The first two episodes of Merlin, NBC’s new “before-they-were-famous” retelling of the Camelot story, are interesting in that they are very different. The pilot is great: fast-paced, with a cool opening sequence, good character introductions, and a satisfying conclusion.
The second episode? Well, it’s not so great. But more on that later.
Let’s look at the first two episodes, both airing this Sunday night on NBC starting at 8 PM, one at a time:
The Dragon’s Call (Debut Episode)
Five Torches (Out of Five)
Merlin’s debut episode begins with a bang: we learn that Uther Pendragon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Stewart Head) has reigned in Camelot for 20 years, and credits the peaceful era with his very strict ban on magic.
He calls for the execution of a sorcerer, and then gets treated to a little “I shall have my revenge!!” speech by the sorcerer’s mom, who is a powerful witch.
Witnessing this is the newly-arrived Merlin, who looks a lot more like Harry Potter than Dumbledore, being a lad in his late teens. He soon meets up with the court physician, Gaius, who senses that Merlin has magical powers, which are of course forbidden.
Other familiar characters soon appear, having been given makeovers: we meet Morgana, played by a Keira Knightly look-alike, who we all know will one day be a powerful sorceress more commonly known as Morgan Le Fey (she may already be, but if she is, she hasn’t revealed it).
Arthur, meanwhile, is young, inexperienced, blond, and douchey.
And lastly we meet Morgana’s lady-in-waiting, Guinevere.
(A word about Guinevere, or Gwen as she’s called here. The powers that be went against tradition and cast a black woman in a role formerly played exclusively by white women. I applauded this choice in an earlier article, but cringed when I discovered that in this version, Gwen is not a queen or a princess, but a servant to Morgana. One must ask if that’s progress.)
Merlin has a few altercations with Arthur and, when summoned to an underground cave by an imprisoned dragon, discovers his destiny is to use his magical powers to protect Arthur (the dragon is the only special effect in the show that doesn’t work so well).
The witch who vowed revenge comes back by impersonating a famed singer. Can Merlin save the day?
Final analysis: A great set-up for what looks to be a great series. I’ve written before that it’s time for a new, fresh version of Camelot, and quite frankly, it looks like we got one. Sure, it’s the Smallville treatment, and all the young actors happen to be, well, pretty.
But the writing is fun, the effects are (more or less) great, the musical score is miles above what you find on American TV – seriously, at times it reaches feature-film-level musical quality – and there’s an extremely appealing lead in Colin Morgan as Merlin.
The real treat of the series is that it’s equally inviting to both crusty old Arthurian scholars and the completely uninitiated alike. All signs point to awesome.
Valiant (Episode 2)
Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)
Okay, so here’s where Merlin goes a little off-track.
In all fairness, the second episode of any series is never an easy task. In a pilot, you get to set up the characters and all their relationships to each other, not to mention establish the dramatic thrust of the whole series. The hard work is coming up with a compelling idea for a series, but once you do that, the pilot can, more or less, write itself.
But the second episode? Well, that’s all about taking the central idea of the series and executing it into an actual week-by-week series, which is surely a lot harder than it looks.
In this episode, a knight named Valiant (seriously) comes to Camelot to participate in a sword-fighting tournament (I suspect jousting would have cost the producers too much).
Valiant cons a wizard into enchanting his shield to make the painted snakes on it come alive and kill his opponents. Arthur is usually the winner of the tournament, so naturally we’re worried about him.
Or we’re supposed to be. Problem is, he’s still pretty much the douche he was in the pilot, so we have little sympathy for him, especially when he treats our boy Merlin poorly.
However, over the course of the episode, Arthur warms up to Merlin, even believing him when Merlin claims, without hard evidence, that Valiant might be planning to use magic to kill him.
Will Arthur’s father believe him? And if he doesn’t, what can Merlin — who’s still forbidden to use magic, mind you — do to save the day?
The most interesting thing about the episode might be the growing relationship between Gwen and Merlin, and Morgana and Arthur, which — assuming they’re not just becoming opposite-sex confidantes — is interesting in that the partners have switched from 
traditional Arthurian tales.
Final Analysis: Overall, the episode is not particularly engaging. Again, the second episode of a series is a tricky feat to pull off, and while the show may have stumbled a bit on its second time up at bat, there’s no reason to believe it won’t hit a home run again.
One of the fun things of these “origin” series is waiting for other familiar faces to show up — and we have yet to see the Lady of the Lake, Lancelot, Gawain, Morgause, Galahad, Percival, the Black Knight, the Fisher King….
There’s a lot of story to be mined and reinterpreted. I eagerly await more episodes, and am excited about a great new fantasy series.
It’s about time.
Similar Posts:
- Episode Review: Last Night’s MERLIN Episodes Kicked Some Serious Ass!
- MERLIN Finale and Series Review: Destiny More or Less Achieved
- NBC’s MERLIN Gets the Camelot Story Really Wrong — But Maybe That’s a Good Thing
- MERLIN Episode Review: “The Gates of Avalon” Are Kinda Creaky
- Episode Review: Lancelot Proves He’s Knight-Worthy (and MERLIN Proves It’s Watch-Worthy!)
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I’m really looking forward to this!
Th e first season has already aired here in the UK, of course. I was kind of iffy about the show at first, but as the backstory is gradually revealed and the relationships develop it became a lot more interesting. I’m now really looking forward to season 2.
The second episode does suck, but the show gets better!
If memory serves the 2nd episode is titled ‘Valiant’. It’s an awesome episode one of the best in the series (imho). The series grows on you, but you have to ‘get into it’, I really enjoyed watching the eps the second time better than the first time around, when I saw them internet download. I think the main thing you have to do to get full enjoyment out of “Merlin” is be willing to put aside what you know about the legends and take it for what it is. I’ll be tuning in to watch on NBC… I just hope the commercial breaks aren’t too brutal.
i have watched all of the shows on utube.but it is clear that the writer of this review doesn’t have a clue what the show is about,
he must be a looney..
Trust me, it’s a series that will get you hooked.
In don’t like Gwen’s character. His physical characteristics are against everything we know about that historical period.
CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2
Merlin is a really good show. I agree with all of you, the 2nd episode really does suck, but the show’s improved a lot since then. The 1st episode of Season 2 is brilliant, especially as the main baddie is played by Mackenzie Crook. The actor’s who guest star in this tv series are really good supporting actors, and the main characters have built themselves up to strong personalities. In the 2nd series we start to see Arthur and Gwen’s relationship develop, so they’re not going to far out of the ledgend. Mordred will reappear aswell, to convince Morgana to come with him, because she finally starts to realise that her dreams are magic. As long as the 2nd series is as good as the 1st I really can’t wait to watch it.