The Syfy channel recently announced its plans to air the second season of Merlin, the British fantasy series that NBC aired last summer (where the ratings were dismal).
In short, American viewers will finally get to see what happens next in this brand spankin’ new version of Camelot.
Just to bring everyone up to speed, in this Smallville-tinged re-imagining, the action is set before Arthur ascends to the throne, and he and Merlin, a closet-case sorceror acting as Arthur’s servant, are the same age. The kingdom is ruled with an iron fist by the magic-hating Uther (Buffy’s Anthony Stewart Head), but Uther is secretly undermined by his trusted friend Gaius, who is training Merlin in the arts of magic.
Uther’s ward is the beautiful Morgana, who is starting to recognize magical powers of her own, and her best friend and lady-in-waiting is the kind-hearted Guinevere.
Much of the fun of any retelling of Arthurian legend is the different spin put on specific characters, events, places, etc. None of the leads are similar to most versions we’re accustomed to, and the first season brought us Nimue as a wicked sorceress, Lancelot as a commoner aspiring to be a knight, and Avalon as a haven for evil things.
So what does the future hold for this series set in the past? (Minor spoiler alert.)
For one, we finally begin to see an attraction grow between Arthur and Guinevere, and Morgana becomes more aware of her powers, thus setting her on the road to become Morgan le Fey. Morgause, Arthur’s villainous aunt (or half-sister depending on who’s telling the tale), will appear, and that darned dragon that’s chained up beneath the castle finally gets free.
One of the strengths of the first season was the way the writers used standard Arthurian legend as a jumping point for their own imaginations, and thus we were treated to a lot of stories set in this world that never felt tired or overused.
The four young leads are incredibly charming, and Colin Morgan is a fun and quirky young wizard. And in my humble opinion, one of the best aspects of the show was the very Buffy-like set-up of teenagers fighting the forces of evil, while under the tutelage of a rather crusty old mentor. And that Anthony Stewart Head is in it only makes it sweeter.
Merlin begins airing on the Syfy channel Friday, April 2nd.
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.
The actor who famously played Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer has kept himself very busy in the U.K. (where he generally goes by “Anthony Head”), popping up in TV projects ranging from Doctor Who to Little Britain.
But since leaving Buffy in the middle of its sixth season, Anthony’s appearances on American television have been rarer.
That all changes on Sunday, June 21st, when Head returns to American series television on NBC’s Merlin, a ”before-they-were-famous” retelling of the Camelot legend about Merlin and once-and-future-king Arthur’s adventures as young men. The first thirteen episodes of the series aired last fall in the U.K. (as The Adventures of Merlin).
If there was ever any doubt as to Head’s considerable acting prowess, he quickly puts them to rest in Merlin, in a role that couldn’t be more different than his role as benevolent mentor of the Scooby bunch. Here he’s Uther Pendragon, the cold, tyrannical father of Arthur.
And if there was any doubt about Head’s enthusiasm for the part, that was immediately put to rest too when he spoke to me by phone from the Merlin set in France, where they were filming the first episode of a second season — and obviously having a ball in the process.
TheTorchOnline: So you’re filming a new season of Merlin, but you’re promoting something you filmed back in 2007. Do you ever get confused keeping it all straight in your head?
AH: Strangely not. It’s the rest of my life I get confused about. [laughs]
TTO: Does the fact that NBC picked up Merlin and decided to make it a big spanking deal here in the US change anything about the way you’re doing it? Is that why you’re doing more episodes?
AH: I don’t know, to be honest. NBC picked it up right from the get-go, right out the box, even efore anything had been filmed, and in fact, I believe, only on the strength of two or three scripts. So, we knew it was already a winner in those terms.
I think they had always intended to do like a chunky series, just because the stories are so rich, and the possibilities are so rich. Also, it’s the same people — well, not the same production company, but the same basic BBC world who make Doctor Who and Torchwood. That’s what here we show on Saturday night. Well, not here, because I’m in France, but in England. Saturday night is kind of peak time.
