Merlin - Season 2

While SyFy did lose Doctor Who to the American BBC this season, they did gain Merlin from NBC. Which is uh... something. Not to be mean though, the show has improved a bit from the shaky first year. It's still no great shakes, but it's certainly not bad and as far as being the only real fantasy show I know of right now, it's pretty watchable. There are a few issues still, but at least I can say I like the two main characters for the most part. I'd actually take Arthur over Merlin in most situations, because while he's a jerk to the real hero more often to not, it's a likable kind of jerk, and he has enough nobility to keep you rooting for him. Colin Morgan's Merlin is still a bit annoying here and there, but he actually did some decent acting this time and he wasn't responsible for all of the troubles during the season like he seemed to be before. The show continued to grow stronger as it went on, and by the end it had some genuinely powerful episodes as it allowed itself to break from the formula it had maintained for so long. It felt more alive, with characters actually making decisions that impacted their lives and things happening that will change the entire feel of the third season.

There were those issues though, and some good content here and there didn't make them less glaring, in fact they might have made them stick out more. The inconsistency of the romantic entanglements would almost be funny if they weren't so bad. Look, this show is about a teenage Merlin and Arthur fighting bad guys together, I get that it deviates from the original legends. So I accepted it in season one when Guinevere showed up as a servant and had some romantic tension with Merlin. But then this year it's like the writers remembered "Oh crap, Guinevere is Arthur's wife!" and totally shoehorn in a relationship between the two, completely ignoring everything that happened before (except her continued infatuation with Lancelot). It just breaks the suspension of disbelief when they seemingly forget their own established continuity. And that's far from the only thing. The show seems to revel in completely abandoning any sense of internal logic for the sake of a story, or even worse, a bit of comedy. The fact that it's a fantasy series about a wizard has nothing to do with it, a story in any genre is supposed to be intellectually coherent unless there's a specific reason it doesn't. When Merlin rescues a captured damsel and goes searching for some food for her, the first thing he does is steal food right off Arthur's plate. Prince Arthur. Future king of Camelot. Merlin figures it makes sense to do this rather than sneaking into the kitchen, or giving her his own food, or anything else that makes tons more sense than stealing from the heir of the kingdom. And they do this for a couple laughs. What the hell is this? And it's but one example of the show's occasional inanity, which is much more frequent than it should be. It's an enjoyable series, but also a frustrating one. I'm not fed up to the point of abandoning it, I just hope the stories in the third season try a bit harder than this.