After months of hyping from the BBC and the lack of a thread (I couldn't find one here), this series finally starts on Saturday on BBC1 at 7.30pm. There's a great cast with Colin Morgan, Anthony Stewart Head, Richard Wilson and John Hurt and for Doctor Who fans, Julie Gardner is also a producer for the series. Plus Eve Myles is in the first episode.

So will be this be Doctor Who flavoured goodness or Robin Hood sided cheesiness? You decide.

Brief trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxfdY5wFYR8

Is that Saturday the 20th?

ASH on my t.v. again? Count me in.

Yes it's this Saturday.

The trailers have been good and UK wise, ASH is barely off the telly but I don't mean that in a bad way.

I am looking forward to this a ridiculous amount. Not only did a friend of mine work on the show, but I love Arthurian legends and this doesn't look as...well, panto, as Robin Hood and Doctor Who frequently are.

The Beeb's tried doing Merlin as a tea time show before - they did a six part miniseries based on Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave" in the early 90s (which I also loved). Hopefully this show will be just as enjoyable, although undoubtedly for different reasons - TV is much slicker these days, after all.

Really looking forward to this. I went to school (and - briefly - college) with Katie McGrath (Morgana) so it will be difficult to mantain objectivity.

American fans can take heart - NBC (yes, a broadcast network) has picked this up already. And for Canadians, CTV will simulcast.

A good number of those actors have guested on Doctor Who; the star, Colin Morgan, played Jethro (the sullen teen) in the episode "Midnight".

Isn't that brilliant? Eve Myles who appears in the first episode also rated the show and according to Issue 400 there's a credit to RTD at the end of the first episode. Not entirely why though.

So that's where I know him from. He looks very different!

Saw the first episode, and oh the Hoyay between Arthur and Merlin!
"I don't know what it is about you, Merlin..."
"You'll be his manservant!"
"Prince Arthur wants you right away!"

Anthony Head was great as always, and seeing Eve Myles was a nice surprise. Was that her singing voice?

Overall, I thought it didn't amount to much more than a future weekly guilty pleasure.

Well not quite Doctor Who (although was there one scene without an actor from that show?) but not Robin Hood awful either. Well done Eve Myles, but I hope this isn't a show that intends to get by on it's guest stars.

Although on saying that, Anthony Head rocked.

Wait and see methinks

God yes. Is there anything slashier than a manservant? And don't forget the lusty once-over Arther gave Merlin when he said that first line. The whole premise is slashy. Two people who originally hate each other, forced togther by destiny. It's so Mills and Boon.

Some good names. It's very entertaining; rather cliche, but that was to be expected. This Merlin/Guinevere thing is going to get annoying, isn't it? Maybe not. Maybe they'll win me over in time to get my heart crushed. But I doubt it, and not just because it would clash with my primary 'ship. (Anyone want to guess what that is?)

God I thought it was going to be horrible but it was much better than expected. The song was the best part. Was Eve Myles really singing?

It's interesting how they flipped the pairings, Arthur/Morgana and Merlin/Gwen. Can't wait to see how that plays out.

Go Katie! Old Andronians for the win!

Ahem, partisanship aside I liked it. I wonder how they are going to deal with the whole Arthur and Morgana being half-brother and sister thing. Grand they have changed enough about the myths that they might just ignore that part, but I suspect we are heading for a shocking reveal.

I was kind of disappointed. Nothing really grabbed me enough to keep my attention from wandering. I don't know if I'll watch it next week or not.

Enjoyed it a lot, surprisingly. And oh my gosh - Jethro, indeed! He looked so familiar, and I just couldn't place it.

I'm still trying to decide if this is good or not. Seems to transcend the typical treatment of making teen versions of established genres (looks at Smallville, Stargate:U) though.

I thought the First Episode was perfect Saturday evening Fayre. I really enjoyed it, all the actors seemed quite likeable.

Looking forward to next week but the sight of Will Mellor in the preview does worry me.

I'm having no luck in trying to track down who the singer was. I seriously doubt it was Eve Myles. I read somewhere that it was Katherine Jenkins, but that may have been someone's guess.

