The Horns of a Dilemma...

What do you know?

You wait all winter for the spring TV family Saturday night viewing to improve (spending a not inconsiderable part of it mourning that David Tennant won't be sitting in your living room for thirteen weeks this year), and then not one, but two Family Favourites show up on the same night on different channels. Yes. We had a huge dilemma this weekend. Did we watch him (my doesn't he look pretty with eyeliner?):

or him?

They have quite a lot in common: both unlucky in love (though Nick so far hasn't done the sensible thing and murdered Mrs Mad), both tortured with grief, both spending their not inconsiderable acting talents running around (for the most part) in stupid plots, and they're both what no 2 would refer to as hotties. The hottest of hotties in fact...

So, it was quite a dilemma choosing which one to watch and which one to video. If it was up to me, Primeval would have won hands down (sorry Richard, even your charms aren't enough to raise Robin Hood to Must Watch TV) Up until this series, the kids would have definitely chosen Robin and his merry men over Nick Cutter and his SWAT team. However, they are all most irritated by Marian being bumped off at the end of the last series - and finally (yay!) have cottoned on to quite how far this version of Robin Hood has deviated from the actual myth, so were much more prepared to go for the monsters. However as Robin Hood started half an hour before Primeval, we ended up watching the first bit of Robin, then videoing the end while we watched Primeval, then going back to Robin. (But given how daft the Robin Hood plots are, this didn't matter too much...)

Actually despite my cynicism (I cannot forgive the makers of Robin Hood for any amount of sacrilege, for eg: turning Allan a Dale, who wasn't even one of the merry men into a traitor, for making Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most accomplished woman of her time into a fat and lusty madam, and for making Guy of Gisborne more attractive then Robin Hood), this episode did turn out to be rather fun. Leaving aside the quite preposterous notion that there would have been a black friar wandering Sherwood Forest in the 12th century (I KNOW. It is a myth, but the time it is written in can surely be presented in an historically accurate way? My children are growing up thinking that mediaeval Muslim women commonly dressed as men and ran around shooting arrows at people...), actually David Harewood has done a fabulous job of reinterpreting the character of Friar Tuck so he is actually quite noble. Thanks to him, Robin's misery-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-because-your-wife-copped-it fest turned into a Robin Hood is reborn moment, which I rather liked. But pity poor old Jonas Armstrong. There he was, getting the job of Robin Hood, the ultimate folk hero, and first off they cast someone ten times as charismatic as him for Guy of Gisborne. In fact, I'd pretty much say everyone in it is more charismatic then wet old Jonas, including Keith Allen's ludicrously OTT performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham. And now, to make matters worse, even Friar Tuck is sexier, and more dynamic then Robin. No wonder (if rumour is true) he's leaving... If rumour is true, my betting is by the end of the series, we'll see Sexy David managing to bring Guy round to the outlaws side, and there will be a huge redemptive moment when Guy will see the error of his ways and turn his back on the Sheriff etc. In fact, he'll probably do what Robin has singularly failed to do so far, which is kill the Sheriff (who is also leaving, so I gather)...

We switched over at the moment when all seemed lost, Robin was alone, his merry men about to face the death penalty, yawn, yawn, to find Nick and co facing a new threat from an anomaly which had popped up in an Egyptian artefact in the British Museum. Now I know. Primeval is very very silly. There is far too much running around to no good purpose (this week a crocodile type creature escaped into the Thames, killed a few people, got shot and then limped back home, and, er, that was it really), but a) it doesn't take itself too seriously b) while I find Connor an irritating little eejit, the kids love him c) I can stand looking at Dougie quite easily for an hour and d) Mrs Mad is so much fun. Sadly we only got to see her at the end of the episode, but I am very much looking forward to finding out what nutty things she and her clones have been up to over the past year. And find out whether she's cloned metrosexual Stephen yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time...

So that's us sorted for the next few weeks. Robin will be videoed, or missed if we don't get round to it, and Primeval will be our family viewing. Saturday nights have just become fun again...