merlin update!
Oct. 19th, 2011 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseJust got ourselves up-to-date on Merlin. I still can't believe we managed to quit in despair last season just before things got better. Seriously - the very next episode after where we stopped started to fix my complaints (and also brought in the newest contender for my favorite character!). That... well, probably won't teach me, but I can at least hope it'll humble me for a little bit.
So, the reason I quit watching the show last year was that I was sick to death of feeling like nothing was ever going to change on the show. They never committed to anything! They'd make a stab at something... and then immediately undo it by the end of the episode or two-parter, as if to say "we could... but we'd rather just stick with the nice safe concept we've been working on for two and a half years, actually, thanks!" ...Also, the troll wife episode. Oh, the troll wife episode. And following right on the heels of it, another episode that looked exactly the same, except for Arthur instead of Uther. Really, show? Did you have to? So, I quit.
...Turns out, if I'd just skipped that episode and gone on to the next one, I would have been in great shape. Because the episode after the one whose trailer made me throw up my hands and say "no more of this!" was... "Gwaine." Oh, Gwaine. How instantly awesome you are! It's like they pulled Marcus out of B5, dusted him off, and dropped him in the fake middle ages for real! And he's so happy about it, too! And then Gwen and Arthur actually start getting their shit together, and Morgana actually finds out she's Uther's daughter, and actually goes totally bugfuck because of it, and people start actually being sure that she's evil, and it's fantastic! Granted, there was the extremely dodgy-looking episode about Gaius' former love, which looked like a clone of the whole Arthur's horrible girlfriend and Uther's horrible troll wife thing, but we just skipped that, so it was okay. And then there was actual big battle between the Camelot forces and Morgause and Morgana, and Morgause finally offed Cendric as she'd been more or less threatening to do for ages, and they didn't kill off Gwen's brother, which was shockingly un-faily as far as this show goes. ...Granted, they still insist on having Evil Saracen/Vaguely-Arabic Knights every third episode, which is frustrating, but... whatever. It's fail, of course, but... it's a kind of fail that just makes me headdesk and carry on. And Gwen is even actually being allowed to do things other than crying from time to time!
Also, Morgana is still absurdly pretty, even if her character has more or less been reduced to Evil Witch. Sigh. And now that we don't have Morgause anymore, we don't even have three female characters. I liked Morgause, damn it. She was interesting, which is more than can usually be said for Morgana. But whatever, Morgana's still fun. She's just not precisely the most three-dimensional of characters, at all. Paper has more dimensionality than Morgana in most episodes. Ah well.
My icon may slightly have tipped the reader as to one fun fact about my reaction to catching up through "The Wicked Day." Waugh, no more Uther! By which I basically mean "Alas, for I no longer know of any shows that I want to see that feature Tony Head, particularly not in an awesome role in which he plays both the evil and lovely sides of his acting in the span of two minutes' appearance." Because that was always the best thing about Uther, IMHO: One minute he's laughing and smiling and being the most wonderfully loving father / guardian you could hope for, and the next he's an irrational, paranoid, power-crazed psychopath who'll order the execution of anybody who looks at him sideways. And because it's Tony Head, it's not only believable, but also damned awesomeand sexy, did I mention sexy?
And that death. What a death. Random guy is going on about killing Arthur, and all of a sudden there's a second sword in the screen and I'm cheering "That's right, don't even think about hurting Arthur because his daddy is not dead yet!" ♥ Because despite being an evil heartless jackass sometimes, Uther is also a freaking bad-ass, and totally awesome when he wants to be and isn't, y'know, off the deep-end in paranoia land. Anyway, I was deeply saddened by his death, but... the king is dead, long live the king.
Because there has been plot movement, and it's amazing! Uther's dead! Arthur is king! Morgana is... well, still evil, but even more evil, and very much out of the castle! We have a new evil inside the castle to watch out for (Agravain), and Arthur is still clueless about it! Arthur and Gwen have no reason not to advance their romantic relationship! They freaking killed Lancelot (only so he can return more dramatically once Gwen and Arthur are firmly established, I assume), but they left the black guy alive for once! And Gwaine, too! Also, Percival's actor has a bad case of wanting to be Tahmoh Penikett and not quite getting there. Don't tell me it's not true, because it totally is. He is the strong silent type who is pure of heart and will win the grail, and, um, I'll be over here waving the Helo flag, don't mind me.
