I’m currently rewatching a tv show that I have watched a dozen times before. One of my favorites actually. It is the BBC show Merlin that premiered back in 2008. When I say this is one of my favorite shows. It’s like number one of my favorites .
I’m currently in the mist of rewatching season 4, the episode where Uther pendragon is fighting that jester dude that tried to kill Arthur.
That is enough spoilers for that episode but yeah I love that show.
MY FAVORITES OF THE SHOW
I have a lot of favorite characters which include mostly all the characters . The only ones I hate is Morgana and Morgause . Everyone I liked including the characters that got murked by Merlin in the earlier seasons like Nimueh. Yes another spoiler. Sorry about that but I loved this show. That was such a badass episode.
Another favorite was the great dragon. I loved a part in an episode where he stayed laughing so hard for what seemed longer than a minute at Uther marrying a troll. Because this dragon hates Uther so much. Although this episode was my least favorite.
I had favorite episodes and I had dissatisfying ones. I won’t go into much details because I do not want to spoil it for ones that haven’t watched the show but to say the least the overall show was satisfying but very different from the Arthurian lore.
DIFFERENCES OF THE SHOW VS LORE
They included it all. The knights of the round table , Excalibur,the sword in the stone, the lady of the lake ect.ect but changed up a lot of things within the show.
The main known difference is of course Merlin is not an old man but a teenage wizard and comes to Camelot to study under Gaius, I think who is his uncle but the series doesn’t really clarify it . Which I actually like this change in a way.
Arthur in this version is not yet king but a teenage prince who lives under his father Uther Pendragon’s rule.
In this version Uther has banned magic. He doesn’t have anything to do with Merlin. Merlin is not an advisor to the king but a manservant to Arthur .
Guinevere is also a servant in this version as well.
So those are mostly the main differences that were in the show .
THINGS I WAS CONFUSED ABOUT
I didn’t understand why Merlin didn’t and couldn’t tell Arthur he had magic. This part of the show was very annoying to me. And also that Gaius, who I don’t believe was in the original lore, why he was the one to always give bad advice to Merlin. His advice mixed with the great dragon’s advice made Merlin’s actions wishy washy. And it did feel like everything that happened badly was all Merlin’s fault because of their advice .
I was also confused about how Arthur was as a character. Even though he was strong, courageous, and noble he was also kind of mean and dumb when it came to Merlin’s use of magic. I mean he couldn’t wrap it around his head and understand that Merlin had magic? This notion was weird and every time Merlin would perform magic in front of him Arthur would miraculously fall out from a tree limb falling down or what not. I did not like that about the show because in lore he most definitely knew about Merlin’s magic.
Oh and don’t let me get started on that ending of the overall series. I was certainly confused about that ending. All in and all the one thing I wanted to see in the series was Merlin mentor Arthur. But that never happened. And that’s where they lost me. I wanted them to go deeper into the lore. They sure had enough seasons to do it.
Instead they just skimmed the surface of the lore. Half of the episodes of the 13 episodes from each season were basically filler episodes about banished sorcerer’s or magical creatures that came back to Camelot to exact their vengeance on Uther for banning magic. Okay I get it . It makes sense to have them come within the first couple episodes but get to the main lore of Arthur and Merlin after a while .
Another thing was they spent entirely too much time developing Morgana ‘s storyline into an evil sorceress . And then the reason they gave was because Uther lied to her about who she really was. To me it felt like a very weak reasoning.
I don’t know but they spent half of the overall series with her storyline . I wish they could do another series with the same cast like they have done with all the other shows that I have went off the air and came back. One site I found were these writers created an additional series 6 that finishes up the storylines pretty well and they bring it into the present called Merlin Kingdom Come . They wrote 13 screenplays that were written very well. I read the whole season in like 2 days . This would be perfect for a reunion series.
I can’t get enough of Arthurian legends . I’m going to start exploring some fiction books about the lore. I always loved the legend itself so much . And I’m probably going to write a Arthurian tale one day. I already have some ideas for it rolling around in my head but first I have to finish my work in progress novel During the Blue Hour.
If you liked this blog post and you want to see more content involving my work in progress During the Blue Hour Follow , Like , share . THEN LET’S START A DIALOGUE
FOR MERLIN FANS , WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE SHOW? ALSO WHAT ARTHURIAN TALES HAVE YOU READ?
I want to know so let me know in the comments below.
You can also interact with the podcast on Gab @duringthebluehour
You must be logged in to post a comment.