User blog comment:J8in/I'm done/@comment-4623180-20121209033349

You have covered it all. I cannot say I disagree, because I thought exactly all these things when I was watching Series 5. But, I will still go through with the finale.

Only things I can disagree on are about Gaius in the last episode. Merlin did not listen to Gaius, and Gaius was wrong. I personally thought they managed to pull off a more grown up independent Merlin even with Gaius there (this review also points it out: http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/12/08/merlin-5-10-the-kindness-of-strangers-review/) But other than that, the episode was an exaggerated de ja vu ride. Completely wasted.

What happened to dragons being at "the heart of the action"? The camera being on Mordred a lot of the time. Oh my goodness...

I watch Merlin for these things:


 * Superb acting (it's a shame they're stuck with this type of writing, though)


 * Music is awesome


 * Fighting, spells, magic, SFX (although it seems they need a WAAAAYYY bigger budget, and they gotta stop reusing shots and CGI- e.g. in the last episode they reused Aithusa CGI in the forest scene, from when she was in the cave in Arthur's Bane).

And that's all!

Much of this series is pretty much, Series 3 and 4: The Extension