Merlin Episode 3 Series 4: The Wicked Day.

Actually …

That’s a VERY to the point title for episode three, that really is …

I think you know me well enough by know to be able to guess I like a certain dark tone to my television fantasy and SF.

Hmmm …

The old portmanteau, telefantasy, springs to mind, here, but explaining that is possibly for another time.

At any rate …

I’ve got to admit I’ve been watching — and re-watching — last night’s episode of Merlin: episode 3, if you didn’t know, and called The Wicked Day for a reason.

Episode three opens on Prince Arthur’s birthday: and the pre-title teaser shows us a group of gleemen arriving to help Camelot celebrate thew Prince’s birthday.

The day is spoiled, though …

Because a botched assassination attempt on Arthur sees his father, Uther, fatally wounded.

Please notice the fatally bit, there.

Because the extent of Uther’s wounds … ?

See Arthur decide that the only way that Uther can be healed is through magic.

And for that, he seeks Merlin and Gaius’ help in finding a sorcerer* who can heal Uther.

A healing attempt that — I should add — is thwarted by Morgana, with the help of Agravaine.

And a healing attempt …

That leads to the inevitable happening.

The death of Uther Pendragon.

»»Å««

The King is dead …

Long Live The Kingª.

»»Å««

Phew … !

Now, I’ve got to admit, I think the BBC’s hit a good one, with the three episodes of Merlin series 4.

Normally … ?

Dr Who fan that I am, I believe that series 6 — Matt Smith and Stephen Moffat’s second in place — to have been generally good, but a touch on the messy side, and not help by the big gap between episodes 7 and 8.

And I’m ALSO convinced that — in comparison — series 4 of Merlin is a hell of an improvement.

Both on its predecessors and on the Matt Smith episodes of Dr Who: although, granted, Moffat and co are effectively only on their second season of a completely different show.

Last night’s episode … ?

I think last night’s episode only show’s that, very well: cast, crew and writers are coming to something of a head.

AND in showing us Uther’s death, and Arthur’s coronation, has moved this version of the Arthurian myth further along to it’s sources.

All this?

And it’s still only episode three.

* Merlin: basically reusing the disguise he uses in last season’s The Queen Of Hearts. These scene’s provide a heck of a lot of the much needed comic relief for the episode.

ª There’s a possibly apocryphal story: that says when the late Queen Mother was told of her husband, George 6th’s, death, she turned around to the messenger who’d brought the news and said “You’d better inform Princess Eliza … ”. Then stopped, took a deep breath and said “You’d better inform Her Majesty of her father’s death”.

Merlin Episode 2 Series 4: The Darkest Hour: Part 2.

You know, I’ve got to make a quiet confession, here.

Usually, I’ll be re-watching an episode that I’ve just seen, in order to keep myself famillier wityh what I’m going to write.

Usually.

But I’ll happily confess I’ve got the Was (Not Was) album, Boo

Give it a listen if you get the chance.

It’s both fascinating and beautiful.

That’s just my opinion, though: if you do get a copy* … ? Let me know what you think.

»»·««

Let me get moving on to tonight’s episode of Merlin, shall we … ?

Yes, let’s … !

Part 2 of The Darkest Hour sees Arthur and the bulk of his knights — Leon, Perceval, Elyan, Gwaine — heading on for the Isle of The Blessed whilst Lancelot takes Merlin back to Camelot.

A Camelot that is suffering under Agravain’s leadership: unbeknown to anyone, Agravain is ready and — seemingly — willing to follow every order given him by Morganaº.

And a Camelot that is being protected from Agravain’s mismanagement by Guinevere and Gaius.

Which leaves Guinevere almost fatally harmed by Morgana.

At about the same time that a healed Merlin and Lancelot rejoin Arthur and the crew on the Isle of the Blessed, facing the Cailleach.

And facing her in a way that ends — for me — very surprisingly.

With Lancelot sacrificing himself to close the veil between worlds.

That’s put the cat amongst the pigeons … … … !

»»·««

Actually, for those of us who know the old stories?

That has a bit, hasn’t it … ?

I’ll be frank … ?

I am HOOKED … !

Hooked: and although I only know only a little of the old legends?

I’m wondering how Merlin’s producer’s are going to script themselves out of this one … !

