User blog comment:Fimber/When family is what destroys you/@comment-4814726-20121121015748/@comment-5102537-20121121113904

I think you're not so far away from the truth ;-)

In my opinion, the influence of a variety of other TV shows and movies is what made "Merlin" darker, alas darker doesn't mean to show most of all horrible things happening to the characters of a family show. When I heard they wanted to make it all darker I thought that there will be more mature stories dealing with more serious adult-stuff (not sex, that's not what I mean) but I didn't know that growing up and being more mature means to torture, being tortured and to get more brutal and horrific each epsiode. I also didn't know that maturity means to suddenly change characters and to make a mockery of them.