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The final episode of the third series of Merlin was shown on Saturday night, but it was difficult to know what to make of it. On the one hand, it was a thrilling climax, and on the other, it ended with a fizzle rather than a bang.
This reaction can also be applied to the entire series as it has been a decidedly mixed bag. After a stupendous opening episode, the subsequent episodes struggled to match up, with the biggest problem being the producers’ refusal to develop the plot. The same problem also hampered the second series, but the opening episode of this series promised that development would occur, only for the second episode to say ‘actually, no’. This made it very difficult to feel any tension in the following episodes as you knew that everything would return to normal at the end.
Such knowledge did not help many of the standalone episodes in this series. However, it has to be said that the writers of Merlin truly are eco-warriors as, if paper was recycled as much as the plots for Merlin episodes, it would almost be transparent. Seriously, how many tournaments can one kingdom have? And in how many of those tournaments can there be a contestant who uses magic and/or wants to kill Arthur and/or Uther?
Despite all of this, however, Merlin somehow continues to entertain and there is something about it that just keeps you watching it every week. While there have been some dire episodes in this series, none more so than 'Goblin’s Gold', an episode so poor that CBeebies would say that it was too juvenile for their target audience, there have also been some very entertaining ones, especially the two-part conclusion to the series.
The first part had an excellent cliffhanger with (shock!) some development, as Morgana’s evil nature was exposed. All of the best episodes in this series have centred on Morgana’s evil plots, and Katie McGrath has played the role delicious panache. The second part certainly had a high standard to live up to, and for the most part, it did. All of the tension that had been sorely absent previously came all at once, and there were several key plot developments throughout the episode that were extremely geek-pleasing. Look it’s the Round Table! It’s Lancelot! It’s Excalibur!! During all of this excitement, it was necessary to ignore lines so corny that Mr. Kellogg himself would worry if he’d overdone it with his latest recipe for Corn Flakes.
Arguably, it took a little too long for the climatic Camelot conflict to commence, but when it did, it had the perfect balance of swordplay, sorcery and suspense. (OK, maybe I’m overdoing the alliteration.) There was one major problem however, the development bandwagon came to a grinding halt as Morgana and Morgause simply vanished, Uther was rescued and Arthur didn’t become King. Great.
I know that Merlin has been doing remarkably well in the ratings, and a fourth series has been commissioned, but the development bandwagon will have to start moving again soon, and at much higher speed, otherwise Colin Morgan will be an old man with a beard down to the floor before Arthur becomes King. Or maybe that is the plot.
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