User blog comment:Chawk1993/Staying Loyal/@comment-5036924-20111219125104

I have pretty mixed feelings on this issue, haha. On the one hand, I really do get why people complain about aspects of the show - to me, it's not particularly brilliant writing and there are few episodes where it hasn't been kind of obvious what's going to happen. It IS a bit formulaic; they have done the Merlin saves the day with a secret bit of magic thing over and over, though really that's what the show is about I suppose.

I also find the lack of subtleties in the characters annoying - you're pretty much either heart-of-gold or pure evil. Nobody is morally ambiguous and you can tell who's bad from the amount of black clothing they wear. The treatment of Morgana is what annoys me the most because she could've been a great antagonist IF there'd been some conflicting emotion and some doubt. Instead, they just turned her into a bit of a flat, stereotypical villainess. :/ it doesn't make sense for her to be as cruel and malicious as she is now. I mean, burning crops and torture? How does that match up with the person who defied Uther's cruelty and always defended innocent people?

On the other hand, I could never stop watching Merlin because I still love it, despite its shortcomings. I think it's fun and friendly and has a few moments of absolute brilliance - A Servant of Two Masters was hilarious. They write Arthur/Merlin interactions so well and there are some great revelatory scenes where you really do get the emotion behind things. I think S4 is definitely better than S3 and S2, and I will definitely keep watching, but I think I'll always miss a lot of things that were present in S1 that no longer are.