User blog comment:Ozymandias v/A Slow Journey to Obsession: My Experience Watching Merlin/@comment-24691863-20140502111230

Oh Ozymandias v, this was spot on! Our viewing experience seems to be very similar first time through. My husband and I started just over a year ago and though for awhile we watched just one episode a week, it accelerated so that we’d seen everything in about six months (with interruptions of house guests, a trip to London, etc). After the last episode we simply started all over again and watched 2 or 3 episodes most evenings. And then after I had written Merlin-After I watched the whole thing a third time in less than a week, between 8 and 11 episodes a day. A bit of an overdose… But plans for watching it a fourth time have been made.

Like you, this hit me at a time when things were very intense and demanding at work so it was a perfect way to get away from that.

I’ve wondered elsewhere on the Wiki Forum if watching the series more intensely rather than from the start and following it oh so slowly for five years may be a reason for our apparently more positive reaction? I don’t really know why this would be so, or even if it is, but the thought has come to me.

Like you, I felt the need to fill in a few holes, especially the big one of 1500 years at the end. Thus Merlin-After.

Unlike you, I fell for Colin Morgan’s Merlin from the first long-legged view of him cresting the hill and was completely hooked in the first episode. And Gwen. And arrogant bullying Arthur. It took a few episodes to get into the Morgana character but then I certainly did.

All in all, a great blog! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you!