Merlin S4 Episode 1 - No spoiler review (and a bit of squeeing over Fringe)

[shadowkat]

I have a bone to pick with you, flist. You did not warn me that Merlin was premiering on Syfy on Jan 6. How am I supposed to remember this on my own? Without my reliable tv prompters? See? THIS is the problem when everyone watches the show via the internet or overseas (I live in NYC - overseas is outside the US. Hey, if you think that's annoying I could be worse, a lot of New Yorkers define overseas as everyone who lives on the opposite side of the Hudson River and The Atlantic Ocean or the East River (if they are Manhattanites). I'm not kidding. This is true.]

That said, I did manage to find it on my own - online, took a little bit of hunting.

Here: http://stream-tv-shows-online.com/merlin-season-4-episode-1-the-darkest-hour-part-1/

Gotta love the information age. Particularly if you are a information/cultural junkie like myself. Time was you'd have to wait until the tv show got re-run in the summer, or if it didn't deal. Now..not a problem.

Damn, that was a good episode. What happened? They suddenly hire some really good writers, directors and cinematographers or something? Best episode I've seen. Special effects were even good. Plus we have a new and somewhat complicated villain. And Anthony Stewart Head's brief appearances were quite brilliant, he truly is a gifted actor when he's given something to do.

And Bradley James is getting really good in this role. His eyes really got across fear and vulnerability. I'm impressed. Actually everyone is getting good...even Morgana, who was admittedly the weak link for a while there.

We also have layers now. And metaphor! And it's not just monster of the week or problem of the week. It's actually become a serial. YAY! I have a feeling I'm going to love the 4th Season, which is nice...since S2 and 3 drug a bit.

[Oh - almost forgot...Violence-a-meter...about 20 deaths, lots of fighting, and a human sacrifice...but hey all in a good days work. And it was a willing human sacrifice, so there's that. A willing, already dying, somewhat morose human sacrifice.
The other deaths were all by ghost not sword...so maybe they don't count?]

Fringe - whoa...we are following Faux!Olivia or NEw!Olivia or Amber!Olivia in the Amberverse and everyone in it as well as Olivia in the Regular verse. I've never seen anyone follow two separate verses in multiple episodes on a tv series. Usually it's just an one-shot sort of deal. This is new. Even Farscape - which had two John Crichton's ended didn't quite do that. We have new characters, we have different versions of existing or dead characters. It's bloody brilliant and incredibly complicated and difficult to do. I applaud the ambition and risk involved.

I expected them to stop exploring both universes when Blue!Olivia made it back to the Blue verse and Amber!Olivia made it back to the Amber verse. But they didn't do that.
We are still following both characters and the subsidiary characters in both verses.
The attention to detail is astounding. For example? Sheep died off ten years ago in the amber verse and there's no FBI. Also they travel by hydrogen balloon ships, not airplanes. It's the little touches. I really appreciate attention to detail in tv series, particularly when it is consistent. That's hard to do. A lot of tv shows aren't very good at this.

Comments

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I knew season 4 was premiering on SyFy, and, all excited to watch it with closed captioning (unlike those online versions), I set the DVR to tape every episode of Merlin that was to show on Syfy's High Def channel.

And it turns out it was only premiering on *regular* SyFy this week, and not on SyFy HD until next week.

So I missed it, too.

If you don't mind me commenting on your reviews without spoilers, I will, just because, with the exception of one episode in mid-season that is a bit of tripe, the writing in season 4 is over all very good, and Morgana's characterization is more subtle.

The one thing about the season 4 premiere that I don't like is all the screaming. When a hush settles over the episode, and then is ripped apart by one of those screams, it's *&^%$ scary. In a good way, I suppose.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Don't mind at all. Just no major plot spoilers please. ;-) Minor ones that pop up in preview trailers - I don't mind. I've had to ignore my flist's reviews of Merlin for a half a year...

And thanks for the heads up on Syfy...maybe I can get the HD TV version next week. Why the delay? Aren't the same channel, just one has HD?

Agreed...the screaming...did make it creepier. And really scary.

But am rather impressed with this episode. It was really good.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I thought that the HD channels had all the same programming as the regular versions at first, too, until I started DVRing the HD channels exclusively and noticing they weren't playing the same things at the same time.

I was really miffed yesterday morning when I went to watch Merlin 4.1 and only had a few Season 3 reruns that had recorded.

So what sort of metaphors did you see in the episode?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I checked, and I think that it may not air here until next week. Because the DVR states "Darkest Hour" for both HD and regular channel. (I tend to do HD exclusively too - because I have an HD TV and want it to fill the entire screen.)

So What sort of metaphors did you see in the episode?

I need to come back to this. Just finished doing an meta on tonight's Once Upon a Time - a Jane Espenson written episode about Rumplestilskin.

