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Up for whatever here (so long as it's accessible via streaming, etc.) Comedies: Community (RIP), Parks and Rec, New Girl, Brooklyn 99, Archer, Louie, Mindy, Modern Family at times, Bob's Burgers Drama: Hannibal, GoT, Mad Men, Sleepy Hollow
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May 10, 2014 17:55
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 09:41 |
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Nice. I'll get on that.
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May 10, 2014 18:38
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Robin Hood (2006-2009) Season 3, Episode 13: "Something Worth Fighting For, Pt. 2" Okay, first things first, Deadpool, you gave me Season 4 Episode 13, but that does not exist. Might want to correct that. This is the series finale, the second of a two-parter, the first of which- along with the rest of the show- I have not seen. This should be fun. It starts well, with a man yelling "BRING FORWARD THE TREBUCHETS!" The Sheriff of Nottingham adds "Welcome to Hell, Robin Hood!" Bad guys are laying siege to the town where Robin Hood and his Merry Men are camped out, and they've already killed... uh... I think his name is Alan? The major problem with reviewing the second half of a finale of a show I've never seen before becomes clear early on- I have no idea who anyone is. I work out that Robin Hood is the guy who kind of looks like Aaron Paul, which is distracting at times because Jessie Pinkman as Robin would be an awesome show. He and... a friend ride out to parley with the Sheriff of Nottingham and his shouty accomplice (who is never named but is cool.) The Sheriff makes the usual threats, get out or we kill everyone, etc. Robin refuses and the town prepares for a siege, and the titles start. The titles. Oh man. A blurb about a legend from the mists of England or whatever flies across the scene in really gaudy CG letters, and the actors' names and such are intercut with a lot of VERY FAST edits. Not even corresponding to the names or anything, just random shots from the series that go by too fast to convey anything other than "faces!" Like, the first title sequences for the new Doctor Who were a little gaudy, but this is just ridiculous. This is 90s Action Pack material. And I sometimes watch Xena on Netflix, so I'm not against that, but this was 2009. Guys, really. So we start with a funeral for whoever the dead guy is, and cut to a woman in the town prison named Isabella, who I guess betrayed them somehow. Her jailer is her brother, guy with long black hair, and he gives her poison as a means of offing herself because he can't quite bring himself to do it. Later she seduces a very stupid guard (she stabs him so slowly that he clearly had time to see the blade coming and get out of the way) and escapes. I kinda like her, and I can class her role as "something that would mean something if I had seen the rest of the show." Just when I think the only real problem here is lack of context, the words "Town Walls" fly across the screen accompanied by the sound of a whizzing arrow. This is apparently how the show does titles. This gets done one more time, for a scene at the Main Hall, and nowhere else. So it's at once silly, inconsistent, and totally unnecessary. All these characters are stuck inside the town waiting to be invaded! We can be sure they have not gone to Majorca between scenes. So anyway the blond girl who is not Maid Marian (she died earlier in one of the few things I ever heard about this show) sneaks out promising to get help. Meanwhile Robin's men are shouting at each other because one of the guys sold the Sheriff the Byzantine Fire he's going to use to kill everyone. Well, that was dumb. Anyway, there follows a nighttime sneak attack on trebuchets which leads to the episode's first big fight sequence, which is okay. Kinda fun but goofy, not really very coherent. The heroes destroy the trebuchets and the Sheriff shouts out, "DESTROY EVERYTHING!" He is pretty awesome- a guy named Keith Allan, who's done a lot of serious work and clearly enjoys not being serious at all here. Really overall the apparent tone of this show is honestly not that far off from Xena and Herc.- not as explicitly camp, but this was clearly the BBC trying to do a fun family adventure series off of the success they'd had with Doctor Who. It didn't quite work (by the end the ratings were so low that this episode was shunted off to BBC2) but I can get what they're aiming for even if it's not dead-on. See, it's a marksmanship metaphor. By daybreak there's another parley at the gates of the town, and we see that the blond girl was captured! But she gets rescued quickly, so that was utterly pointless. Guess the finale had to give everyone something to do. The attack recommences, Robin Hood gives a rousing speech, and a nerdy guy I work out is Friar Tuck has successfully replicated Byzantine Fire- enough to blow up the entire town. Doing this would break the Sheriff's power- I guess it's his town- but it would also kill everyone. So that's plan B. When troops start breaking through the defenses and Isabella waves "bye" to everyone as she heads to an escape tunnel, her brother and Robin Hood and accomplices go in after her, which leads to a swordfight as Isabella sides with the Sheriff and his men. (There are apparently some other family connections I'm missing, they talk about "a family affair" and "brothers in arms" and such so I guess everyone is related?) The brother is killed, and Robin is scratched with a blade that Isabella coated with the poison she was given. He'll be dead by sundown, they say, and nobody really looks into a cure or anything so that's it then. Robin Hood Will Die. The Sheriff is downright orgasmic at the news. Robin evacuates the townsfolk through the cellars as the Sheriff's men start to close in. Once everyone good is clear, he goes into town with... uh... other guy with flaming arrows drawn. He's a bit shaky on his feet, but says "I am Robin Hood" and shoots his flaming arrow right at the store of Byzantine Fire. There's enough time for them to escape and for the Sheriff to rather casually recognize they're about to die, and then the town explodes. Woo! But alas, Robin is dying, and it's for realsies. Either this was planned to run three seasons or the producers worked out early on that this was the end, it doesn't feel like a quick patch. He says all his goodbyes to the main cast members before walking off to die alone, where he is greeted by a vision of Maid Marian. This is kind of sweet and made me mist up a little, as little as I knew or cared about the characters. Not bad. So of course there's a spinning archery-target transition a la the 60s Batman series. People, people, you can be campy and use crazy transitions but you have to actually think about what you do with them! Like, just when the show gets close to having any impact at all they have to ruin it. Anyway the real final scene is the remaining cast vowing to fight on against Prince John's tyranny, so I guess their last-ditch plan was that they could have the Merry Men fighting new Big Bads across England if the show got re-ordered. It's a rather generic last scene, but eh. (I am really disappointed that they didn't work in the bit with Robin shooting one last arrow in the air to mark his grave site. That's a cool part of the story.) So this is a tough one to evaluate. As an ending there is a sense that they're going out on their own terms, providing some closure to what loyal fans remained. Most of the characters don't register but it's hard to say whether that's a fault of the episode or not- it feels like there are a few generic kinda-handsome bearded dudes standing around, and only Robin, Isabella, and Isabella's brother get much to do that isn't just running around and shouting. The action could definitely be better- it's never that clear or dramatic. It comes across as not really good, but an okay finale to an okay show that some people probably liked. Music is cool, though.
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May 17, 2014 19:16
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The Hostages AV Club reviews are a glorious study of one woman's descent into insanity. And then she had to cover The Following.
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May 24, 2014 22:39
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