TV
'Merlin' S01E13: 'Le Morte d'Arthur'
Published Saturday, Dec 13 2008, 19:56 GMT | By Ben Rawson-Jones | 32 comments
Morgana's prophetic doom-laden visions help to instill a sense of dread after a slightly clumsy beginning to the episode, featuring a very unconvincingly rendered monster. From then on, the episode provides Colin Morgan with his best material to date as the confused wizard, who is put in the horrible position of having to sacrifice his own life to save Arthur - or so he thinks. Morgan, as an X Factor judge would say, owns the stage in a tense confrontation with the Dragon and is similarly crowdpleasing when asserting himself on Arthur (in a purely verbal sense!) and calling him a 'prat'.
Special mention should go to Anthony Head too, whose grief over his slain son is authentic and very moving despite the character's past evil deeds. Richard Wilson also exudes an immense amount of selfless dignity as Gaius, benefiting from some excellent writing - especially the admission that his life has mostly been a failure and that Merlin is the son he always wanted. But just as you're about to reach for the hankie, Gaius is spared from death by Merlin's actions.
Nonetheless, Merlin bows out for the year on a high and there are plenty of narrative threads that deserve to be further explored in a second season. Let's hope Merlin can cast a spell on the BBC programme commissioners...
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Absolutley fantastic - loved every episode - brilliantly cast and writing. Even planning a trip to the castle next year in the hope of seeing some filming!! Want 4 more series!
i loved arthur and i'm old enough and ugly enough to know better. the stories were gripping, there were enough famous faces for the 'oo, wasn't he in...' factor and the cast worked really well together. really hope that it gets a 2nd series and soon too! we all crow on about doctor who and how good it is, but it's good to see a different show in a similar vain which is equally as good in the saturday night early evenign slot.
Good series. I like these Saturday night dramas, including Doctor Who and Robin Hood. The BBC and other broadcasters should make more of them.
suberb!
Overall the series has developed despite some areas of repetition, thin plots and dubious modern-day language. Colin Morgan has portrayed Merlin well with his mischievous expression and magical twinkle in the eye, ably suppoorted by other leading cast members. The special effects in the final episode were well executed and generally believable although the Dragon continued to remind me of a cartoon character rather than a potentially terrifying creature. Overall this has been dependable Saturday night viewing and the announcement of a second series is most welcome.
I absolutley loved this episode of Merlin. Colin Morgan, once again delivers a superb performance. I Cant wait until series 2!!
Superb. The only bad thing was the fact it ended, can't wait for series 2.
I have been waiting the whole series through to see Merlin being deeply roused in anger, and got my moment when his usual reserved and reasonable demeanour took an an awesome turn when he saw that Gaius was dead -for that moment);Then the look on Merlin's face (which had really truly spread out from within the actor Coling Morgans real conjured feelings-what a talent!) spread out through his eyes and on to his face, it was brilliant! Considering Merlin has been totally believable till this anyway, the vision of him graduating up to another awesome level of power was thrilling, is this really made for TV we are watching here? Great. Anyway, Merlin with outstretched hand to the sky draws down fury from the elements and with deadly malevolent eyes lowers his head looks on at Nimueh and unleashes the power through his hand and despatches Nimueh with a stream of lightning till she explodes. Then the final proof of his magic is confirmed when Gaius lives.
lt's ok but has some bad dialogue and words . . . words like 'prat' and 'radar' in a mediaevil fantasy, come on!! plus the cast seem all so bbc Yars and its so sanitised and sterile, ok for kids l guess. l expect the tardis to turn up with more and more extras. Gwenivere is such a bad casting.
Cracking season finale to a cracking season, Season 2 please BBC, spend some licence fee on something decent for a change, along with Dr Who this is what Saturday night viewing should be.
It got better and better and I cannot wait for the second series next year.
I did really like this episode, but I feel like the "price" that all the characters talked about was cheated. I think that, at the end, Merlin would have had to choose between his mother and Gaius (ie, decide which one to give the water of life to). It's a sad/mean thing, but I think the ending this way is a little lackluster. But other than that, it was a very good episode.
This episode wasnt great, but it certinatley wasn't bad. I enjoyed the episode and thought it was a great finale wich made me really excited for the second season !
I was surprised by how much I ended up liking Merlin, it has a bit more depth and a lot less of the panto villainy than Robin Hood and though it has flaws (Gwen is a plank) I'll look forward to its return.
A brilliant dark and scary episode... I specially liked when Gaius died and it would have made a good ending but of course the person who died was of course Nimeuah in replacement of him. This episode was faultless and it was confirmed on screen it is returning again with another series and with the amount of comments on the page (Digital Spy review page) they will be plently of fans to watch it.
Good episode, particularly when showing possible future developments. One star dropped however as after they had saved Arthur and shown that Merlin wasn't about to die it just felt like a repeat of what had just happened. Plus could we have some positive witches? It would be nice to see a strong and good female power.
Merlin is amazing i didn't want it to finish i was enjoчing it that much can't wait till its backk on :D
My enjoyment was ruined as Merlin headed swiftly to the river the second time.. Knowing that Gaius had taken the only boat, expecting Merlin to fail, only to have him inexplicably appear in the castle ruins. Go figure. He must've swam or something.. But I'll still vote excellent, because that was good watchin'! (My captcha says "Weary Weiner"......)
It was good, 'specially when Merlin went to the lake the 1st time, it felt Lord of the Ringsy. But I thought that going to the lake twice was a little boring. Colin Morgan was wonderful again:) I agree that he's had some of his best material in this episode. I liked Merlin's moment of power over Arthur when he called him a prat. That was a nice moment. The plot felt kinda familiar, though; Merlin has to help another ill person. But I don't really care much about that. I thought that the final fight between Nimueh and Merlin was underdone. But, obviously, they lack the buget to have a magic fight on the scale of Willow and Giles at the end of Buffy 6...Still, epic Merlin fights would've been awesomes:) I did feel a little underwhelmed by the ending, though. It would've had more of an impact if Gaius had died, and Merlin was left weeping in the rain. And finally, Merlin got his revenge on the dragon. Stoopid dragon; it's always so cryptic, then whinges at Merlin when he doesn't do as it says. And I liked that Merlin also took power over the dragon...It's starting to show us how powerful Merlin is going to be. Yeah, there were inconsistencies, but so what? And 'Merlin...Will Return'!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!! The fanboy in me rejoiced!! I just hope that the writers up their game next series, and that the budget is bigger. And the 2nd half of this series is on DVD a week after Christmas:) Yay.
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Haven't missed an episode! It has its moments, the graphics could be upgraded, and the storyline pulled somewhat tighter to make totally gripping!