Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season One/@comment-5102537-20130413094642/@comment-5102537-20130821122842

CasualSum1 wrote: This episode was one of the dumbest episodes of any show to date. So many things were difficult to explain, the writers decided not to explain them at all: where the sword came from, why did it kill the wraith, why it was engraved in such a manner. Very sad.

To me, "Excalibur" is one of the best episodes ever because it was deep and explained quite a lot of things in regard to characters.

Excalibur was forged by Gwen's father, Tom the blacksmith and it then was forged in the dragon's breath. When Uther took it while Merlin helped him dress, Merlin explained that Tom made the sword because Arthur needed a better one.

Since the sword was magical from the moment that Kilgharrah forged it in his breath, the engravement supposingly appeared magically. In case you mean that Uther didn't wonder about the engravements, I had the feeling at that point of time that the show originally was supposed to take a different direction. It seemed to me that Uther actually knew that something was going on with the sword, given that he suddenly was able to kill the wraith whereas everyone else had failed before him. The way he looked when he dropped Excalibur, it seemed as if he was looking directly at Merlin. Maybe it was just coincidence due to camera angle but his facial expression made me wonder if he knew that the sword was enchanted.

At that point of time I thought that Uther knew about Merlin or at least suspected him to be a sorcerer but tolerated him due to whatever reasons he might have. Maybe they left this choice open in case they wanted to refer to it later, maybe it was just wishful thinking.

Anyway, I think this was a great episode that brilliantly told a story of many shades of grey in regard to the characters and their motivations. There wasn't only good and evil like it was in later seasons. We finally learnt the main reason why Uther hated magic so much and what he was willing to do to save his son, we learnt why Nimueh regularily attacked the royal household, we learnt more of the Great Purge and we saw how Excalibur came into existance.

There are still some open questions, like, for example, why Kilgharrah said that Excalibur would do only evil in Uther's hands when we saw the opposite when Uther saved Arthur by using it, plus why Camelot didn't simply try to capture the wraith instead of agreeing to pointless duels with him. On the other hand, it proved that Uther was ready to pay for his sins when he wanted to sacrifice himself for Arthur instead of simply burying the wraith deep down somewhere from where he couldn't escape again. At least the soldiers/knights could have joined forces and tried. The wraith wasn't Godzilla after all...

Last but not least I think it spoke volumes when Uther crinched during the battles when his knight was run through by the wraith's sword. Such subtile scenes sometimes showed more depth of a character than lengthy conversations. This scene showed in particular that Uther felt for his knights and wasn't the cold tyrant he was supposed to be in the last two seasons. As I said, season one was the best in regard to character descriptions and depth.