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Merlin series 5

CaptainWacky

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
Returns TOMORROW! Will it be up to Merlin's usual "watchable" standard? OR BETTER!? Will they still use that same animation of the dragon landing in the field all the time?
 
Just like with Downton Abbey, we don't get new Merlin until January.

(That is, losers don't get them until January, I'm still acquiring them now HA!)
 
So it was a pretty standard Merlin opener. I noticed lots of references/rip-offs to other things: the beginning was like a scene North of the Wall in Game Of Thrones (and even had a GOT actor!), Morgana on her sleigh led by wolves was the White Witch from Narnia, the shot showing Morgan's mine under her castle was like Isengard for LOTR (except with buff miners instead of Orcs) and Merlin showed he has the intellectual capacity of Chewbacca by falling for the "look, a rabbit!" trap from Return of the Jedi.

But anway, there were good things. The familiar pattern of Arthur being a dick then later saying "actually, Merlin, you're the finest man I know" then they stare at each other just long enough for the shippers to get ideas. Morgana's shirtless mine was just typical Merlin exploitation like we all love and should have had Morgana flicking her bean while watching. And Gawain got saved by an alien. What the fuck.

I kind of like how they made it look like the serving girl would be a love interest for Merlin but then by the end that bitch Gwen had ordered her executed. Nice and ADULT.

I suppose seeing the queen from last season was good continuity but it also felt a bit like padding because it's a two parter.

Liam "Davos" Cunningham would be a good replacement for Evil Uncle but I bet they just underuse him then kill him off next week like always.

Morgana didn't do much but look grumpy and there was no sign of her white dragon.

And even with all the time jumps (three years this time!) I doubt Mordred's new age makes much sense. But it sets up a nice story arc for the season.
 
I quite liked the episode, even if I couldn't stop laughing every time Morgana's mine of male models were on screen.

Although now the show's being all grown up and deep and stuff there's some odd tonal shifts going on, like how you have one OH SO WACKY AND ZANY scene of Merlin juggling eggs for some reason which goes right into him being all depressed and ANGSTY about Arthur's possible death.

But yeah that alien (or whatever it's supposed to be) is terrible. Like if it was just this pure CGI creature it wouldn't be too bad, but having a human face slapped on it just looks weird.

Also it's good to know that Gwen is a horrible, horrible ruler and sentences people to death due to circumstantial evidence. I'd rather be ruled by Morgana and her "NO SHIRTS TO BE WORN AT ALL" rule.
 
ALSO forgot to mention it's kind of weird that they mentioned "Saxons" working with Morgana. Real world and Merlin don't mix well.
 
I really liked Gwen's scene at the end actually. Angel Coulby makes a much more convincing Queen than I'd expected and I thought the death sentence was very believable considering it's her husband that the girl had put in danger. I wouldn't call it circumstantial evidence, either, since the girl admitted what she'd done.

The blue alien was like a shark jumping moment. I mean, GoT can do zombies and that's fine, but aliens in Merlin? Wtf? I mean it'll turn out to be some kind of "cave spirit", but it looks like an alien damnit.

Mordred's a 30 year old barely managing to keep his stubble in check, while Merlin's still played by a boyish 24 year old (I haven't looked those up, just going on visuals). Not the best growth spurt in tv history.

I liked the continuity of having thingy the ally back, but the way she keeps reiterating the fact that they're allies makes her seem less trustworthy.
 
Merlin won't finish until 9:10 tonight so let's hope they use those 10 post watershed minutes to full effect!

(with more shirtless men)
 
That was a really good Merlinisode.

It looked great with all the snow everything.

Gwen nearly did something smart but didn't count on Davos being a BADASS MAGIC NINJA. Of course he died anyway because we can't have good actors alive too long on Merlin. But his daughter survived and maybe she's Arthur's bane?

I liked that we saw Morgana's dragon do more than one thing and the CGI was hardly GOT quality or anything but it was good for Merlin. Though it would have been nice if it had been able to explain to Merlin why it was helping Morgana (it's because she's hot.)

Morgana seemed to be showing a little depth at the start with her weird dream, but then when she met Arthur she was literally the Emperor and Mordred was literally Vader. I actually did think "maybe she's dead!" for a minute until I remembered there were clips in the trailer we haven't seen yet. Then at the end she's just walking in the snow fine again because obviously you can't kill Moragna by stabbing her.

Percival killed lots of people with his shirt off in slow motion.

Merlin stupidly doesn't just directly ask the font of all knowledge how to save Arthur.

I'm glad Mordred didn't do an evil smile or anything. BUT WHAT IS HIS GAME?

Next week...

I'm surprised they didn't have Anthony Head in the preview as I definitely read a spoiler saying he IS in the episode. How restrained.
 
See I liked the episode and all, but it really hammered home one of the major annoyances I have with this show at the moment.