I enjoyed it and agree with those who call it perfect Saturday night fare. I found Merlin personable. Hopefully the actor playing Arthur will loosen up as his character does. I'm curious about Guinevere and wondering if we are being misled to think that she is THE Guinevere.

Looks okay.

I can't help but think of Anthony Head's Uther as the Sheriff of Nottingham's slightly nicer and less crazy great-great-(great-great-great-?)grandfather. Something about an older man in a castle, beheading people and stuff.

Actually, I found that Merlin had a lot of similarities with Robin Hood (Morgana looks vaguely like Marian, and Merlin's mentor [not the dragon!] reminds me of Marian's father), and I think that kind of distracted me. Hopefully I'll be able to shake that and, um, enjoy Merlin on its own merits.

On a sidenote: Colin Morgan is tall. Taller than the once and future king!

Possibly the hair. Katie McGrath has light brown hair in real life but the darker colour fits the character better, and it is difficult to imagine Marian with lighter hair either.

So Merlin, Arthur, Morgana and Guinevere are all roughly the same age? Riiight. And Arthur is an accepted prince who won't have to pull a sword from a stone to claim his rightful place as the once and future king? 'kay.

I know, I know, Arthurian legend is mutable at best, but this is just a step too far from anything I know of it to be able to take it seriously. I would have quite liked seeing Merlin come of age in a society with magic secret, knowing that all the actual Arthurian stuff was to come in his Dragon-endorsed destiny. I'm sure kids will love it, but it's just a bit too fast and loose with what I already know and enjoy about the story. I'm an old fart, sue me.

I enjoyed it, its not quite Doctor Who excellent but it easily usurps Robin Hood as far as I'm concerned. Colin Morgan makes for a good Merlin. A guy who wants to do good, doesn't really know how to at times and is prone to being a little immature. Then again I liked him in another show he appeared in recently.

Not really keen on either Arthur or Uther. The actors that play them are great but the characters felt a little too one note for my liking. The HoYay between Merlin and Arthur was amusing enough though. Arthur even told Merlin to get on his knees at one point.

As for the ladies, Morgana cam across as better than I thought she would. I kinda had a feeling I would warm to Gwen more and I did. I think there's a clear setting up of her and Merlin, even though he seemed a little too interested in Morgana.

Gaius is a decent character as well. A good mentor for Merlin so I'm interested in his development as well as the dragon that's being kept by Uther as an example.

Eve Myles pulled in a good performance as Mary Collins/Lady Helen. Top marks if tha is her actual singing voice as well. The ending lacked a little oomph but overall it was a good start to the series, 8/10.

The writers need to read the Evil Overlord List. Keeping your enemy alive as an example? Leaving your - in this case - book of spells out in the open? And wasn't it a little strange that she completely ignored the boy who was clearly unaffected by her magic? He was standing in plain sight and moving a lot. Silly.

Yeesh. MST3K Mantra. It's enterainment, and it is entertaining.

While it wasn't Doctor Who, it was still good, and will keep me entertained for the 13 weeks it's on.
TartanTart I was a bit worried about them all being the same age too...it just doesn't seem right! But I'l go with it for now as I did quite like it.

Jethro! I couldn't for the life of me remember his name.

I did miss most of the singing, as I spent the whole time wondering if Eve was really singing! Well done to here if it was, it was really good.
I thought the episode had a very fairy-tale theme going on, as well as the Arthurian legend. At one point Mary Collins/Lady Helen bit into a red apple, and the cobwebs on the people in the hall gave the impression they'd been asleep for years. Naming the fairy tales kept distracting me.

I'm hoping next episode will have a bit more, after the setting up this week.

I think I'll refer to it as Camelot High from now on, but the show was at least as enjoyable as Robin Hood, and there's potential in the cast (doesn't hurt that the main actor is engaging, and, OMG, the Hoyay cracked me up!), as well as the well-worn legends. I have to admit that I was inordinately intent upon trying to come up with an explanation as to how Merlin knew where to make his deliveries, as he couldn't possibly know anyone yet, much less where they lived. I guess we missed the parts where he asked for a lot of directions. I'll keep watching, at least until some goth kid named Mordred starts hanging about.