* From the Head to The Heart is just down beautiful, it really is. Your Luck Won’t Last and Big Black Hole are pure funk, Needletooth is the STRANGEST thing I’ve heard, this side of the ODD Zappa I’ve indulged in … or Hello Dad, I’m In Jail, now I come to think of it. THEN there’s Crazy Water. WHY Crazy Water wasn’t a number 1 hit in every English speaking nation on the planet, I do not know … !

º Hmmm … You know, in part 1 of The Darkest Hour shows us Morgana having a vision of a battle field where crows are flying around. Now, I know the Wikipedia entry the Morrigan links her to Morgana, but I’m sure I’ve heard them linked, before now.

Merlin Episode 1 Series 4: The Darkest Hour.

You know, I’ve REALLY go to be thankful — in a bizarre sort of way — that Grub’s not a fan of Merlin.

No, really … !

It means there’s at least one TV show I can happily write about, right here.

Rather than over here … !!!

»»·««

Which does sound a little silly, now I come to mention it, doesn’t it … ?

But I’m ALSO very aware that Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar has been a little shy of material, just recently.

Life’s quiet at the moment.

What CAN I tell you … ?

»»·««

APART from one little thing … ?

I’ve just seen the first episode of the new fourth series of Merlin —The Darkest Hour: Part 1 — and I’ve come away impressed.

Until someone comes up with a synonym for ‘impressed’ that I like the sound of!

(I’m running out of thesaurus entries. And thesauri, before you ask.)

But at any rate … ?

At any rate, I managed to see The Darkest Hour: Part 1, and came away having thoroughly enjoyed the series 4 opening episode.

The Darkest Hour: Part 1 opens a year after the finish of series 3, with a small group of Camelot’s knights on the path of a suspicious women with a cart.

A woman who turns out to be the gone-to-the-bad Morgana — Katie McGrath, as ever — who’s transporting her dying sister, Morgause — Emilia Fox — to the Isle of the Blessed.

Not for any kind of healing, for those of us familiar with the legends.

No …

Morgause is helping her sister in the only way she has left.

By being sacrificed.

At midnight, on the night of Samhain’s Eve.

Allowing for the vail between the world of the living and the dead to be broken, and allowing both the spirits of the dead to run riot.

And the scary figure of The Cailleich to show herself to both Morgana: a figure who warns Morgana about the magic worker who will be her doom.

And capping all that … ?

Capping all that we ALSO find that Arthur, and Camelot, have been receiving help from Arthur’s Uncle Agravain.

As has Morgana, as this episode makes perfectly clear …

»»·««

Now …

I’m going to happily admit, I’m a huge fan of Merlin and have been, this day 1.

But this opening episode, darker than the previous three as it is … ?

Yes …

I think it bodes for an interesting series …

Merlin, Episode 10: The Queen of Hearts

You know, I’ve got to admit, I would have written this post up, last night, if it hadn’t been for a couple of things.

First off … ?

I was feeling dog tired.

Enough to get a seriously early night.

The other thing … ?

Was something that gets to be a pain if it happens with any kind of regularity.

My Googlemail account got hacked.

From Google’s end, if I’m any judge.

The clue, for me, should have been the fact that I couldn’t upload any photos to the original version of the post.

Well …

That and the fact that, I couldn’t sign onto my own blog, this morning …

Suspicious activity, apparently.

When I did mange to get everything corrected — mostly by resetting the password on the account, itself, and on my copy of Mail.app — Mail.app did its thing, and downloaded all the messages in my Gmail inbox.

Including a lot of ‘Delivery Failed’ type messages.

Ahem!

Somebody was playing Silly Buggers, by the signs of things.

»»•««

The problem, as far as I’ve understood it, though … ?

In part is caused by the simple fact that many of us send — or have sent, in my case, very much in the past — chain emails.

And don’t bother to delete other people’s addresses from the body of the message.

It is, I’m told, one of the main ways that the folk who send spam find out about active email addresses they can hijack, to send spam from.

I’ll admit, I’ve already sent a message to one or two relatives I know that are guilty of the same mistake.

Hopefully, it’s got through, ok …

|||»»»•«««|||

Now, where was I … … ?

