While the Tenth Doctor popularised the idea of the Doctor as an absolute pacifist, Classic Who has plenty of evidence to the contrary. Mostly from the Third Doctor who was never one to shy away from giving his enemies a good kicking; bonking an Ogron over the head with a bottle of wine, having an impromptu swordfight with the Master, and beating up all and sundry thanks to his mastery of Venusian Aikido. A trait which (thanks to Mark Gatiss) seems to have now passed over to the Twelfth Doctor. At the Sheriffs archery tournament after constantly trying to outdo each other, the Robot Knights are revealed and Robin Hood decides to be the bigger man and defend the Doctor. But the Doctor has other plans. Planning to use his go-to approach of getting captured to get close to the villain, the Doctor disarms Robin so that they can surrender before Robin gets them disintegrated. But swords are too wimpy for the Doctor. Instead; he adopts a Venusian Aikido stance and unleashes the Third Doctors trademark battle cry of Hai!, and then knocks Robins sword out of his hands in an instant with little to no effort. Which makes you wonder just how bad at close-quarter combat those robots must be if Robin is able to dismember one but gets a sword knocked out his hands that easily. What did you think of Robot Of Sherwood's continuity references? Have you spotted any that we missed? Let us know in the comments section below..
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