What TartanTart said - once you make Arthur into Uther's acknowledged son and make him the same age as Merlin, you've pretty much removed all trace of the original Arthurian legend except some common names. The relationship between Merlin and Arthur is obviously completely different, and so is the relationship between Merlin and Uther, among other things.

Why not have it set during the reign of King Constantine, with Merlin and Uther as youthful contemporaries? Vortigern could be a villainous advisor (as he was in the original stories) who seizes the throne at the end of the first season, driving Uther into exile.

Making Arthur grow up as a cocky prince just vitiates the entire Arthurian story - at that point, what's the point of even calling him Arthur and his buddy Merlin?

Maybe their relationship will change over the season?

Eve Miles did a really good job, now that I recognize her under all that make up.

It depends on what one considers the "Arthur story" to be, I suppose. For centuries the legend simply had Arthur as not being of royal birth at all, but a champion charged with defending the kingdom from the forces of magic and stamping them out. Sometimes during this period he was associated with Uther by mentions of his being the king for whom Arthur worked (though other times, it was not Uther at all).

It was in the 12th century that the invention of Arthur being Uther's son came about and, at that point, he was Uther's acknowledged son who was raised since birth to be king and assumed the throne as a callow teenager following his father's death. That's the version that stood for 300 years until the retcon of the whole sword-in-the-stone, years without a king, secret lineage bit was introduced to the legend. So it's hard, really, to say that it's 'wrong' for Merlin to have Arthur raised at Uther's side.

In fact, little things about Merlin make me think that they're not just randomly tinkering with the legend (apart from the youthification of Arthur) but looking back through all the old versions and cherry picking the bits they like. For instance, here's no Great Dragon in Le Morte d'Arthur so I don't think it's ever appeared in a modern series or movie but the same version of the legend that has Uther and Arthur as acknowledged father and son also has a dragon chained in a cavern beneath a mighty castle which painstakingly digs out the foundations over decades in order to bring it crashing down... (I just spoilered a 900 year old plot point, which feels odd, but I don't think it's common knowledge and seems likely to be depicted in future episodes).

Too true - I had no idea she was also playing the witch at the beginning there, till the morph when she assumed the singer's identity. Well done.

Although I thought that was actually silly. It would have been one thing if Mary had disguised her appearance by rejuvenating herself (since nobody around would remember what she'd looked like 50 years ago) and Myles had played both Old Mary and Young Mary. And another if she'd taken Helen's place and Old Mary played by a different actress, but to have Mary just happen to look like Helen, only older just seemed a bit weird.

I guess it's because I didn't recognize Eve in the role on first appearance that I was sold. YMMV.

Nuallain - I don't think pre-Geoffrey of Monmouth legends about Arthur (which are very vague and generally lack detail) can really be considered to be part of the "Matter of Britain" as it's generally understood - they are forerunners to it. Except maybe for some Welsh stuff, the earliest stuff about Arthur also, from what I can gather, includes neither Merlin nor Uther at all, so it's hard to say that this is could be the basis for a story about Merlin.

As to the sword in the stone, and such, from what I can gather you're right that this did not appear in Geoffrey. But from what I can gather, the sword in the stone legend is not much younger than Geoffrey - it comes from Robert de Boron, who was in the late 12th/early 13th century, seemingly - only a few generations younger than Geoffrey, and several hundred years before Malory codified the legend.

I suppose that there's so many different versions of the legend that it's silly to take Malory's version as in some sense "canonical," but the particularly distant versions of the legend often seem to have little to do with the actual legend - I'm looking at you, Clive Owen and Keira Knightley.

I read somewhere that 'the sword in the stone' was mistranslated, and was actually taken from a Saxon.

