Tonights Merlin Rocked!

I've been watching the BBC 1 drama Merlin now since it's second season, and after last week's and tonight's Episode has now become my third (maybe fourth) favourite programme on T.V right now. I rarely watch T.V nowadays, as I'm far to busy playing Video-games or trailing the Net to care, but Saturday night T.V still holds an interest for me. I caught the Season 2 premiere last Year mainly because I had heard a few people from Doctor Who were cast in it. It was a good show, not Doctor Who good (as that would be Blasphemy) but meh, it got a little bit better as the Series got on and it even tried to do something Epic towards the end but ultimately fell victim to what I thought was a good but quite a underwelming Finale (partly due to budget constraints I thought, as in one scene, when Arthur is preparing to bravely ride out of the Castle with his men to slay the big evil Dragon, he only actually rides out with half a dozen or so Knights, which is hardly a army worthy of Camelot! How are they going to slay that Dragon with only a few men? It can breathe fire for gods sake! Surely that isn't the most the Castle has to offer? THEY WILL ALL BE KILLED INSTANTLY! YOU NEED MORE! Which, almost poking fun at its clear lack of money, the show pretty much kills off all those Knights except Arthur in the first few SECONDS of the fight! Well I hate to say it, BUT I TOLD YOU SO!! Another one that slightly bugged me was the fact that The Dragon was only in the Episode for about three minutes, which I assume is because they didn't have alot of money for the CGI and just sprinkled little glimpses of him every now and then throughout the Episode). In Short: it had the Epic scale implied and the emotional strengh of a great story but didn't really show it enough.

Well I sat myself down on the sofa last Week and watched the Season 3 Premiere: The Tears Of Uther Pendragon Part One. And I was pretty much blown away. For starters the mostly Lighthearted nature of the Series was completely gone, and now had a strong darkness to it all. In the penultimate Episode of Season Two the King's ward, Lady Morgana (gives you a hint there about her destiny as a Character) was poisoned by Merlin and basically Teleported away to live with her evil Sister Morgoath for a Year to recover. In this Episode she comes back, but not as the nice, thoughtful and overall good natured Character I saw in Series 2, but instead as a bloody evil and twisted Character, stabbing a guard (which when she finds out is still alive and recovering from his vicious stab wounds, makes no delay in Poisoning him to finish the job before he can tell anyone about her true, bitch-y nature!) and driving the King insane, literary. Thats a pretty steep Character change isn't it? I suppose that's what happens when you spend a Year with your evil half-twin-Sister? Interesting to see how she became to be so Evil in future Episodes! Anyway, at the end of the Episode we find a 20,000 strong army marching towards Camelot, which isn't exactly depicted as this gigantic Lord Of The Rings type Castle capable of withstanding such numbers. Merlin is also found trapped in a creepy Forest with unbreakable chains and surrounded by gigantic poisonous Scorpions! In short: they're all F*cked! Thats the most epic thing I've ever seen out of a T.V programme, apart from the Doctor Who Episode where the universe actually does end (at least for a while, which was 2000 Years in the Episode!). The show has just completely changed in tone, Character and Story for me. The 2nd part, which aired tonight, was equally as awesome, and involved a epic battle that was actually shown and not just hinted at. Clearly someboy had a much needed rise in the Budget department!


Two gripes though: Nine animated Skeletons aren't exactly going to change the course of the Battle! Just lock them up in the Castle prison for a bit! And when the nine Skeletons were destroyed (which were doing a piss poor job of distracting Camelots Army and causing them to fight on two fronts by the way, as they only distracted two, maybe three guards as there was so few of them to start with!) all of a sudden the Enemy decided to withdraw HIS ENTIRE FREAKING ARMY, WHICH AFTER SUFFERING ONLY MINOR CASUALTIES AND STILL BEING 9000+ STRONG WAS A BIT OF A DUMB MOVE! Clearly in reality Camelot would be not only completely ravaged and utterly desecrated by the might of such a Army (20,000 MIGHT I ADD!) it could have NEVER stood a chance AT ALL! The nine animated Skeletons were really pivotal to the battle then it seems...


Still, even after all that, I found the past two Episodes of Merlin to be THE BEST ONES YET! I'm hoping next week will continue this revived feeling. Although it does look like it will go back to that Lighthearted tone again next week, with a Goblin let loose around the Castle causing mayhem!

IN SHORT: The new Merlin is very good. Also, I was bored and just decided to write another long Blog entry which was in the end only trying to convey those four words: NEW MERLIN, VERY GOOD! Which means that I spent an Hour writing this god damn thing when I could have just summed it up in four words! No wonder Twitter is so bloody popular!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjLOvOIFRRc