User blog comment:Freyamerlin/I want a Season 6/@comment-5939645-20130116062101/@comment-5102537-20130116115304

I agree with you here

"Certainly, Merlin should have tried to heal Arthur, but he didn't. Yes, Merlin should have summoned the Great Dragon two days before he did. Why didn't Merlin seek the Chalice of Life to save Arthur? Or why didn't he cross the Lake and see if  the Sidhe could help? Going back further, why didn't Merlin go back and meet with the Disir to try to undo the damage his advice did for Arthur? Merlin did that in previous seasons (Example - Season 1, "The Labyrinth of Gedref"). Instead, Merlin was a passenger on a doom ship not taking any action to stop Arthur's death. Why didn't Merlin intervene with Mordred? We all know Merlin of past seasons would have done that.  There are many other missing linkage that never occurred. Scripts have always been a weakness in Merlin, but this season it was awful."

That's why I think that as a standalone epsiode it would have been okay. A bit boring to me because to me the reveal and the lame conversation between Arthur and Merlin was quite underwhelming. However, in the show's context and canon, it was total rubbish. It's not only that Merlin's lack of necessary action was out of character - he didn't even do what really everyone else would have done. From the moment that Arthur was wounded, logic was flushed down the toilet.