Birth of Robin "Hood" on Once Upon A Time

"Heart of Gold", Episode 18 of Once Upon a Time's Season 4 is a Robin-centric episode that delves into his past and presents us with this series' version of how Robin of Locksley came to be known as Robin Hood, as well as the origin of his particular code of thievery, and a little wink at how it is he's such an amazing archer! 

Warning, spoilers aplenty below!

The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper

Ever since I first read these books as a child (or teenager? Don't remember!), these lines have been engrained in my memory:

"When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;

Three from the Circle, three from the track;

Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;

Five shall return, and one go alone. 

Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;

Wood from the burning, stone out of song;

Fire on the candle ring, water from the thaw;

Six Signs the circle and the grail gone before. 

Fire from the mountains shall find the harp of gold

Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old;

Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea;

All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree."

Robot of Sherwood

I have a confession to make. Before last weekend (when I started watching Capaldi's first season), I had only ever seen one episode of Doctor Who! Shameful I know. It wasn't that I had no idea what Doctor Who was or what it represented, I did. And being the geeky sci-fi fan that I am, I knew an incredible amount about a series I'd never seen! Of course some people understand when I tell them it was the first episode of "modern Who" with Christopher Eccleston, then they tell me to try again with David Tennant or Matt Smith. And I always said "sure, one of these days". How many years has it been?

What finally got me to give it another go (other than the fact that I LOVED Capaldi as Richelieu in the BBC's Musketeers last year), was the title of this episode and the obvious subject matter. "Robot of Sherwood"?! Was the time-travelling Doctor going to visit one of my favourite swashbuckling heroes?! How could I not watch this?! (of course to be rigorous I did start with the previous two "season 8" episodes... and will definitely continue watching from here on out)

Will Scarlet is in Wonderland!

So, after Once Upon a Time introduced Robin Hood into their tale of mythical / legendary / fairy tale characters, its Wonderland spin-off has decided to join in the game and brings us one of Robin Hood's Merry Men!!! In the third episode "Forget Me Not" we finally get a little bit of back story for Alice's #1 ally the Knave of Hearts. Before this all we knew about him was his willingness to help Alice, his first name Will, and the fact that his past holds a tale of heartbreak involving a woman named Anastasia! Three guesses as to what he has to do with Robin Hood?...

Excalibur on OUAT

Once Upon A Time may be centred on Snow White, Prince Charming, their daughter Emma, her son Henry and the Evil Queen (who is Henry's adopted mother), but it's also a mix of characters from other fairy tales and legends. Just in this episode we have Rumplestiltskin (also one of the regulars), Belle (from Beauty and the Beast, the Beast being Rumple), Captain Hook and Peter Pan (Pan's the evil one)! We've already had one foray into Arthurian lore with the season 2 episode "The Lady of the Lake" in which we met Lancelot. Now it's time for another key Arthurian element to come into play: Excalibur! :o)

Note: spoilers abound for this (and previous) episodes of Once Upon a Time.

Robin Hood returns to Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time is back from its summer hiatus, and so is our favourite archer! We get a second, brief, introduction to him in the season 3 première "The Heart of the Truest Believer", a chance to let us become familiar with the new face (actor Sean Maguire) as they had to switch actors for the role (Tom Ellis from episode 2.19 not being available for an extended arc in season 3).

Robin Hood joins Once Upon A Time

The action on Once Upon a Time flicks between the present-day "real world" and flash-backs to the characters' lives in the "Enchanted Forest". These flash-backs usually serve to illustrate how two characters know each other, or how their relationship evolved, or to show how much they have changed between "then" and "now". This is sometimes helped by the introduction of a guest character we haven't seen in the "real world", and this time it's Robin Hood!

In episode 2.19 "Lacey", we have Mr Gold trying to help amnesiac Belle remember their past life together (she used to be Belle, but crossed the town line and forgot her "real" self and now has only "curse" memories Regina implanted in her and thus thinks she's Lacey, a bar-fly). He's counting on her because she always brought out the best in him and he needs that support to continue growing as a person, to fight his wicked tendencies (and stop him from maybe killing his own grandson since a prophecy stated "the boy will be your undoing").

The flash-back shows us the beginning of Belle and Rumple's story (well, after she surrenders herself to the "beast" that is) and starts with Belle sobbing in a dungeon. Rumplestiltskin shows up to complain about the noise:

"Rumple: When you so eagerly agreed to come and work for me, I assumed you wouldn't miss your family quite so much.

Belle: I made my sacrifice for them, of course I miss them you beast!

Rumple: Yes, yes, but the crying must stop! Night after night. It's making it very difficult for me to spin! You know I do my best thinking then!"

The sound of broken glass takes us to an elegant room in the castle (possibly a study), where a hooded figure carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows is about to make away with a wand. He shoots at Rumple with "an arrow shot from this bow always finds its target" and hits him. Unfortunately Rumple is "the Dark One" and cannot be killed! He simply pulls the arrow from his chest and we get treated to the #1 rule in Once Upon a Time:

"But don't you know? All magic comes with a price! And in your case, that's me."

Exiled Lancelot in OUAT's "Lady of the Lake"

Aha! A Knight of the Round Table has a guest-starring role on Once Upon A Time!

Once Upon a Time and OUaT in Wonderland

"Once upon a time.
There was an enchanted forest filled with all the classic characters we know.
Or think we know.
One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen.
Our world."

Once Upon a Time is a fairy tale based TV series. The series involves a plethora of characters taken from various fairy tales and other popular fictional tales (usually the Disney versions of most of them), but the main action is centered on Snow White and her family. With quite an interesting twist!

