User blog comment:Morganaforever/Series 4 Modifications(IMPORTANT!)/@comment-3012002-20120214002147

There are reasons why some of the things included in the trailers weren't included in the episodes themselves. Its called time restraints and the posters you posted above are obviously photoshopped like Dryuuu said below.

As a video editor, you should have realised this. I can give you one example even though it has nothing to do with Merlin. In the movie Ella Enchanted; there's a scene that was included in the trailer but wasn't included in the movie itself. It also adds suspense for the viewers so that they will tune in every week and the point you made about certain things being cut out sounds about right.

I read on a page on this wiki (can't remember which page now) that because the show is aired in the UK on their kids BBC channel CBBC as well as the normal BBC channel that all the real violent scenes were cut out to make the show so to speak, kid friendly. The show is getting darker and I think the reason a lot of this stuff was cut out was because they didn't want parent groups suing them for allowing violence in a family show. We can't simply wrap our kids in cotton wool. It doesn't work like that. I mean, when I was growing up (I'm 18 by the way) there was nothing wrong with a little bit of violence in shows but now there are 'professionals' saying you can't show this and you can't show that and its simply stupid.

The editors may have also thought that it would give away the cliffhanger for the season finale so that's probably the reason why these certain bits were cut out of the episodes altogether.