Off the top of my head?
*the cold and hot bit. Fire being a protective entity - which goes back to the Dragon, and to Merlin's biological father - the Dragon Lord. And Merlin's own power - which is flames. He uses fire or will light the torch.
(Reminds me a bit of Harry Dresden..who I'm missing at the moment, damn, Butcher, I want another Dresden novel). Morgana on the other hand - has always been identified with cold, or water. That's also male and female traditionally. Female is the moon, the tides, the cool north, while male is the sun, the desert, the heat.
* Morgana's match is Emeris (or is that Amaris?) Merlin...he shadows her.
He will walk in her shadow. Fire and Ice. He's her doom. She opens the door to the spirit world, and he holds inside him the means of shutting it. She sacrifices Morghaust (her sister) to obtain power, Merlin wishes to sacrifice himself to save Arthur (while Arthur wishes to sacrifice himself).

There's also the father/son parallels...with Guise and Uther. Uther/Guise,
Arthur/Merlin. You can see them echoing each other.

The ghosts or spirits of the dead...throughout the series the characters carry the baggage of those poor souls that Uther tortured and killed for the greater good. Morgana is who she is in part because of that. They represent the magical world that Uther wishes to seal away, and repress. Uther is locked in a cold despair...and the cold spirits of the dead ravish the earth in his wake...because he seals away and represses magic. Merlin hides his magic and is frozen. The repression of magic...symbolized by the spirits attempting to break free.

I think the Arthur story - at least in the Celt and Welsh tales - was really one about the war between the old religion and the new one. Or the shift from superstition to enlightenment. My father's been reading this non-fiction book called Swerve - about how the world changed during the Renaissance. The German invasion pushed the world into the Dark Ages, after the Romans fell out of power, the Germans less educated, then there was a resurgence of science and art. I think the Arthurian legend is in part about that conflict. Here - we see it shown in the battle of spirit and flesh, fire and ice, male and female. Arthur uses a sword, Morgana uses magic and manipulation. Same deal with Merlin - Merlin uses his wits, intelligence, while Arthur is brute strength. The series shows how you need both, not one or the other. Merlin needs Arthur as much as Arthur needs Merlin. Morgana's weakness is she doesn't have an Arthur, well maybe Argvaine...

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

One thing that I got the impression with in the original legend of King Arthur is that it is less about rejecting the old religion as superstition and replacing it with the new, than with finding balance. Despite the fact that the writers have gone out of their way never to mention Christianity, Uther is the classic witch-burning Christian king attempting to do away with the old religion.

And we see the old religion so often through Uther's eyes--one evil sorcerer after another. But the main character of the entire show is a sorcerer who works for good. The narrative, the writing itself, forces us to have very mixed feelings about magic. Magic corrupts, over and over. But so does hatred of it.

King Arthur was supposedly known for many things in the original legends, including being the one king that both Christians and pagans supported. And peace, it seems, will never be found by murdering an entire class of people, but by finding a way to integrate them into the post-Roman society of nascent Britain.

Merlin's painful "closeted" status has rung a chord in me. The way he must betray himself and his kind for the greater good over and over just kills me. It's no wonder fans chomp at the bit for the big "magic reveal" because Merlin embodies pain.

And he can only accomplish so much shackled in metaphorical chains.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to also mention a writer of Merlin reviews that is rather good. She of course has seen all of Season 4 at this point, but the reviews occured as she watched the season, so are future-spoiler-free (although I'm not 100% sure about the comments made below the reviews):

http://zahrawithaz.livejournal.com/31919.html#cutid1

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks! No time to do reviews myself. Work's been busy. And I want to start making time to write fiction again.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Yes, TV viewing and the talking about TV often interferes with my fiction as well.

Like, the all-important first page of my old novel sucks worse and worse the more I try to fix it. Much easier to flip through the DVR and see what's on.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The other problem I have is blogging in lj and on the internet had made me increasingly self-critical, to the point that it is very hard to write fiction. I'm so critical of my own fictional writing.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

You need one of those Unconditional Support Dear Readers like I've managed to find. Although when I do receive critiques on stuff she's praised, it bristles a bit more. But it helps me get the first draft finished to have that sort of encouragement.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh I have one. The Momster. She's always been effective in that category, albeit a bit more critical than I might like...but usefully so.
She just keeps prodding me to skip the fantasy, genre stuff and write more literary which she thinks I'm a lot better at.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I would *never* let my mom read something (that wasn't polished and published). Yikes. Nothing would squelch my flow more than the mere notion my mom might see it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, it's probably worth mentioning that my Mom has been my Dad's unconditional reader for 20 years, and mine since I can remember.
Granted, it may also explain why I'm not comfortable writing explicit sex scenes. Did run into some issues with foul language in my novel - which bugged them.

I've had various readers over the years, but none that I would call "unconditionally supportive"...in that they aren't critical. The Momster is critical.

Hmmm...this may explain the writer's block and my inability to write an explicit sex scene. LOL!

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I used to *never* let a living soul read the first draft of a story, especially if it was a WIP. I had to abstain from my writer's group because we were supposed to be sharing bits, and just the thought that I might have to share something with the others prevented me from writing it, or (worse?) made me change what I wrote.

