The good and the bad

OK, this is definitely the best 'Robin Hood' presentation I have ever seen, even though this Robin doesn't have a beard of any kind, doesn't almost EVER wear the hood (so why is he called 'Robini the Hood' is beyond me) beyond the intro and pilot episodes, and so on.

The good sides are; the amazing music, the even more amazing 1980s atmosphere, gorgeous nature and forests, great 'impact' with the arrows (although the trick of showing someone shoot, then showing someone already having arrow in their body gets a bit old pretty quickly - would be nice to see the full shot from beginning to end for once, with the arrow actually FLYING in the air - I mean, they're not BULLETS, you should be able to see the flight, however short), the acting, the actors' charisma (Michael Praed and a few others are great, Marian's actor is not so interesting).

Then there's the 'magical aspect', which is a bit of hit and miss - for something so 'mystical', there could be more of it and done a bit better, explored a bit deeper, and I can NEVER forgive that a 'god' like Hern neither sees the mercenaries hiding in the bushes about 20 meters away, nor does he FOREsee this ambush and attack AT ALL, although he's hown to foresee all kinds of things of lesser signifigance. Still, it's better than keeping the story completely mundane and materialistic, and it adds to the tension, keeping the viewer on their toes a bit.

I also love how Sir Guy is attacked by the forest and almost drive him crazy, and how the priest knows there are 'old gods' in the forest that even he is scared of.

One of the best parts is the Sheriff - he's SO incredibly good at his role, he's 'villainy personified', and you absolutely loathe his character while loving his superb acting at the same time. In-credible!

The castles, locations, costumes, musics, etc. are wonderful - although the usual 'peasants only dress in grey, brown and roam in mud'-trope is rearing its ugly head even in this show, and the useless but cleanly-burning torches everywhere are the usual, unrealistic stupidity you see in every story set in these olden times.

What I don't get is why everyone is so angry - the Sheriff, Guy, basically anyone in power, even the priest, almost constantly ridiculously angry! I love the Sheriff's anger, of course, but holy cow, these people don't know how to relax.

There are plenty of juicy goodness like that in this show, even some stories are actually quite brilliant and excellently done. I can't praise this show enough, it's always a good watch.

There are, however, many problems as well.

The fight coreographies are so bad even the most amateurish toddler-founded sword club would find them unacceptable. The fat priest just defeats some trained mercenary by gonking him with his fake boobies, and every time he does almost anything, he has to do the 'I am so out of breath, because I am fat'-gesture.

I mean, look at the fights, they're really badly done, bad guys are always so easily defeated. They really didn't want to add realism to this side of things. Much can't fight, has no strength, and he's always nervous and scared. WHY DO THEY KEEP DRAGGING HIM ALONG?! Realistically, he'd be dead before the pilot episode even begins. Holy cow is it cringy watching him.

The actor is perfect for the role, but he's also repulsive in a really annoying way, I have to skip every scene he's in. Some actors just have that effect.

Marian is also close to being as repulsive - I couldn't even be in the same room with her, the actor is quite ugly and annoying, I can't see how anyone could fall for someone like this. There's the usual problem of 'strong, independent woman that has to be constantly rescued' as well. WHY DO THEY DRAG HER ALONG as if she's not ever going to be kidnapped or something? She can't fight big, burly men on equal grounds, but this show tries to tell us she can, and YET, she's kidnapped and overpowered (realistically)...

I hate when they can't figure out what to do with these women in stories - they HAVE to be shown as strong fighters, but at the same time, men have to be below them so men have to risk their lives to rescue them, and so on. The worst example of this flip-flopping is probably the movie 'Broken Arrow', where the park ranger couldn't BE more annoying if she tried.

The show also uses the same handful of songs over and over again, and this becomes tedious. I also hate how they play some song that we're supposed to believe the village or forest people are actually playing LIVE somehow, when that's clearly impossible considering the synth instrus and such, even if the song does contain a flute - it's also never synchronized believably anyway.

There are too many 'lull moments', where nothing happens, and the cringy moments are really long and cringy. There are too many of such moments, too - sometimes things just plod along so you don't even know the story is supposedly moving forward.