Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Five/@comment-5102537-20140308144416/@comment-58.6.236.54-20140309054327

Was this the episode when the writers officially lost the plot? I think it might have been. I remember watching it and thinking "meh". It was SO disappointing. The inconsistencies were out in force in this episode. They really didn't care that their characters were behaving in an uncharacteristic manner, just as long this episode lurched from plot point to plot point and they got some creepy scenes in, I think they were happy with it. I wasn't. I did think Colin relished some of his lines (so the chandelier " just happened to break on the table etc" and Angel did some good getting knocked out, and Bradley tipped apples all over the floor to hide the horn, they all did some good spooky reactions,  and some haunted house type atmosphere going on but was such a  pointless filler episode, and for the third episode into the new season, not a good thing. It probably would have been OK as a stand-alone episode, but it was in the wrong season or something.  Its almost as they forgot they had a time-jump. (plus there was no Mordred,  weird, especially as he was just knighted!)

So this was the episode that they were so desperate to bring Uther back for, so he and Arthur and also Merlin could have "a talk" about important stuff, and resolve things, (had they been taking trolling lessons from Steven Moffat for the SCDD they attended? He does it so much better) such as how Igraine was killed, why he wrecked revenge on all magic users, about Morgana? Did he have regrets? Na ha, nothing of the type happened. We were teased in the opening minutes of Arthur coming the rescue of the sorceress and stating to the village she hadn't been given a fair trail. I'm pretty sure the words "I'm not my father" we used several times in this episode. (or the variation of "your not your father also) That storyline could have gone in an interesting direction. But no, after the ad (we had ads here) she died, after giving him the horn. She wasn't mentioned again. (at least she wasn't evil as well, but then who knows she could have been!)  Then we have Arthur all moody, and sneaking off to  use the horn to speak to Uther.   Again we had Arthur using magic for his own benefit, without thinking through the consequences, again we have him asking Merlin, if it was your father, what would you do? Ugh, how many times did that get used?  But, it could have gone in an interesting direction, but we have "ghost Uther" telling Arthur that he was a failure, even though he was alive when he knighted the commoners (and if he knew so much, how come he didn't know Gwaine was actually a nobleman in hiding, and of course, the biggy, he knew Arthur had married Gwen, but didn't know that Merlin had magic, Ugh, a child could (and DID, I can assure you) see through those inconsistencies. It was all so so strange, considering he died telling Arthur he was proud of him. So then Arthur is all full of self-doubt, AGAIN, didn't we just get 3 seasons of that? And then his spirit follows Arthur back to Camelot and tries to kill Gwen and Percival and then Arthur, so he (as a ghost, that nobody else could see) could rule Camelot. Rigghttt.... And then we end the episode, not with Arthur apologising to Gwen for putting her in danger, or for using Magic when he thought it was evil, or indeed, being remorseful that he used it at all. No we had "horseplay" which was there for a reason, but not a good story-telling one.