Robin Hood jumps the shark

In 2006, the BBC released a “younger, edgier” TV series based on the Robin Hood legend, starring Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths, Keith Allen, and Richard Armitage.

It ran (officially) for three seasons. But in my mind, Robin Hood ended when season two ended.

I should probably note at this point – spoilers! If you plan on watching Robin Hood and don’t want to be a leeetle spoiled, don’t read on, yeah?

Robin Hood was fantastically funny and lighthearted at times, with endearing characters, compelling enough storyline, and…really good baddies! Not just your stock standard evil guys; the Sheriff and Sir Guy were as popular as they come.

Robin and his merry band of thieves fought for Nottingham and King Richard for a quite fun-filled two years. And then Lucy Griffiths announced she was leaving. She played Maid Marion.

So as to not spoil the ending entirely, I won’t go into detail of how she left the series. But you can probably imagine.
She wasn’t the only major character to leave; two important members of the band, Will Scarlett, and Jaq, also departed from the show.

So at the time, one wondered – would season three work with new characters, new dynamic, new goals?

Nope. Season three of Robin Hood was one of the saddest degradations of both show and characters I loved, that I’ve had the misfortune to watch. And what made it so sad?

It lost it’s fun. Everyone was so serious, all the time. Any attempt at humour felt trite and unnatural. They added new, annoyingly bossy characters (as opposed to adding characters that we could learn to like) and changed our lovable regulars into caricatures of their former roles.

I stopped watching. It got so bad, I couldn’t bear to see how it ended (though online spoilers have told me what happened…good grief). Not only did the new story not meet the previous season’s standard, but…for me it was watching characters I loved die a slow, painful, miserable death.

For my own love of Robin Hood, I need to forget season three ever existed.


3 Responses

  1. […] Arthur, Daenerys, Morgan, Merlin, Cersei, Eddard. The young and edgy; plus the cult veterans – the major components of the TV Fantasy formula.IMO the fantasy genre seemed to gain a bit of a foothold in television a few years ago with the BBC’s Robin Hood (2006); jokingly known (okay, perhaps only to me) as Robin Hoodie. This series took the tried and tested Robin Hood legend, and retold it with a younger, edgier cast (Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths, Harry Lloyd) and a few big names with bigger voices (Richard Armitage, Keith Allen). It was original, funny, enjoyable and a huge hit. Until season three; that decline has been covered in my other post, What’s the Story, Robin? […]

  2. Maureen says:

    I didn’t know you had a blog like this, Min! We have similar TV taste. The two worst, shark jumping TV moments I’ve ever seen both involve poor Richard Armitage, an actor who surely deserves better. Robin Hood was one of the shark jumping shows. Marian did not act in character at all at the end of 2.8. The show was silly and fun but should of ended when exit Marian. I watched the first two or three episodes of Series 3 and gave up when RA vanished from the story for a bit and I found out Lara Pulver got involved (cannot stand her). The other RA show jumping show is of course Series 9 of Spooks in which his character does such a 360 I am still scratching my head about it three years later.

    • Avatar photo Nim says:

      Totally agree Maureen – I gave up after watching a couple of episodes of S3. Really should have ended after Marion’s departure.
      Lol yup – I’ve had this blog going for a while, but post *really* infrequently on it.

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