User blog comment:Fire and Shadows/Series 5: your overall views/@comment-5995315-20130125124404

When I was watching season 5 I didn't care for Another's Sorrow at first, nor The Dark Tower. Then, too, the Evil!Gwen arc in the middle made me wonder if there was a stall to the show. This is what everyone was saying at the time.

However, once I watched the finale, episodes 4 and 6  made much more sense as part of the overall theme of the season, and even the Evil!Gwen arc seemed to have its place.

To me, the Disir episode was the critical one. Once I saw it, I was pretty sure there couldn't be a season 6, and I started getting knots in my stomach from then onward.

What comes clear from watching all 13 episodes is that each episode of season 5 is developing a theme leading toward the conclusion of the show. The theme is the growth of King Arthur into the king of legend, and each episode shows something he does to earn his legendary status.

Mordred is the key to the entire season. He holds it together and allows viewer a better view of Arthur than Merlin by himself would have given us. Understanding what Mordred is doing in season 5 helps unpack the overall message for viewers.

The question is whether developing this theme hurt the development of the other characters. I don't think so, not even in the case of Morgana. To me the minor one-off characters such as Sefa and Eira distracted from the show, although Kara was critical to the plot.

So to me, season 5 was altogether the best-acted and most coherent of all five seasons.