TTO: It’s going to be on Sunday nights here, which is also a peak time.
AH: Which apparently, the thing that’s great about this show is that it appeals to a really wide audience. Ultimately, it’s truly a family show. Many people come up to me and say, “Thank God! Thank you so much for the show because it’s something we can actually sit down with our kids and watch.” And kids of all ages as well. It’s down to about six, but it goes through teen and into twenties, and then beyond.
There is something in it for everybody. Most people love the romance of swords and sorcery. The tales are dark enough to amuse and entertain adults, and there’s enough excitement and thrills and spills for the younguns. It really is truly a family show.
In the states, I think NBC has been quite wise. I was a bit worried that they were basically launching it right before July 4th. In my book, I’ve always thought everything sort of stops after July 4th, but the whole idea is to sort of recreate that sort of family hour on a Sunday night, and it makes sense to do it when the family is going to be around. There’s absolutely nothing else to watch for a family, at a time when a family can actually sit down, at eight o’clock, and get their thrills and spills.
TTO: When I first read about it, my first thought was, “Oh Lord, not another King Arthur adaptation.” But then I heard this is not like your father’s King Arthur. This is everything thrown out the window, and I’m curious is that what initially drew you to the project, that it was such an original retelling?
AH: Yeah. I mean it’s all familiar. When I’m offered something I obviously look at the scripts. Initially, I had my misgivings in as much as what I didn’t want to do was just a kid’s show. I wanted to know it was going to get dark. I wanted to know that the areas we were dealing with were going to be done in as adult a way as we could.
For instance, the witch — you could either play her as a fat, old crone, warts and all, or you can do what we did. Eve [Myles, from Torchwood], who plays the old lady in the first episode, she’s truly scary because she plays her absolutely down the line, absolutely real.
I came with my misgivings and my questions to my first meeting with the director. I’d already worked with him on Doctor Who, so I knew I could trust him. And I’d already knew Julie Gardner, who was at that time the head of BBC World Drama. So I knew in my heart of hearts that it was in the right hands. I just needed to check. He reassured me and said, “Absolutely, this isn’t light fare. It’s got plenty of depth, it’s got plenty of darkness.”
One of the other things I was concerned about was this character of mine, who could just be a villain, should be more than two-dimensional, that he can have a reason for what he does.
Again, James assured me, and it has been borne out in the scripts, and that’s how I’m playing it. The bottom line is he’s a warrior king, and he’s hanging on by his fingernails to a kingdom that has wars on every border. He has to rule it with a first of iron, or he has a very tenuous grip, which is what will make Arthur into the great king he becomes.
You’re right. I’ve seen Arthur as an ancient Briton, I’ve seen Sean Connery in a very strange knitted jumper, I’ve seen Nigel Terry in Excalibur. It’s been done many, many times. The idea of doing this was very appealing. It’s the Smallville factor, the idea of taking something before the legend everybody knows, and getting in there and messing with it. Seeing what would have happened if a young Arthur had met a young Merlin, and if their courses had been inextricably interwoven.
TTO: And also moving the POV a little bit from Arthur to Merlin, which changes nothing and everything. You mentioned you’re playing the villain. I wonder if even off stage when you’re on the set, do you feel a different vibe as opposed to Buffy when you were one of the gang? Is there a different sense as the antagonist as opposed to one of the protagonists?
AH: Not really. Because we exist in this Camelot, I am one of the gang. It just so happens that some of my decisions are a little bit unpopular.
There’s an episode where, for one reason or another, the land is plunged into famine. At one point, Arthur comes to me and says, “We’re running out of food. We don’t have enough to go around the people.” And I say, “Okay, stop giving it to the people and save it for the army.” And Arthur says, “What are you talking about? If the people die, there’s no point in having an army.” And I say, “If we don’t have an army, the people will die soon enough because someone will be only too keen to come in and take this kingdom.” You can’t argue with it. It makes perfect sense. It’s unfortunate, and I probably wouldn’t do it myself.