Robin Hood (Ridley Scott)

It's high time I started writing again, and my favourite archer has long been waiting in the wings for me to drop King Arthur for a while and dedicate some of my time to him! Part of the delay was because I wanted to start with the oldest stuff possible (books, legends), but I'm lost in a series of books that won't let me go and I don't know when I'll start reading about Robin Hood! Anyhow, the other day I was staring at my shelves, trying to decide which movie to watch, and my eyes kept coming back to Ridley Scott's 2010 movie Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. This version brings us an origin story (why are those still so popular?) with older characters and places the action a bit later in the historical context.

Who is this Robin Hood?

Robin Longstride is a man without a home, a family or a past. An archer in King Richard's army returning from the Crusades, he takes the place of Robert Loxley, a close friend of the Lionheart, whom he happens upon as he is dying from an ambush which was meant for the King (who was already dead). He impersonates him (and his companions take the place of other dead knights) in order to obtain passage to England on the Royal ship, take the Crown to London to inform them of the King's death and to take Loxley's sword back to his estranged father who lives near Nottingham.

Robin's companions (John, Will, Alan) are fellow soldiers from the Crusader army, Marion is Loxley's widow to whom she had been married barely a week when he set off for the Crusades. The Sheriff of Nottingham is the local (somewhat cowardly) tax collector who keeps trying to get Marion...

Bloglovin

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/10573939/?claim=62c4b3bkxmr">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Just adding a bit of code to connect my blogs to Bloglovin'. I'm trying it out as I'm looking for a good app to access the blogs I follow on my iPhone, and while the Blogger app lets me write my own posts, it doesn't show me the blogs I follow and I've been so busy I haven't had time to sit down on my computer and read other blogs and I miss them!!! :p  Hopefully this should help me stay in touch a bit more...

SG-1: Camelot

Season 9 finale! Which of course will end on a cliffhanger... *sigh* :p

Walter Bishop Meurig

So while the rest of their allies (Tokra, Jaffa, Asgard) are searching for the new "supergate" the Ori will use to invade our galazy, SG-1 heads to the planet whose coordinates they discovered via the phase-shifting device in Arthur's Mantle. They're hoping to discover the anti-Ori weapon Merlin had created. They arrive in a small medieval town and are greeted by Meurig (John Noble!!!), the local Governor, who welcomes them "to Camelot (!). Past and future home of Arthur and his knights." :o)

The town is awaiting the return of Arthur and his knights who set off on a quest to find the Sangraal (a.k.a. Holy Grail). They believe that he will return once someone succeeds in pulling the sword from the stone... because yes! There is a sword in a stone in the centre of Camelot!!! :o)

"Only he who is pure of heart and true of spirit can pull the sword from the stone."

SG-1: Crusade

Season 9, episode 19. An episode which is pretty much all preparation for the Season finale.

We finally get to see Vala again (she was presumed dead after having been caught in the explosion that destroyed the Ori's supergate in episode 6 - Beachhead), but she's in Daniel's body! It's those crazy communication stones again!

Vala (in Daniel's body) sneaks up on Cam in the men's locker room!

The others see Daniel, we see a very pregnant Vala who's been living in a village in the Ori galaxy all this time. She was taken in by one of the villagers, Tomin, and married him when she discovered she was somehow pregnant! Something impossible she says as she "didn't do any of the necessary bits". She asks the others (Sam, Cameron, Teal'c, General Landry) if they've ever heard of anything like this before, and from the meaningful looks we fully expect some to reference the Virgin Mary. But Teal'c jumps out with Darth Vader (big laughs!) and then Cameron counters with King Arthur!!! Apparently he's been reading up on Arthurian Legend and studying all those books they found under Glastonbury Tor.

In the end the connection is severed, Vala is back with the Ori supporters (barely convincing her husband not to kill her after he kills the two "rebels" she was with), and our Galaxy is preparing for the massive Ori invasion fleet she warned them about. Sam, Cam and Daniel convince General Landry that the best thing for them to do is to go searching for the mysterious weapon developed by Merlin to kill ascended beings. But that will be for the next episode, and post! ;o)

Elements from Arthurian Legend:

• Just the one reference to Arthur's mysterious conception, which according to Legend was brought about by Merlin having "enchanted" the Queen, Arthur's mother. Our stories tell us she was enchanted to believe she was laying with her husband the Duke of Cornwall, when in reality it was Uther Pendragon. Here Cam implies Merlin's influence for an "immaculate" conception...

SG-1: Arthur's Mantle

Season 9, episode 18 starts out with Colonel Samanth Carter working in her lab on an Ancient device found in Glastonbury when Dr. Daniel Jackson, Teal'c and Col. Cameron Mitchell discovered the truth about the mythical Avalon in the season première. As she tries to calibrate something a bright light shines out and she and Cam disappear from our screens. And so another crazy Stargate adventure begins! :o)

Sam out of phase!

It turns out that the device has shifted Sam and Cam into another dimension (apparently there are 11 of them according to string theory, don't ask!), slightly out of phase with ours. This means they can see and hear everything, but can't touch anything or communicate with anyone as no one can see them! 

Cameron: "That was an alternate reality, this is an alternate dimension. Hell, all I need is a good time travel adventure and I've scored the SG-1 trifecta!"

Robin Hood at the Unemployment Office...

Just saw this on Facebook (page Les Indignés), dunno the actual origin point to give proper source but really wanted to share it so here goes!

Translation:

"I'm sorry Mister Hood but nowadays nobody takes money from the rich to give to the poor. But I can find you a training course to do exactly the opposite..."