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.

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