When we first got in The Adventures of Merlin: The Complete Second Season I had been slightly disheartened after discovering that it was airing on SyFy. While certainly I had nothing against the SyFy channel personally (they did produce one of the greatest shows of the last 10 years with Battlestar Galactica), it hasn’t been the same since they decided to change up their name (and line-up). They have been known for producing very subpar material and even worse picking up some really poorly produced products as of late. On top of this first strike, I imagined this show before even putting it in the Blu-ray player was one step above Xena: Warrior Princess. I’m not trying to offend anyone who liked Xena, but the production value of that show made me cringe. For me it was hokey, written poorly and let’s not talk about the special effects and yelling.
With that said, I didn’t have much faith going into Merlin because of the channel that picked it up and the way it looked in the small footage I saw.
With so little to expect I was wonderfully surprised when I found myself completely engulfed into yet another fine example of how well the BBC can produce shows. While it certainly isn’t Doctor Who or even Life on Mars, The Adventures of Merlin had a very contained charm about it that kept the story tightly knit. If you’re not familiar with the show it surrounds the major players from the popular book The Once and Future King. It tells the prequel story of King Arthur, his future lady Gwen, his soon-to-be evil sister Morgana and of course the main man himself, Merlin. If you can picture a high end, well-written Smallville then you’ve got the idea for Merlin. That’s not a knock against Smallville because I really love that show. It’s just literally the best comparison you can make when you’re talking about The Adventures of Merlin. You’ve got young characters who are budding slowly into the characters that we love and know from the book. Just like you have the folks of Smallville, especially Clark Kent, who are budding into superheroes and villains.
Again, you get the idea.
The second season of Merlin is quite active. A good majority of the episodes in the second season surround Morgana’s ever-growing power. If you’re not familiar with the character, she eventually turns evil and powerful. John Hurt’s Dragon character refers to her as a ‘witch’ and you can see that slowly growing with each passing episode. She’s also a great example of how the writers developer the characters pretty strongly. The season starts off with this young, innocent girl who slowly develops unusual powers that she doesn’t understand. Because the Uther Pendragon’s kingdom outlaws magic she feels completely and utterly alone. Merlin’s character wants to help her, because he went through the same thing, but is forbidden by his mentor. So Morgana stands by herself in her own loneliness and misery, until she finds other people to help break her out of her curse (but they don’t, they just help develop her evil side a bit more). As you can see the development is slow and effective, but more importantly it does the characters justice from the book. It’s positively mesmerizing seeing each character slowly develop into their ultimate destination (though it doesn’t happen completely in season two).
Outside of Morgana, there are some other interesting episodes. One involves an assassin paid to hunt down Prince Arthur (he isn’t king yet) because Arthur killed another King’s son. In that same episode we see the love between Arthur and Gwen bloom to a (ooooh, you’ll have to watch for that one). It’s a great episode because the story written for it flows so smoothly. Arthur tries to prove himself worthy of his manliness by acting as a commoner. This puts his character into hiding, which makes the assassination attempt more intriguing. Lots of suspense in that episode.
There’s another episode where Gwen is kidnapped and held for ransom, only to bump into her love Lancelot. If you know the story of King Arthur you will understand why this love affair is so important. This episode helps to shape Gwen into more than a servant. You get some real development in her attitude, her being and how she handles really bleak situations. This episode makes her character stronger for the rest of the season and less one-dimensional.
Much like Superman in Smallville, almost every episode somehow involves Merlin getting his friends out of certain death in some shape or form. While Colin Morgan probably won’t break hearts as much as Bradley James’ Arthur, he still leads the show with his wit and his inability to break out into his powerful sorcerer form (he is quite intriguing). I really love how the producers picked the scrawniest kid to play the main character. It really does drive home the fact that each of the characters are ‘coming-of-age’.
So are there any downfalls to the series? Well, I hate the CG. While I certainly do appreciate the fact that John Hurt is pretty much the coolest dragon ever (sorry Sean Connery), the CG is done in 2004 style. The texture on the creatures looks very undetailed and the character features on some of the creatures look plain goofy. I wish that John Hurt’s dragon just spoke with his mind and not his mouth. I can’t picture a dragon enunciating without laughing a bit.
Anyway, that’s my only complaint. Other than this reviewer’s gripe, the show overall is strong. The production value is really damn good and the writing and characters are outstanding. If you haven’t seen this show then you need to give it a chance and don’t judge it before you dig into it. I regret making an early judgment and this review will hopefully atone for it.
Now, if you are a huge fan of the show or you’re dead set on getting this on DVD then let’s talk features. While you get some great cast/crew commentary and introduction, the real beef of the features is the behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes. Both are damn good and very important to take you into this world that the BBC has created. You get to see the intentions of the series creators and have fabulous interviews with the actors. The featurettes are long and they’re worth your time. I found the behind-the-scenes particularly fascinating because they talk about the story quite a bit and how they were looking deeply into the book to create good material. You also get to see how they did the CG in the series and how very ‘green’ they were in the process. I commend them for doing CG, but they definitely still need some work.
Anyway, the features are quite good and worthy of your time and attention.