Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140308144416/@comment-58.6.230.84-20140310042730

Nothing much in this episode made much sense.

I've just read a great list of important things to consider when writing. (its for SF, but really goes for anything) no. 4 is An Idea is Not a Story.

And I think that's what is wrong with this episode, and indeed a lot of Merlin episodes, particularly in the final season. They had ideas for things, (so the idea was lets get Uther back) and then twisted their characters and tried to force them into the ideas they had to make it work. (second bit - Using the horn isn't a good idea), and then they have scenes they want to have happen - we want Arthur and Merlin to get caught and have to offer a silly explanation, we want lots of banter,  we want to tease the audience with some things, etc. The result is we have is our characters acting off, and an incoherent story. Instead of thinking how would X character react to situation Y in a believable way (and by the way, this is something actors argue about all the time when they say "my character wouldn't say/do that) they just made it happen, whether or not it made any sense.  Later on I think the show-runners just brought out a dartboard and chose their storylines that way (and a hat for the names they used,  because the Cauldron of Arianrod is NOT a lake!!! )