Robin Hood's Revenge (1966)
Our heroes come to the aid of..Robin Hood!
Fleeing from Nazi-occupied France, Doug & Tony find themselves in 13th century England, just as the Earl of Huntington is hoping that king John will sign the Magna Carta. Unfortunately, he has no intention of signing such a form that will reduce his power. As a result, our time tunneling protagonists find themselves caught in a classic Robin Hood adventure. Meanwhile, the Time Tunnel HQ keep trying to retrieve them!
Okay, I found myself glued to this episode during a transmission as part of the Horror Channels marathon & needed a third watch. This is, of course, Science Fiction, though Robin Hood is a fictional character? We are reminded of that fact, though he may have been based on a real person? In fact, there is more evidence that King Arthur existed! Most of the episodes are reminiscent of Doctor Who from the same era. Just look at the episode set in the French Revolution called 'reign of terror', & how it was originally meant to be historically "educational" before..DALEKS!
Trust a show from this era to portray robin hood in the Errol Flynn motif. We get a jolly clean & green land here, complete with rolling hills, castles, forests, of course.. None of the muck & all, warts & all of later interpretations! There maybe no Maid Marion in this interpretation, still, we get Baroness Tremont who ends up betraying them to King John. With the help of our heroes, King John is captured, taken to Runnymede, & forced to stamp his seal of not so approval on the Magna Carta, limiting his power. Considering all the fab medical knowledge Doug demonstrates with the herbs of the era, I find it surprising that not one of them is accused of being wizards! Little john is a bit of a warrior & denies any of Doug's' "poison" that would have made removing an arrow painless,. maybe he enjoyed a keg of ale beforehand?
James Darren will go on to play Vic Fontaine. A holographic 60's Jazz-lounge singer on Star Trek Deep Space Nine! But back to this. I really didn't expect to enjoy this one, lot of sword fights! After helping shape English (at least) history, they find themselves back in the end of world war 2 via the pacific & at the mercy of an imperial Japanese psychopath, who wants to play mind games with them. Will they survive?!
The Strays,
Seeing as this is my first Time Tunnel blog I have to bring up the..strays! So far, since my viewing, we've had strays accidentally grabbed, in a constant futile attempt to rescue our heroes from time! Let us see, strays from the aforementioned French Revolution, Devils Island, a Greek or Spartan (?) soldier, a Sioux Indian brave from The Battle Of Little Big Horn, a kid from pre-American Civil War 1861, & a British Colonel who sacrifices himself, in the time tunnel, to save our duo from his own ancestor! & let's not forget the two alien gate crashers!
No black plague related episode, current issues or not!
Stay Safe,
Borgduck alias Stewart,
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