Oh, yeah …

Merlin… !

Actually, I should add, here, that I’m talking about last night’s episode of Merlin, The Queen of Hearts.

Which was …

Hmmmm …

Lets try to some it up, first, shall we … ?

The Queen of Hearts sees Morgana warned — in a nightmare — about the relationship between Arthur and Guinevere: and, on the advice of her sister Morgause, deciding to let Uther know about this.

In a very roundabout way.

Involving a horse …

OK, a horseride, I should say: before anyone gets any funny ideas …

That doesn’t sound any better, does it … ?

At any rate, Morgana sets up a plot to get Guinevere banished, and Arthur following her.

And as a fall back … ?

Leaving Uther convinced that his son and heir has been enchanted.

Leaving Guinevere convinced that’s Morgana’s up to something.

And looking very surprised when the evil sorcerer — who looks suspiciously like Christopher Lee’s version of Saruman the Wise — actually turns up.

|||»»•««|||

Now, I’ll happily admit, this isn’t the character driven stunner that last week’s episode — Love in the Time Of Dragons — was.

It does have its highlights, though.

For starters, the writers seem to have turned down the need for Katy McGrath to so quite obviously villainous: as written — and played — both they and her are going more for subtle, rather than obvious.

Colin Morgan’s handling of the central character — even down to the incredible amounts of premium ham he laid on for his ‘evil old sorcerer’ routine — was beautifully done.

Stars of the show, this week, I’m thinking … ?

Were Bradley James, Angel Coulby and Anthony Head as — respectively — Prince Arthur, Guinevere and King Uther.

And while Queen of Hearts isn’t one of the stronger episodes of season three, those highlights will make it worth a mention, I think.

|||»»»Ω«««|||

Oh, just as a final note … ?

I’ll leave you with this …

Merlin — The Crystal Cave: Now I’ve had some time to think …

You know, I’ve got to confess, I’ve been watching last night’s episode of Merlin, again.

It’s not like you’d’ve guessed I’ve a thing about Katy McGrath, would you … ?

Ahem!!!!!

Let’s get a little serious, shall we … ?

I’ve got to admit, I’ve got back from dinner at my families, and with nothing else on?

Felt the least I could do was watch it, again.

I swear, one of these day’s I’ll borrow a copy of Misfits, and see what all the fuss is about.

|»»•««|

Yes, quite …

|»»•««|

But, twenty-four hours on, though … ?

Twenty-four hours on, The Crystal Cave still comes over as a darn good episode: or, at least, darn good, in my humble opinion*.

Which I think you’d’ve worked out, if you’ve read yesterday’s post about the episode.

One thing I thing I mentioned, yesterday, was the simple fact that we’ve seen something of a revelation about Morgana’s exact parentage.

There’s a scene — after Merlin has attacked Morgana, in a desperate attempt to prevent killing Uther — showing us Uther, at Morgana’s death-bed, ordering Gaius to save Morgana’s life by any means necessary: including, if needed, by sorcerous ones, the same one’s he’d outlawed many years earlier.

And then tells Gaius exactly why he’s prepared to go to those lengths.

Morgana is Uther’s daughter, fathered on his best friends wife, years before.

Gaius — and Merlin, who’s been gently listening in at the door — agrees to keep this secret very much that: secret.

But as he tells Merlin, near the end of the episode, it is a disaster waiting to happen: especially if, as they suspect Morgana know.

After all, it doesn’t take much to cause trouble in a monarchy, even the fairy-tale one that is Camelot.

A disputed throne is usually the ticket.

|»»•««|

That’s not the be all and end all that this episode shows our hero.

After all, I think I’ve mentioned in recent Merlin posts, that this series is relying less on the Dragon as the God in the Machine it always seemed to be in the first two series.

But last night … ?

Last night saw the return of the Dragon.

Did you ever read the Wade Davies book, The Serpent and the Rainbow?

Just some up, it covers part of the career of ethnobiologist, Wade Davies, the who claims to have discovered the various folk medicines Haiti witch-doctors used to turn people into zombies: the key ingredient to all being a strong poison extracted from a Haitian relative of the Japanese Fugu fish.

