says he is.

This is the third episode and already there is a growing mystery as to who the mysterious woman, Missy, is; what the Promise Land is, and what kind of person the Doctor is becoming. He has a lot of skeletons in his closet and with Clara by his side and with lessons he learns from each journey, I think he will understand more about himself and where he fits in the universe.