Oh, I'm not denying that there are lots and lots of different versions and interpretations of Arthurian legend and that large chunks of it were undoubtedly invented wholesale by Chretien de Troyes. But is just seems like the BBC have kiddified it, ignored what grown-ups know or have read about it and made it something kids will like. Which I don't object to in and of itself, but it just seems sad that they couldn't have taken the period jkenney mentioned and based it then. It just seems like they wanted it all; young pretty Merlin and young pretty Arthur at the same time, regardless of how odd this might seem to the vast majority of folk who know anything about the legends.

I suppose I'm just not the target audience and should probably shut up,

Well, at least it's had the bonus effect of making me want to reread L'Morte D'Arthur. I read the first Penguin volume a few years ago but have forgotten most of it, and never really got started with the second. But I don't remember Merlin appearing in what I read.

You'd think an episode featuring one attractive young man dressing and undressing another attractive young man would have more HoYay in it. Le sigh. Not that there was a complete dearth, mind, but...
Never mind me. I'm a Heroes girl. I'm spoiled.

I'm actually really glad that I wasn't one of the people who dismissed Will Mellor before seeing the episode, sorry they killed him.

Anthony Head is going very Lionel Luthor in his Uther, and he's pulling it off, well done sir.

Morgana was much more of an actual person tonight, I was worried they didn't know how to use her, but obviously they just didn't have time to set her up properly first episode.

Liked it much better now that the setting up has been accomplised, next week Michelle Ryan as the ubervillan, bring it!

Luther?

I missed this week's episode (6 pm is too early for me!), does anyone know if there are some repeats on BBC1 or BBC2 later in the week?

I liked this episode a lot more than the first, partly because we got to see more of Morgana (go Katie!), we got to see a (slightly) better side to Arthur and we got to see Merlin perform magic other than telekinesis. Very good all round.

Interesting that Morgana has had no real (knowing) interaction with Merlin yet - the only main character who hasn't. I wonder how that 'first' meeting will play out. Is she even aware of his existence?

Not so fond of the earlier time - I go to the movies on Saturday afternoons, so it interferes with my schedule a bit.

Dana S, it's repeated tomorrow at 3:25 PM. Though if 6 PM is too early for you, that probably won't be much help.

So true, that. With Merlin as Clark, Morgana Lana, Gwen Chloe, and the dragon as Jor-El! In fact, midway through the episode I realized that if I stopped thinking of the cast in terms of Arthurian legend, the story is quite entertaining. Some nice use of magic throughout, as well as fleshing out some of the characters. And the relationship Merthur was well played.

Really? I thought the magic was a little inconsistant. Sure, it is nice that he's no longer just telekinetic, but he suddenly needed an incantation to use his telekinesis, and the thing with the dog? How does that make sense? Presumably the sheild was already enchanted, unlike the dog, so surely it would take a different kind of magic to enchant an object than to make use of one that is already magic.

*Shudder*

Please no! I'm friends with Morgana's actress, and the thought that she could end up anything like Lana is too horrifying to contemplate.

Dragonet, I guess I would see the enchantment used in creating the shield as actually being the same spell Merlin casts with the stone dog; every time Valiant ordered his snakes to attack he was simply re-triggering the spell.

As for the incantation I consider it an example of his growing knowledge. Merlin performs much more complex acts of telekinesis in this episode without having to keep concentrating. I see his telekinesis as simply his untrained use of magic seeping out. Access to codified magic in books allows him to refine it. Presumably casting a normal spell takes less effort and allows a higher degree of control than using raw magic.

It is a little like a singer; the singer has a naturally gifted voice that can still do some impressive things without training. With training and knowledge he can project that voice in a more controlled manner doing things he couldn't do earlier no matter how much he drove his voice. I see the magic on this show as being similar.

Well, the second part makes sense, although a mention of it in the show would have been nice if that were the idea. The sheild, though. Why is it the same spell? There are so many differences. In addition to the above-mentioned, it took Merlin, a natural wizard (and there's another thing that annoys me: they called him a warlock, which actually means oath-breaker) many, many tries to work the spell, while Dude from Two Pints worked it easily, and Merlin had no control over the dog. The sheild thing was supposed to be just an invocation, a summoning that could be performed by the bearer and the bearer alone. I don't know why it worked on a random statue, or why it worked differently.

