Actors: John Hurt, Colin Morgan and Bradley JamesYears: 2008-2012
Rating: TV-PG
A family-oriented retelling of the popular King Arthur legend finds Merlin (Colin Morgan) arriving in Camelot, where magic is banned. There, he clandestinely hones his sorcery skills with the help of his uncle (Richard Wilson), the court physician. Meanwhile, Merlin strikes up a reluctant truce with the irritating Prince Arthur (Bradley James) and befriends a lonely dragon held captive in the palace dungeon.
~synopsis from Netflix
I can’t tell you how much I love this series. It’s quite an interesting twist on the tale as well. Merlin is Arthur’s squire (and same age), Gwen is a servant to Morgana, Morgana is Uther Pendragon’s ward, and close friend of Arthur.
In this telling, magic is outlawed in Camelot. One thing then another happened and Uther banished it and anybody/thing magical from the kingdom. Use of magic is an automatic death sentence.
It’s a very fun story as we see the progression from good-Morgana to evil-Morgana, the friendship between Merlin and Arthur, as well as the budding romance between Arthur and Gwen. And, yes, there is a Lancelot – love triangle and everything!
The writers of the series weave characters and aspects from the original tale into the TV series, which I think is just brilliant. My only complaint is I missed series four on SyFy and currently series five (the last one!) is airing now. Guess I’ll have to wait for series five to come out on Netflix. No way to watch all of four and catch up on five.
