If they had done the gist of this episode, minus the major deaths and ending with Merlin saving Arthur as usual, back in series 2 or 3 or even 4, I would have loved it. I would have cheerfully overlooked the plot holes and the bad CGI and loved it, the end. But as a conclusion to the show, all it really does is make me sad and bitter about everything we could have gotten out of canon and didn't because they a) insisted on putting the reveal off so long and b) apparently confused gloom and failure with good storytelling.
This show should have ended with Arthur and Merlin standing together as equals at the dawn of Camelot's golden age, and it's so depressing that they threw that away for the sake of a slavish devotion to tired formula and a weak attempt at copying the tone of Game of Thrones. But hey, if they're happy to throw away their potential, I'm happy to throw away all the bits of their show that I don't like! So I'll keep the beautifully acted interaction between Arthur & Merlin in this one, and they can stuff pretty much everything else, especially Arthur's dreadful premature demise. Mordred turned Arthur into a corpse? Pfft. He got better.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-12-29 10:38 am (UTC)as usual, back in series 2 or 3 or even 4, I would have loved it. I would have cheerfully overlooked the plot holes and the bad CGI and loved it, the end. But as a conclusion to the show, all it really does is make me sad and bitter about everything we could have gotten out of canon and didn't because they a) insisted on putting the reveal off so long and b) apparently confused gloom and failure with good storytelling.This show should have ended with Arthur and Merlin standing together as equals at the dawn of Camelot's golden age, and it's so depressing that they threw that away for the sake of a slavish devotion to tired formula and a weak attempt at copying the tone of Game of Thrones. But hey, if they're happy to throw away their potential, I'm happy to throw away all the bits of their show that I don't like! So I'll keep the beautifully acted interaction between Arthur & Merlin in this one, and they can stuff pretty much everything else, especially Arthur's dreadful premature demise. Mordred turned Arthur into a corpse? Pfft. He got better.