BBC One's Robin Hood

Well, that was a big old bag of bollocks, wasn't it?

Hyped as the new Doctor Who, the only real similarity they seemed to have to me is the same time slot on Saturday evenings. The new Doctor Who is energetic, well written, well acted and generally full of fun. Robin Hood was drab, slow-moving, poorly written with some awful attempts at political comment and comedy.

I do have a bias to declare - I love Doctor Who, I have done since I was a kid and probably always will do. Can't stand sci-fi normally but there is something about Doctor Who that always makes me smile. Sure, the original series produced some absolute toss, but also produced some awesome and ground-breaking drama. And the new series represented an excellent - almost text book - way of introducing an established cultural icon in a fresh light. In the same way that the first episode of Robin Hood really didn't.

Compare Rose with Will You Tolerate This?. For a start, the titles. Rose is punchy, a little mysterious and memorable. Will You Tolerate This? is too long, too hysterical and too political. Moving on from there, look at how the leading characters are introduced. The Doctor is entirely seen through the eyes of Rose, and is at first a complete enigma. He drifts in and out of scenes, with Rose trying to figure out who he is. You want to learn more about him. Robin however, is in every scene. And his back story is is crammed into the story at every moment. Any chance of Robin being enigmatic or mysterious is completely ruined by the fact that we know everything about him at the end of the episode. At the end of Rose you want to know something more about the Doctor, whereas at the end of Will You Tolerate This? you pretty much know everything about Robin Hood. And the lead characters are very different as well. The Doctor is convincingly alien - he is mercurial, he is intelligent, energetic and fun. The Doctor is alone, seeking out adventure and relishing it. Robin Hood is arrogant, he comes with a servant, he is trying to escape from adventure and only intervenes when he has to - when he is watching men hang. The stories - Rose is about a shop girl who meets a strange man and helps him save the world from alien invasion. Will You Tolerate This? is about so many different things it almost hurts - about a man coming home from war, about a brutal dictator, about justice, about a million billion different characters all vying from screen time. And finally, look at how the episodes end. Rose has a jubilant Rose Tyler rushing towards the TARDIS with the promise of future adventure. Will You Tolerate This? ends with Robin Hood and his collection of grubby peasants being confronted with another group of grubby peasants.

If you want to see a good screen representation of Robin Hood, have a look at Robin of Sherwood. Don't waste your time with the new Robin Hood. The chances of it making to a second series based on the content of that first episode is highly unlikely, and soon the new Robin Hood will be replaced by Celebrity Come Dancing And Masterchef On Stilts Whilst Skating On Ice or whatever populist toss the BBC choose to foist on us next.