And also, the fact that I’m a father in it. Ultimately, I am Arthur’s father, and Morgana’s guardian. Our relationships on set are more about I’m an old school father. It’s not terribly PC, but my relationships with Katie [McGrath, who plays Morgana] and Bradley [James, who plays Arthur], I don’t behave like a father to them off set. Although, I have to say occasionally, Bradley does leave his footballs in my hotel room, and [laughs] I take him to task. Also, incidentally, he mucked up the screen of my Nintendo DS. [laughs]
TTO: That’s not good at all!
AH: No. No, it’s not.
TTO: It sounds like you’re having a really good time. Any chance you’re going to be singing on this show?
AH: [laughs] I don’t think so. That one hasn’t come up yet. It would be interesting if Uther did.
TTO:It seems to me the villain is an actor’s dream role, because every scene is a meaty scene, and yet, you’re not in every scene. Or do you not look at it that way?
AH: Oh, absolutely. To be honest, as long as the character has a reason for doing what he does, to me, it doesn’t really matter. But there is a certain element of, as you say, every scene is a meaty scene. As long as I don’t chew the scenery, I’m fairly okay. Hopefully, it will stick out.
You’re right. No, I don’t need to be in every scene in order to be noticed. I think it’s really more about the fact that the character has a reason for everything he does. It’s my job to find out, even if it’s not actually in the script, I need to find out and bring him to life.
As time has gone on, the writers have written more for me based on what I’ve given them. Between us, I think we’ve actually given a bit of credence to what I’m doing. Basically, I’m the underlying, driving force. The fact that I’ve outlawed magic and sorcery, because as far as I’m concerned, even if you claim you’re doing it for good, you cannot help yourself from being taken to the dark side. It makes perfect sense. And I do have my reasons for that. It’s gradually become evident as the series goes on.
Ultimately, there are also sorcerers and sorceresses, who because they hate me so much, mean harm to Camelot, and are therefore villains. Everybody has an agenda. The dragon, initially seems to be a lovely chap, but actually he’s got an agenda, too. Everybody has something going on, and nothing is simple.
Last week, the Hollywood Reporter reported that the rights holders to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the original 1992 movie, were pursuing a “relaunch” of the property as a potential movie franchise — although so far without the involvement of Joss Whedon, the movie’s screenwriter and the creator of the much more successful television series that followed.
But at least one cast member from the classic series thinks it’s a bad idea.
“The notion of doing anything to do with Buffy without Joss Whedon’s involvement is wrong,” said Anthony Stewart Head, the actor who played Rupert Giles, in a phone interview with TheTorchOnline.com.
Fran Rubel Kuzui, who directed the 1992 movie, and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, who co-produced, reportedly don’t plan to tamper with the storyline mapped out in the television series, but instead see the movie series going in a different direction, much like the recent Star Trek reboot. Characters from the television series such as Willow, Xander, Spike, and Giles will not be part of the project.
“It was [Joss Whedon's] baby,” Head said. “He created it at the age of 19. He couldn’t get the film made — no one would make it. He couldn’t get arrested with it, then the Kuzuis picked it up and said, ‘All right we’ll make a movie.’ They said, ‘Stick with us, we’ll show you how to do it,’ but they changed the tone of it. It became more camp, slightly schlocky humor.”
Head said that Joss received a rare second chance to fulfill his original vision with the subsequent television series.
“Around that time, people started to get the idea of introducing wit, real sardonic humor into horror, so that it ceased to be the campy thing that was everyone was used to up to this point,” he said. “He could make much, much stronger points, he could go into the underbelly of it. Joss could turn the audience on a dime. The classic, brilliant stroke of having a genius episode, a really funny episode, and then at the end of it, Buffy walks in and her mother’s dead on the sofa.
“Stuff like that really, really screws with your mind,” Head said. “That’s Joss Whedon.”
Head isn’t completely opposed to the project. “Maybe Kaz will approach Joss, and Joss will say, ‘All right, let’s work together again,’” he said. “But Buffy without Joss wouldn’t make sense to me.”
