User blog comment:Ḡwẵine Ḹٍٍkƨ Ĺiĸe Ͼềлȑềd/Arthur's Bane: Part One - episode review/@comment-5102537-20121006223124

Watching Arthur's Bane felt like watching any other Merlin epsiode of season four. Always the same banter and jokes and the same stories. Morgana is as evil and aggressive as ever since season three and four, we have half-naked knights in an obviously freezing cold cave, we have Merlin trying to convince Arthur of something while Arthur simply doesn't listen (where is the supposedly developed relationship between the two of them where Merlin is more Arthur's advisor?), we have Arthur conveniently passing out whenever Merlin has to use magic in order to help him, we have Merlin taking Arthur somewhere into the woods and waiting until he regains consciousness and we have the always same battles/sword fights and half of it in slow motion.

Queen Annis' appearance was somewhat vapid and Gaius had three or four sentences to say. I also don't see the "new" Camelot that is supposed to be so bright and shiny. To me it looked to be the same as ever.

When Gwen asked Sefa who she met, she said the exact same sentences to her that Uther once said when Gwen was sentenced to death. Where is the difference in ruling the kingdom when Gwen does the same (aside from the Great Purge, of course) although she should know exactly how it feels? She sentenced Sefa to death because she committed treason and she was a threat to Camelot - which is exactly what Uther thought that Gwen did when he sentenced her to death. I can't see any difference in this.

The only things I liked was the fact that they went on a rescue mission (kudos to Arthur), that Gwen treated Sefa so friendly and almost like an equal in the beginning and this weird creature that looked like an alien and that probably healed Gwaine.

The rest was just quite boring to me.