User blog comment:Alethia II/Why I have not particularly enjoyed what I have seen so far in series 5/@comment-4190137-20121113044023

Okay I think it's fair to say Series 5 has been relatively good so far. But the problem is, it's not only Series 5, the problem is, the show generally lacks progression. Especially with Merlin and Arthur. They said if we put the Series 1 Merlin next to the Series 5 Merlin the change would be massive... Well, they were wrong! No main/recurring character has found out about Merlin's magic without immediately dying since Series 1. Gwen continues to make progress whereas Morgana sort of stopped making progress at the end of Series 3. Uther has made progress, however in a not so positive way - as seen in The Death Song of Uther Pendragon. Gaius has made no progress. Mordred and Elyan have made progress but the rest of the Knights haven't. So that's only 3 characters that have made progress: Gwen, Mordred and Elyan. And since those characters don't really get all that much screen time, that is what the problem is! Progression. Anyhow whilst they are too busy putting every ounce of effort to make the show what they claim 'darker' they are forgetting about where they should be really taking the show!

Anyway I have a conspiracy theory to why they have, since the beginning of Series 4, tried SO HARD to make the show dark... May sound silly, but I think the BBC threatened to cut the show at the end of Series 3 due to all of this 'lack of progress with the show' - so they said if they didn't change the direction of the show it will not get renewed. And Capps decided, 'Let's make this family show dark!' (but without blood of course). Anyway that's my conspiracy theory, I know it's probably not true but hey! Anything's is possible. ;)