My point is that — and please bear in mind, it’s been a while since I’ve read the book, so I may be wrong, here — Davies says in one or two chapters that the big difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ magic is the attitude of the practitioners: the ‘good’ ones won’t practise ‘black’ magic, but study it to help their clients and temple members to combat it.

The ‘evil’ ones will happily lay curses, do ‘black’ magic and turn people into zombies.

When hired to do so.

And making it very clear as part of the ritual that they only do so at their clients insistence.

And with the proviso that — should what they do be disapproved of by the powers that be — it’s not them that gets the bad karma for the deed.

The reason I mention all of this?

Is because I personally was reminded of that, when I saw the scene where Merlin demands a cure for Morgana, from the Dragon.

The Dragon is obliged to do so.

But is also obliged to warn of dire consequences …

|»»•««|

Now, I think I’m going to leave that, there: I think it’s getting late enough to make my bed, very attractive.

But so far … ?

Series Three of Merlin isn’t disappointing … !

* OK, granted, I don’t actually think anybody has a humble opinion, me in particular. But the phrase doesn’t hurt, occasionally …

Merlin: Episode 5; The Crystal Cave.

Whoah!!

Like, really, Whoah!

I’ve started writing this post right at the tail end of tonight’s episode of Merlin — episode 5, in other words, The Crystal Cave — and I’m impressed, again!

Oh, yes!!

The BBC/Shine co-production is still managing to update the old legends: this time by introducing us to an ancient seer, Taliesin, who we meet when Arthur and Merlin are being chased by bandits.

And who helps by healing Arthur.

Part of the cost, though … ?

Is that Taliesin insists on showing Merlin the episode’s McGuffin.

The Crystal Cave of the title.

Which — as it turns out — allows those with magical ability to see the future.

What it shows Merlin …

Is Morgana …

Standing over Uther …

With a dagger …

All of which gets Merlin a touch … worried.

Well, it would, wouldn’t it … ?

|»•«|

Now, The Crystal Cave is much more my thing.

The producers have pitched exactly the right tone, I believe.

And what’s more, the revelation that Morgana is Arthur’s half sister — via an affair Uther had, many years ago — is both expected, known about — it’s been mentioned in some variations of the stories, for a long time — and deftly handled.

And I think it’ll provide on-going fuel to this series story until at least episode 12.

Here’s hoping!

|»Ω«|

Merlin: Following on from Part 1 …

Yes, I know, I’ll admit it, I’m watching last nights first episode of series three of Merlin, again.

And putting up another post.

But, be fair, I did warn you … …

And being equally as fair, I don’t know that I can add much to what I told you last night.

Possibly …

Apart from maybe a few things …

Hmmm …

‹‹‹•›››

Possibly …

One thing I know I wanted to do was put up some screen grabs from last night episode, and tell you that not only is it on the BBC’s iPlayer Service, but also gets repeated at 7pm, tomorrow night, on BBC 3.

Hopefully, the impression I managed to give you last night is that this is worth watching.

Especially as I feel that this series may — may — be a touch more … hmm … story-arc’ed than the previous two.

Don’t quote me on the, though.

But the whole situation with Morgana and Morgause … ?

Well …

Oh, and something else that occurred to me, towards the end of series 2, was the symmetrical appearance of the matched pairs at the heart of the story so far: strikes me that Morgause and Morgana make for a nice female version parallel to Arthur and Merlin.

Given some of the legends about them all … ?

That doesn’t surprise me.

After all, the producers of the series have already worked Merlin’s supernatural origins into the series, without necessarily descending to some of the odder ends of the stories*.

‹‹‹•›››

But, at any rate …

Needless to say, I was very happy with this opening episode.

Now, granted, some folks aren’t going to be happy with it: I know Kevin D switched off after the second episode of the first series.

And I’m fairly Movie Night Adrian hasn’t really bothered, either … !

Which I personally think is their loss.

Series three of Merlin could well be where it gets seriously dark …

* According to some of the older myths and legends, Merlin is — apparently — a cambion: a creature born of a human mother and a demonic father. In the series, though, this is modified, so that Merlin’s parentage is slightly more conventional: both his parents are human, although Balinor, his father, is the last of the Dragon Lords, a group of magic users who could control dragons. Not that they were actually married, though. Which is probably the bit that’ll annoy some people …