Arthur's Kingdom is still, like Uther's, very oppressive. Magic is still shunned, and people are still being punished (by death!) simply because of who they are and what they believe. Merlin seems to be okay with this still, for what reasons I don't know. He even taunts Mordred at the end with what would happen if Arthur knew he had magic, while seemingly forgetting that the same thing would happen to him as well.

For all her personal vendettas, Morgana is still fighting against that oppression, she still wants to overthrow Arthur to end it. But yet we're supposed to be rooting for her to fail because... because...

But it would be so easy to stop all this. Merlin could just go to Arthur, who is clearly not as unfeeling as Uther was, and say "Hey actually I have magic and I've saved your life with it literally hundreds of times maybe it's not so bad and you could legalize it?". And that would mean that Arthur is still "the good King" and Morgana is still "the evil witch", and it won't be really uncomfortable when we're cheering at the end when Arthur wins.

Alien was still fucking creepy, though.
 
This was the first time I have seen this series.

This episode must be the "Indiana" episode? I kept on expecting someone to come along with a skull and pour blood into Arthur's mouth. It even had the aliens from Crystal Skull!

The battle between Gwynn's tits and Morgana's tits seems to be the biggest on screen battle going on here. Gwynn is winning hands down at the moment!

Naked men running round caves is also very amusing.

All in all, a good romp!
 
It was a good episode. Tempted to say very good, but it did still have a few Merlin cliches that it just can't shake off.

I found that I liked pretty much any scene so long as it didn't have Merlin or Arthur in it. Like Tomtrek, I find that Merlin's attitude is a real flaw in the writing. It's just not credible that he'd still refuse to do the logical thing and tell Arthur he has magic. I don't understand the writers view either, as they clearly seem to think that it would somehow break the show, but it wouldn't. It'd be terrific, and it'd open up lots of new story possibilities.

Anyway, so aside from the comedy music Merlin and Arthur eye rolling scenes it was good.

Gwen's suddenly become my favourite character. She's easily the most credible and sympathetic character in it at the moment, aside from good old Gaius, but he's barely opened his gob so far this season.

The dragon made a welcome return... they should've had John Hurt doing the voice, but on helium.

The blokes having their shirts off is all very well, but in one shot Percival breathed really heavily and you could see the condensation from the caves actually being freezing cold... just saying.

Mordred being knighted was a big wtf moment for me. I was convinced it was a dream sequence for some time. I know Arthur is the son of the man who let strangers come into the castle on a weekly basis despite them on each consecutive occasion turning out to be murderous warlocks, but someone is fighting alongside your greatest enemy, switches side at the last minute, and suddenly you make them a bloody knight of the round table?! And this after your best friend/snivelling clodpole has been telling you all day to kill the guy in cold blood because he's so dangerous?

Guh... MERLIN!! Why do you have to be so inconsistent?!
 
Yeah it was also a bit weird that he knighted a guy for stabbing someone in the back.

The Tomtrek said:
For all her personal vendettas, Morgana is still fighting against that oppression, she still wants to overthrow Arthur to end it. But yet we're supposed to be rooting for her to fail because... because...
Click to expand...

If they did write Morgana as wanting to end the magic oppression she would be justified in it, but at this point whenever she confronts Arthur she's just "I'LL RIP YOUR COCK OFF WITH MAGIC AND MAKE YOU EAT IT, I'M SO EVIL HAHAHAHAHAHA!" And when she actually did takeover Camelot last year she didn't say "okay, time for equality!" she just...made men fight each other to the death. Shirtless.

Which is why I was kind of conflicted when it looked like Morgana was dead this week, because as much as I like Katie McGrath (and think she does a good job with the material!) I did think "well if Morgana's just going to be a cackling, topless men obessed lunatic now maybe it is best to kill her..." and thought it would have been quite a brave move to get rid of her and replace her with Mordred who has potential to be an actual complex character as he was disgusted by Morgana's cackling madness but will still obviously have a problem with the whole magic being outlwared thing...

But it is Merlin.

headvoid said:
The battle between Gwynn's tits and Morgana's tits seems to be the biggest on screen battle going on here. Gwynn is winning hands down at the moment!
Click to expand...

Yeah but Gwen's are obviously being pushed up way more to the point where it looks ridiculous and is very distracting...whereas Morgana's are big anyway (and paler not being racist lol) and her dress looks a bit more viable and evil.
 
Yeah, Gwen's breasts wouldn't get that pushed up if she wore a corset in a car crash. It's ridiculous, but these shows gave to have a bit of something for dad, don't they? I blame headvoid.

I felt conflicted about Morgana dying too. As you say, it would've been brave of them and she's come to the point where there's not much more for her to do than constantly fail in ever unlikely situations, so I kind of hoped she really was dead. But I knew in my heart that we'd see her before the end somehow staggering along, possibly healing herself with magic.

I wonder who her next short lives lackey will be? I vote for Nigel Havers.
 
They could potentially do something interesting with Morgana in revealing who it was that held her and her dragon captive at the bottom of a well (as seen in her dream in this episode)...but as it's Merlin there's an equal chance they'll never mention it again.
 
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