The diff this time is the reader is my GF, and she's not a naturally critical person. She did make one stray comment the other week about what she'd like to see more of in the story, but jeeps, if that's the worst it ever gets, it's like writing to a blank wall in terms of its impact on what I say, and sometimes encourages me to say it a bit more effectively.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you managed to see 'Merlin' (this 4th season is well worth seeing)
And I hope you are getting tonight's Once Upon A Time on your DVR tonight because I'm posting as I watch, and it is a good one (in my opinion)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. Just finished writing my review of it. IT was a good one, loved it, but I have a quibble...which I wrote in the review. Not entirely sure the back story worked. (Right now my favorite fairy tale back stories are written by Espenson, who is for some reason or other doing all the male trickster back stories.)

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Not sure it entirely worked myself, because the story shows Rumplestiltskin initially as a good man who is having his children ripped from him. And he is desperate to prevent that, and becomes willing to do anything.

This is a great set-up for showing a slow slide into corruption, but since they only have 45 minutes to tell the tale (less than that, with the modern tale going on simultaneously), they have to resort to turning him corrupt not by his choices entirely, but by being magicked into it in the end, and that sort of corruption story is a cop-out that never quite works on an emotional level for a viewer.

But is necessary if you've made a character convincingly a good person upfront (::cough::Morgana Pendragon::cough::).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

This is a great set-up for showing a slow slide into corruption, but since they only have 45 minutes to tell the tale (less than that, with the modern tale going on simultaneously), they have to resort to turning him corrupt not by his choices entirely, but by being magicked into it in the end, and that sort of corruption story is a cop-out that never quite works on an emotional level for a viewer.

I agree.

Hee. We were both spoiled by Angel, Buffy and to a degree Lost. Where they do show that slow slide into corruption bit by bit. (Notably Willow's arc in Buffy...comes to mind.)

But here as in Merlin (with Morgana)...it feels a bit rushed and doesn't quite play.

So Rumplestilskin goes from nice, albeit terrified (potentially cowardly) Dad, and villager, struggling to protect his children, to evil child stealer? Okay. And all because of magic? Yeah, he might have been cowardly...but that's not enough by itself.

But is necessary if you've made a character convincingly a good person upfront (::cough::Morgana Pendragon::cough::).

Yep. I agree...on Morgana. Not sure if Rumple is as evil or unredeemable as Morgana is being painted at the moment. I've been admittedly struggling with Morgana's characterization for some time now - she's the weak link in Merlin.
While I think Rumple may be one of Once's strengths...he clearly has an agenda, just not quite sure what it is and since these writers hailed from LOST...I think he may end up being a little more ambiguous than we think. (at least that's my hope.)

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I think a good trickster character needs to have a bit of a mercenary heart from the get-go, a trait that starts out as a minor character flaw and ends up overshadowing their conscience due to circumstances and personal choices.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about your comment on the way home from work today...and I saw a pattern emerge from previous tricksters that I've loved.

Spike if you recall..started sort of like Rumplestilskin, a desperate soul, weak, powerless, terrified. Avoiding violence at all costs. Good with language. And deals. And protective of those he loved. A good man at heart, but also deemed cowardly because he hated a fight.

Was there a bit of a mercenary heart in there? I don't know.

Emma Swan also falls into the category of trickster, prison background, desperate soul, struggle to protect those she loves...and a bounty-hunter, jack of all trades - definitely mercenary.

Also...the trickster is always the "fool" in the card deck. A glib line.

Very ambiguous character. Often will turn a story or change it, without the author's intention.

Will state - I think Robert Carylyle is an excellent choice here. He doesn't fall into the temptation of playing Rumple as too creepy.
But does he have bad teeth! LOL! The actor reminds me a little of the actor who used to play Ethan Rayne.

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

Re: Fringe-- so are you in Season 3, or up to 4 yet?

And yes, the complexity they'e pulling off is amazing. This is the main reason I did my own "Whoa!" back there in October, after watching Anna Torv shift seemingly effortlessly between playing what are now four different Olivias, and somehow keeping track of all the little variances in their speech, facial and body mannerisms, varied abilities and knowledgebases, etc.

Realizing that TV, like film, is rarely produced in the linear fashion we see unfold on the screen but shot and cut in whatever way makes practical/budgetary sense for the showrunners, adds further amazement.

This show had some rough moments over the years, but it's gotten past them and is IMO up there with the best genre work on TV in the last decade. Glad you're enjoying it also!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Still in S3 - watching Fringe purely through netflix DVDs - and there's something to be said for that. Easier to watch. No annoying commercials.
And instant gratification. Also I tape far too many things on the old DVR as it is.

Trying not to be spoiled for S4, although sort of am by DVR descriptions.

Thank you for the rec. Your rec and especially shipperx's - made me go check out Fringe. I got curious. And I agree Anna Torva's Olivia is beyond interesting. She's the main reason I'm watching. The subtle changes between characters. I do not like Amberverse!Olivia at the moment. But that could change. While I adore Blueverse!Olivia.

And the science bits are actually innovative. It's a far more interesting concept than X-Files. Granted, I think, X-Files may have had better dialogue and characterization, but I find Fringe more interesting. (Wasn't an X-Files fan...strange I know, but there it is.)