- In Sherwood Forest, the Doctor uncovers a sinister alien plot and forms an alliance with Robin Hood. With Nottingham at stake, the Doctor must decide who is real and who is fake.
- Clara Oswald insists that the Doctor takes her to meet Robin Hood, despite the Doctor's claims that Robin Hood is only a legend. When the TARDIS lands in medieval England, they are met by a man who claims he is Robin Hood. The Doctor remains in disbelief even as Robin takes the two to meet his band of Merry Men. Clara enjoys her time there and learns that Robin is still looking for his Maid Marian, but the Doctor is convinced there is something wrong, and becomes distrustful of Robin.
Robin, his men, and the Doctor and Clara attend to an archery contest held by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin, disguised as Tom the Tinker, faces against the Sheriff in the final round to win the prize of a golden arrow. As legend states, Robin is able to best the Sheriff by splitting his arrow with his own shot. The Doctor suddenly appears and challenges the result, and readily splits Robin's arrow with his own. The two begin to challenge the other with more arrows until the Sheriff orders the competition to end, and sends his knights - which turn out to be disguised robots - to capture them. The Doctor lets the knight robots capture the three so he can learn more about the Sheriff's plans.
The Doctor and Robin, in trying to come up with an escape plan, bicker to a point where Clara's admonishments are seen to make her the leader by those watching, and she is taken to meet the Sheriff herself. Clara is able to goad the Sheriff into revealing his past - that he witnessed a spaceship crash and has been trying to repair it by collecting all the gold in the nearby land, so that he can use it to travel to London and take over the kingdom. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Robin manage to escape their confinements, and locate the spacecraft. The Doctor realises that the craft had fallen back through time from Earth's future on the way to the Promised Land (as mentioned by the Half-Faced Man in "Deep Breath"), and when it crashed to Earth disguised itself as the castle, pumped the nearby atmosphere with chemicals to make it more like the Sherwood Forest setting of the Robin Hood myth, and created the robots to further the disguise. He also notes that the craft contains the myths and legends of Earth's history, including Robin Hood, and is convinced Robin is also a robot created by the spacecraft. The Sheriff arrives with Clara in tow having been alerted to the Doctor's presence. Clara manages to escape and she and Robin jump out of the castle into the water, while the Doctor is taken prisoner again.
Robin and Clara reunite with his men, and Robin begins to doubt his own existence, but Clara assures him he can be the hero, telling him of what she knows of him. Meanwhile, the Doctor realises that there is not enough gold in the area to fully complete the repairs on the spacecraft, and if the Sheriff should try to use it, it will destroy "half the country." He schemes with the other prisoners working the gold smelting areas to revolt against the knight robots, aided by the timely arrival of Robin, Clara, and his Men. Most of the robots are destroyed and the rest flee. The Sheriff appears and challenges Robin to a sword duel. Robin's arm is injured in the fight, but he is able to knock the Sheriff into one of the gold vats with a move the Doctor taught him, killing him. The spaceship, controlled by the few remaining robots, takes off and tears apart the castle, the Doctor and Clara helping the surviving prisoners to escape. The Doctor realises that if they can provide enough gold to the craft, it will exhibit a spurt of power to force it into Earth's orbit and away from the surface. The Doctor, Clara, and Robin work together to fire the golden arrow from the archery contest into the ship, and the ship destroys itself harmlessly.
As the Doctor and Clara prepare to leave, the Doctor admits to Robin that he accepts his story is real, and that the fact that he was real will be lost to history. Robin takes a moment to accept this, and then reminds the Doctor, based on the stories that Clara told him, that he is a hero of similar background as well. When the Doctor continues to deny this, Robin Hood suggests that their role is not to be heroes themselves, but to inspire others to take on that role. The Doctor and Clara depart, revealing that the Doctor has left Robin a gift - he has found Maid Marian and brought her here to reunite with Robin.
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