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.