The following is a list of the episodes of the BBC television series Maid Marian and her Merry Men.
Series One is the most faithful to the original legends being parodied and probably the series with the fewest anachronisms. Originally transmitted from 16 November to 21 December 1989, with How The Band Got Together repeated on 20 April 2001.
Series Two, despite the appearance of Guy of Gisborne (who is almost the opposite of the character of the same name from the legends) begins to veer away from them and instead move towards a more creative style. Originally transmitted from 15 November to 20 December 1990, and repeated from 27 April to 1 June 2001.
By the third series, the surrealism and anachronisms were well-entrenched and the plots had very little to do with the historical setting. More overt parodies and references can be seen here, including the song in Episode 3 "Call The Dentist" (a direct parody of the Ghostbusters theme), "Chop Suey" in Episode 5 (a slow parody of Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto") and almost all of Episode 5. The supposed conflict between King John and the Sheriff on the one side and the Merry Men on the other is often downplayed in favour of a general comedic situation. Originally transmitted from 7 January to 11 February 1993, and repeated from 8 June to 13 July 2001.
Originally transmitted as one 50 minute episode on 24 December 1993, and repeated as two 25 minute episodes on 20 July and 27 July 2001. This episode can be found as an extra on the series 3 DVD release.
This, the final series of the programme, is in many ways the most bizarre. On the one hand, the comedy became more sophisticated: the roleplaying references in Episode 1, the parodies of English seaside culture in Episode 3 and the Beatles references in Episode 4 are jokes aimed over the heads of a juvenile audience. The appearance of "Clem Costner" is a reference to the Robin Hood films – and the fact that the Costner character is Robin's antithesis is perhaps unsurprising – while the inversion of the entire culture in the final episode demonstrates that nothing is sacred. On the other hand, the comedy also became more juvenile, and there was more slapstick and pie gags than in the other three series combined. Originally transmitted from 5 January to 16 February 1994, with five of the seven episodes repeated (The Wise Woman of Worksop and Voyage to the Bottom of the Forest were not included) from 3 to 31 August 2001.