What’s this? A full-fledged swords-and-sorcery fantasy series on broadcast network television? Have we seen that since The Charmings in 1988? (And I’m not sure that campy, short-lived ABC sitcom even counts.)
It might be an indication of just how desperate NBC is for a hit that the network is willing to take a chance on swords and sorcery, with Merlin, a British import that tells the story of Merlin and Arthur and Camelot “before they were legends,” premiering Sunday, June 21st at 8/7c.
Before-they-were-legends stories — basically, the Smallville treatment — can, of course, be hit or miss, especially when the story in question is as well-known and endlessly-rehashed as that of Camelot. And Merlin has departed dramatically from the traditional telling of the story: Merlin is younger, the same age as Arthur; Camelot pre-dates the would-be king; Morgana is a “good guy”; and Lancelot shows up about ten years early.
Then again, maybe all this isn’t such a bad thing. Despite the never-ending parade of faithful, earnest Arthurian retellings, how long has it been since we’ve had a truly interesting one — one that was worth retelling? Since The Mists of Avalon?
Let’s face it: Camelot has gone stale. If any story deserves to be shaken up, it might be this one.
In Britain, where the first thirteen episodes of Merlin aired last fall, the show has been a critical and popular hit. NBC too liked what it saw, committing to a partnership with the BBC early in the production (no doubt increasing the budget and improving the production values for finicky U.S. sensibilities).
Meanwhile, the online buzz from the U.K. has been positive — though NBC seems to have done a pretty good job of geoblocking online postings of the show’s episodes, to preserve some sense of mysery, and to protect their investment.
Two aspects of this retelling seem unambiguously positive. One is the color-blind casting of Guinevere, or Gwen, played by Angel Coulby. How nice to get a break from the all-white, all-the-time Arthur stories.
In addition, the role of Uther is played by none other than Buffy: The Vampire Slayer’s beloved Giles, Anthony Stewart Head.
Will Merlin work? We’ll know soon enough if this will be the summer that made Camelot cool again.
A preview of NBC’s Merlin (Sunday, June 21st at 8/7c)
The Syfy channel recently announced its plans to air the second season of Merlin, the British fantasy series that NBC aired last summer (where the ratings were dismal).
Much of the fun of any retelling of Arthurian legend is the different spin put on specific characters, events, places, etc. None of the leads are similar to most versions we’re accustomed to, and the first season brought us Nimue as a wicked sorceress, Lancelot as a commoner aspiring to be a knight, and Avalon as a haven for evil things.
One of the strengths of the first season was the way the writers used standard Arthurian legend as a jumping point for their own imaginations, and thus we were treated to a lot of stories set in this world that never felt tired or overused.![[Bloglines]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
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(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.)
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).
traditional Arthurian tales.
Anthony Stewart Head is back.
TTO: Does the fact that NBC picked up Merlin and decided to make it a big spanking deal here in the US change anything about the way you’re doing it? Is that why you’re doing more episodes?
TTO: When I first read about it, my first thought was, “Oh Lord, not another King Arthur adaptation.” But then I heard this is not like your father’s King Arthur. This is everything thrown out the window, and I’m curious is that what initially drew you to the project, that it was such an original retelling?
TTO: And also moving the POV a little bit from Arthur to Merlin, which changes nothing and everything. You mentioned you’re playing the villain. I wonder if even off stage when you’re on the set, do you feel a different vibe as opposed to Buffy when you were one of the gang? Is there a different sense as the antagonist as opposed to one of the protagonists?
Last week, the 
What’s this? A full-fledged swords-and-sorcery fantasy series on broadcast network television? Have we seen that since The Charmings in 1988? (And I’m not sure that campy, short-lived ABC sitcom even counts.)
In Britain, where the first thirteen episodes of Merlin aired last fall, the show has been a critical and popular hit. NBC too liked what it saw, committing to a partnership with the BBC early in the production (no doubt increasing the budget and improving the production values for finicky U.S. sensibilities).