Speaking of whom, why does he wear cut-off chain mail? What on earth could be the point of that, other than displaying some disturbingly cut arms? Oh, wait, I'm talking about a show that still hasn't figured out (after FOUR SEASONS) that you wear the chain mail coif under your helmet, you idiots, and can't seem to figure out the purpose of tabards in identifying armored knights on a field. Siiiiiigh. This show is very hard on people who know, hmm, anything about medieval history. The Boy pointed out something the other day and said "But isn't that out of period?" Yeah, the problem is... which period. Poor guy got a five minute lecture for his trouble, about how so-and-so's clothes are from this period, but this other person's are from this other period, and THIS person's clothes are from another period entirely, and Merlin himself just grabbed his outfit out of six periods, including the American Old West, and the castle's from about the 15th century, and there are tomatoes everywhere, and... just give it up. It's not worth it. There's no point. It is Generic Medieval Fantasy Setting. Alas.
...Now, of course, we're up to date and have to wait to see stuff as it comes out. But I notice that James Callis is in next week's episode, and that pleases me muchly. ♥
So, the reason I quit watching the show last year was that I was sick to death of feeling like nothing was ever going to change on the show. They never committed to anything! They'd make a stab at something... and then immediately undo it by the end of the episode or two-parter, as if to say "we could... but we'd rather just stick with the nice safe concept we've been working on for two and a half years, actually, thanks!" ...Also, the troll wife episode. Oh, the troll wife episode. And following right on the heels of it, another episode that looked exactly the same, except for Arthur instead of Uther. Really, show? Did you have to? So, I quit.
...Turns out, if I'd just skipped that episode and gone on to the next one, I would have been in great shape. Because the episode after the one whose trailer made me throw up my hands and say "no more of this!" was... "Gwaine." Oh, Gwaine. How instantly awesome you are! It's like they pulled Marcus out of B5, dusted him off, and dropped him in the fake middle ages for real! And he's so happy about it, too! And then Gwen and Arthur actually start getting their shit together, and Morgana actually finds out she's Uther's daughter, and actually goes totally bugfuck because of it, and people start actually being sure that she's evil, and it's fantastic! Granted, there was the extremely dodgy-looking episode about Gaius' former love, which looked like a clone of the whole Arthur's horrible girlfriend and Uther's horrible troll wife thing, but we just skipped that, so it was okay. And then there was actual big battle between the Camelot forces and Morgause and Morgana, and Morgause finally offed Cendric as she'd been more or less threatening to do for ages, and they didn't kill off Gwen's brother, which was shockingly un-faily as far as this show goes. ...Granted, they still insist on having Evil Saracen/Vaguely-Arabic Knights every third episode, which is frustrating, but... whatever. It's fail, of course, but... it's a kind of fail that just makes me headdesk and carry on. And Gwen is even actually being allowed to do things other than crying from time to time!
Also, Morgana is still absurdly pretty, even if her character has more or less been reduced to Evil Witch. Sigh. And now that we don't have Morgause anymore, we don't even have three female characters. I liked Morgause, damn it. She was interesting, which is more than can usually be said for Morgana. But whatever, Morgana's still fun. She's just not precisely the most three-dimensional of characters, at all. Paper has more dimensionality than Morgana in most episodes. Ah well.
My icon may slightly have tipped the reader as to one fun fact about my reaction to catching up through "The Wicked Day." Waugh, no more Uther! By which I basically mean "Alas, for I no longer know of any shows that I want to see that feature Tony Head, particularly not in an awesome role in which he plays both the evil and lovely sides of his acting in the span of two minutes' appearance." Because that was always the best thing about Uther, IMHO: One minute he's laughing and smiling and being the most wonderfully loving father / guardian you could hope for, and the next he's an irrational, paranoid, power-crazed psychopath who'll order the execution of anybody who looks at him sideways. And because it's Tony Head, it's not only believable, but also damned awesome
And that death. What a death. Random guy is going on about killing Arthur, and all of a sudden there's a second sword in the screen and I'm cheering "That's right, don't even think about hurting Arthur because his daddy is not dead yet!" ♥ Because despite being an evil heartless jackass sometimes, Uther is also a freaking bad-ass, and totally awesome when he wants to be and isn't, y'know, off the deep-end in paranoia land. Anyway, I was deeply saddened by his death, but... the king is dead, long live the king.
