Robin of Sherwood is available on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and on DVD box sets.
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Decades before Vikings and Game of Thrones there was Robin of Sherwood. This imaginative British TV series owed far more to the moody and mythic 1981 feature film Excalibur than to the vibrant and merry swashbucklers that had come to define the legendary outlaw of Nottinghamshire.
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Running from 1984-86, Robin of Sherwood was a serious retelling of the Robin Hood saga, its New Age atmosphere established off the bat by Clannad’s enchanting opening theme song. The series was shot in a you-are-there style on location in the woods of England, which lent the show a grimy realism — especially in its fight scenes — yet it also utilized mystical and pagan elements to suggest sorcery might have really existed back then. For this Robin Hood is a prophesied figure — The Hooded Man, who has come to aid the oppressed — looked over by the forest spirit Herne the Hunter.
While less polished and, by modern standards, more languidly paced than contemporary viewers might be accustomed to sitting through, Robin of Sherwood is an intriguing forerunner to medieval fare like Vikings and The Last Kingdom as well as sword & sorcery series like Game of Thrones and The Witcher. It features a fine ensemble cast with several faces that may prove familiar to genre fans, including Ray Winstone, Excalibur’s Robert Addie, Watchmen and Altered Carbon’s Matt Frewer, Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones vet John Rhys-Davies, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Richard O’Brien as a slithery pagan sorcerer.
Long before Game of Thrones made viewers accustomed to having main characters die, Robin of Sherwood did the unthinkable and — SPOILER! — killed off Robin Hood himself. Michael Praed played Robin of Loxley for the first two seasons before perishing in the final episode of Season 2. In Season 3, Herne the Hunter chose Robert of Huntingdon (Jason Connery, son of Sean) to succeed Robin as The Hooded Man. In this way, Robin of Sherwood addresses the varied accounts of Robin Hood by simply making the name a pseudonym assumed by different characters. It was a curious but effective choice that saw the second Robin Hood plagued with doubts about following such an iconic predecessor.
Robin of Sherwood never received a fourth season so the series ended with certain storylines left unresolved. But for its three-season-run Robin of Sherwood offered viewers some very cinematic television for its time, shot in a style that melded naturalism with mysticism. Robin of Sherwood wasn’t always great — not all the acting was solid and, again, its pacing may not sync with modern attention spans — but it was always distinctive and ahead of its time. It’s definitely worth discovering during these stay-at-homes times.
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Binge It! is IGN’s recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we’re here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we’ll discuss a piece of content we’re passionate about — and why you should check it out.
Source: IGN.com This '80s Cult Classic Paved the Way for Today's Medieval Fantasy Shows