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 trailer for Merlin, Season Two
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The action starts immediately, as Kahlan is plucked off the ground by a pair of dragon-monster-things and taken to the castle of a wicked monarch who has made a deal with the Sisters of the Dark and the newly resurrected Nikki (in a new body … just go with it): he’ll hand over Kahlan in exchange for eternal life.
Also amusing was having Craig Horner, now under the persona of a blond lothario prince, strutting around the castle as women throw themselves at him. The show sometimes seems to go out of its way to ignore how freaking sexy its three young leads are, and I’m pretty sure that Craig Horner gets a similar reaction from women wherever he goes in real life, so it brought a chuckle to see it lampooned on screen.
Yeah … so …
When Sura’s cart arrives, Spartacus is distraught to find his wife has been attacked on the road, and she dies in his arms. Even more disturbing is the fact that Batiatus arranged her death.
After last week’s brilliant double-Kahlan episode, which used a fantasy gimmick as a lens for a great character study, this episode does the same with Cara. And since Cara has such a dark past, this story understandably gets really grim.
One night, Darken Rahl comes to her in a dream and encourages her to kill Thaddicus. She almost does, but can’t go through with it, so Thaddicus, surprisingly, grabs her hand and forces her to kill him.
Much of Cara’s arc so far has been about her regaining her humanity. This is someone who was abducted as a child, radicalized through torture and brainwashing, and turned into a lethal, remorseless killer. Though she has left the Mord-Sith, she is struggling to fit into a world that doesn’t want her, and she tries to be good when a lifetime of training so often tells her to be vicious.
The hook of this episode is that the Magistrate is interested in using one of Batiatus’ men in the main event, or Primus, of his latest games. One fighter has already been chosen, belonging to Batiatus’ rival, Solonius.
This ep had an incredible character moment for Illyithia, a character who had so far been shown to be little more than a flighty airhead. She is the wife of Glaber, the main villain, and we caught a glimpse of the power she wields when she and Lucretia summon Spartacus and Crixus to their chamber for a private viewing.
The power play between the genders is fascinating. We have a notion that in the ancient world, women were automatically subservient to men, but the scene in which Lucretia and Illyithia are ogling Crixus is interesting because even though he could kill them both with his bare hands in seconds, he has to do everything they say.
We begin with the gang spotting two men hanging from a tree. They learn that someone has assigned himself the title of “High Lord Regent” and is attempting to usurp Kahlan’s authority in Aydindril. So the heroes decide to split up (which always works out so well for them, doesn’t it?) with Zedd and Kahlan heading to Aydindril while Richard and Cara continue on the quest. Just as they’re about to teleport, Kahlan wishes she could stay with Richard, and surprise, she does! Well, one version of her, anyway.
So the silver lining? Without her confessor power, that means she and Richard can finally — FINALLY — get it on. (Again, I remind you, it’s Valentine’s Day, so we’re all thinking about the same thing, right?) Over in Idendrill, the Kahlan who’s all business is continuing that trend, deciding that Fyren is the best choice around to sire the next Confessor.
So what made this episode so great? Usually I favor the more action-oriented episodes that deal with the internal mythology of the show, and this episode was not that. Instead, it gave us a deep psychological insight to Kahlan, who is a fascinating character given all the challenges she must face.
killed? Conversely, how many times have we let our romantic feelings get the best of us, and found ourselves saying and doing things that seem odd, sometimes even crazy, all in the name of love?
Depending on your point of view, the latest episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand will either be your favorite episode so far, or you will want to take a nail to your corneas in an attempt to scratch the images out of your body.
To put it another way, if the gladiator arena is Wrestlemania, the pits are barbed-wire-laden backyard wrestling at its most disgusting.
ground-breaking thing is that the show treats it as a non-issue, in that it’s just another part of Roman life to the characters. Just one more example of how this show pushes boundaries in all the right directions.
That having been said, it’s still getting four stars, because this show takes serious chances, and goes places other shows don’t even dream of daring to go.
But what do you with something like the new Fox show Past Life, which debuts on a special night this Tuesday (and then starts a regular run Thursday nights)? It’s not terrible, but there’s nothing particularly novel or memorable about it either.
In the show that continues to kick ass and take names, we begin with Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) slowly, meditatively strapping on pieces of armor (although it seems kind of negligible, considering his most vulnerable body part is protected by what barely qualifies as a handkerchief), before busting some dude’s face open in the ludus.
Crixus, who up till now has been a fairly standard bully, gets fleshed out (no pun intended). We see he’s the object of lust for Lucretia (Lucy Lawless), who as the domina, or lady of the house, can command the slaves to her will, and even blatantly cheat on her husband, firm in the knowledge that the slave will never speak of it.
The show is coming along nicely, and is much smarter than many people (and critics) realize. It’s exactly what it claims to be — a firmly genre-rooted, graphic-novel show — while at the same time offering us genuinely interesting and sympathetic characters.
For seemingly a bajillion months now, LOST fans have clamoring away, throwing theories out into the vast interwebs about what exactly went down after that mysterious fade-to-white that ended last season. Did Juliet successfully set off the hydrogen bomb? Will the timeline be changed, with the original crash survivors landing safely in Los Angeles? Will they ever address the biggest mystery, that of Jack’s vanishing and reappearing chest hair?
The episode opens with Richard back in the Palace of Prophets, confused because he escaped there in the previous episode. He is told by Sister Verna that it was all in his head, a figment of his imagination that seemed real because his wizard training is affecting his mind.
Richard shakes off the magic of the Valley and rushes to save his friends. With an assist from Zedd, Nicci and the Sisters of the Dark are killed. They burn Leo on a funeral pyre, and head off to find that Stone of Tears.
After the television premiere equivalent of a drop-kick that sends you over the top rope, Spartacus: Blood and Sand is back for another heavy dose of ass-kicking peppered with a generous seasoning of nudity.
There’s a lot of buzz around the school about Spartacus, seeing as how he defeated four trained gladiators alone in his first match in the arena, but his popularity doesn’t get him anywhere — he’s still a new recruit, and most of the other gladiators couldn’t care less if he took a sword through the eye.
The episode climaxes with fights testing the new recruits, and Spartacus fights Crixus. He almost loses, until he realizes that Crixus is standing on the piece of cloth that belonged to his wife. Spartacus yanks on the cloth, tripping Crixus, and is about to kill him until Batiatus orders him to spare Crixus’ life. Spartacus is then branded with a “B,” to show his rank as one of Batiatus’ gladiators.