Because there has been plot movement, and it's amazing! Uther's dead! Arthur is king! Morgana is... well, still evil, but even more evil, and very much out of the castle! We have a new evil inside the castle to watch out for (Agravain), and Arthur is still clueless about it! Arthur and Gwen have no reason not to advance their romantic relationship! They freaking killed Lancelot (only so he can return more dramatically once Gwen and Arthur are firmly established, I assume), but they left the black guy alive for once! And Gwaine, too! Also, Percival's actor has a bad case of wanting to be Tahmoh Penikett and not quite getting there. Don't tell me it's not true, because it totally is. He is the strong silent type who is pure of heart and will win the grail, and, um, I'll be over here waving the Helo flag, don't mind me.
Speaking of whom, why does he wear cut-off chain mail? What on earth could be the point of that, other than displaying some disturbingly cut arms? Oh, wait, I'm talking about a show that still hasn't figured out (after FOUR SEASONS) that you wear the chain mail coif under your helmet, you idiots, and can't seem to figure out the purpose of tabards in identifying armored knights on a field. Siiiiiigh. This show is very hard on people who know, hmm, anything about medieval history. The Boy pointed out something the other day and said "But isn't that out of period?" Yeah, the problem is... which period. Poor guy got a five minute lecture for his trouble, about how so-and-so's clothes are from this period, but this other person's are from this other period, and THIS person's clothes are from another period entirely, and Merlin himself just grabbed his outfit out of six periods, including the American Old West, and the castle's from about the 15th century, and there are tomatoes everywhere, and... just give it up. It's not worth it. There's no point. It is Generic Medieval Fantasy Setting. Alas.
...Now, of course, we're up to date and have to wait to see stuff as it comes out. But I notice that James Callis is in next week's episode, and that pleases me muchly. ♥
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 06:59 am (UTC)I came very close to giving up on the show last year for most of the reasons you listed. Then
I loved "The Wicked Day" except for one thing. Well, okay, two, but one of them (Morgana) is an issue not just confined to one single episode, plus you've pretty much covered everything I have to say about that in your own post.
The specific plot point I have a problem with is why didn't Gaius just tell Arthur about the anti-healing charm he found on Uther's body? It's proof old!Merlin's magic didn't kill the king, AND it's proof that someone in the castle is both a traitor and a regicide. This is important information that Arthur needs to have, and yet he keeps it between himself and Merlin.
I can think of only two reasons why the writers did this. One: They want to keep the "magic is illegal" thing going a bit longer. And two: Since the only people besides who knew Arthur planned to use magic to heal the king were Gaius, Merlin, and Agravaine, it would be too easy to figure out whodunit, and they want to keep Uncle Evil around a bit longer. It's sloppy writing, and that annoys me.
On a (slightly) related note, I should very much like to pick your medievalist brain for an original story I'm working on, if you have the time. Also? This is now mine mine mine, all mine. You may drool. *vbg*
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 06:29 pm (UTC)I cannot wait for it to get here!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 11:45 pm (UTC)If I'd known how freaking fantastic Gawain is, I would've stuck around. As it is, it was damned fun getting through most of S3 and the first 3 episodes of S4 over the course of three nights. So that was worthwhile.
Your point about Gaius telling Arthur is one that I very much noticed as well. I get from a plot standpoint why they couldn't have Arthur decide magic is okay, or have the reveal about Agravain yet (or at least didn't want to), but... jeez, guys, at least come up with some kind of reason not to! As it was it just made Merlin and Gaius look stupid. Sigh.
Duuuuuuuude, that book looks fantastic! So jealous! ♥♥♥
As for the brain-picking, go right ahead - ping or email me whenever you like, and I'll either provide what I know. I might also be able to provide introductions to friends who are more knowledgeable, in certain areas of knowledge. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-21 03:51 pm (UTC)