I'm sorry, I just can't deal with Merlin being younger than Arthur. Arthur being a jerk - that I can live with, provided he matures over time.

I only caught the end of Episode 2, but I thought the Dark Knight was a complete idiot - when your shield starts exuding magical snakes, going "Arthur, you're dead now!" is stupid - even if you won, you've just admitted to killing the King's son using illegal magic. Could he really hold off all of King Uther's men once he was revealed as Evil? He should have accused Merlin (who was standing about five yards from him at the time!) of working an enchantment upon his shield (it was even sort of true), which would have got Merlin into trouble. Maybe he really was just a brainless thug.

Apparantly Merlin can turn himself invisible, and TPTB just forgot to show the audience that, because the same thing happened last week with Not-Gwen.
Anyway, I think DfTP had given up on surviving, and just wanted to do as much damage as possible on his way out. I don't know why the guards didn't jump in, though, having seen proof of cheating, and I think I missed the part where Arthur lost his sword in the first place. I'm not clear on what the big deal is about Morgana throwing him the sword, either, except as a shipping thing. He was about to be murdered, and he had no tools with which to prevent this, so she handed him one. Big deal.
Their whole relationship is just... what? I mean, I don't know much about the social habits of normal teenagers, so I can't judge how accurate it is for them, but I doubt a Prince and a - I'm not sure what Morgana's title is supposed to be, but she's definitely important - would dare treat each other like that, especially in public. If either of their fathers wanted to make something of it, there could be a serious disruption in the workings of the kingdom.

For the most part I can look past everything except for one; the seeming pairing of Morgana and Arthur. Because they are siblings for crying out loud. OK, OK the show decided that they are siblings only by way of being raised by the same man. And the legends have that whole they had a kid together in spite of being half-siblings thing in them (which I quite like the Mists of Avalon's take on since I've always thought the Morgana was The!Evul stuff seemed like anti-chick inspired weirdness anyway). But in the first episode when Morgana was going on about how Arthur hadn't asked her to the party I just kept thinking, "that's because it's inappropriate to intentionally date your half-sister."

But still, I quite liked it, if for no other reason than that if I were 10 I would be harassing my mother to get us home on time to watch it. The lead certainly is a charismatic young thing, isn't he? I swear that grin could cure cancer.

I'll just push the I believe button and go with it I guess. Good clean silly fun. Curious to see how Guinevere goes from maid to queen though.

From what I gather, since Morgana's Uther's ward, and Arthur is Uther's son, they are close to being siblings (minus the blood tie), which might be a tie-in with Arthurian legend. Perhaps more word on what happened to Morgana's parents (were they killed in a meteor storm, for example) will be forthcoming, as well as the fate of Arthur's mother. In most legends I've read Morgana and Arthur shared a mother, but that's clearly not the case here, making them available for dating. As far as social norms go, though, they seem only to apply to Merlin thus far, and mostly when Arthur's a tad peeved at him.

It certainly wouldn't have been uncommon in medieval times for someone to be 'adopted' explicitly to keep their lineage close to the family and their marriage into your blood line arranged at an older age. There was a difference from today where being someone's adopted guardian and being their father were seen as very different things.

Plus, Morgana's status in this seems (like a lot of other things) to tie in closer to the 12th century legend rather than Morte d'Arthur. In that version she's part of Arthur's family by adoption, they don't hook up, she's not the mother of Mordred and, in fact, she's one of the goodies.

Oh, I see. I'll back off that, then, although it really does put more of a sibling vibe on their relationship than a shippy one. To be honest, I'm not paying all that much attention.

Lol. C'mon, she's not that bad. Knock on wood.

I'm just waiting for her to start learning magic.

I guess there has to be a shippy element to it since Morgana said in episode one that she believes the only reason Uther adopted her was to ultimately arrange a marriage with Arthur. It's actually kind of an anti-ship since Morgana and Arthur both seem to be against the idea.