Merlin - Season 3

In a way it's amazing how consistently Merlin manages to squander any potential it has to be an exciting show. So many good ideas wasted by sloppy plotting or overacting in search of comedy or absolutely atrocious computer effects or just not taking things as far as they should go. And most essentially, the central premise is just beyond annoying at this point. If you're doing a hidden identity story where the main character has a secret no one can know, and it's still a secret to your second most important character after three seasons, you're doing it wrong. People finding out shocking things about someone who's been close to them for years? That's good drama. Merlin saving Arthur's ass with magic but covering it up somehow, resulting in Arthur making a snide comment about Merlin's uselessness for the umpteenth time? That's extremely boring.

The whole anti-magic thing just makes for an eternally frustrating series. Interesting ideas could be explored by having something as potentially devastating as magic be outlawed, and having good and bad people on both sides of that line, but all it results in on this show is alternating between stories of Uther punishing innocent people because they use magic and stories of evil people using magic to punish Uther for punishing innocent people because they use magic. Much like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it's hard to enjoy storylines where the main characters try desperately to save an authority figure who is essentially a bad person, and whose death would ultimately push the whole plot forward in an intriguing direction (or in Clone Wars' case, stop the third through sixth movies from happening). There are hints that the fourth season might move away from Uther as the ultimate power in the series, but since I won't be watching it, I don't care about those baby steps.

And with every good thing the show does, you have to take a couple bad things with it. Finally establishing Morgana as a real villain is good. But the way she operates through the entire season is extremely irritating, manipulating events and then overly obviously smiling evilly in front of people when their lives are going horribly, and the whole dynamic where neither she nor Merlin will reveal the truth about the other is one of the most boring and nonsensical stalemates I've ever seen. I don't want to be too hard on the show, because I can see why someone would still like it after everything that's happened. At its heart, it's a simple, family-friendly fantasy adventure with a couple laughs and maybe an interesting idea or two every week. It's just not my kind of series - the plots are simplistic and inconsistent, the characters are static, and there simply hasn't been nearly enough progress in three years to keep my interest. The occasional nods to recognizable Arthurian legend come off as only there to remind people that this is somewhat, loosely, vaguely, occasionally based on it, and it has this weird issue where whoever happens to be taking the lead role in an episode comes off as less interesting than they do in a supporting capacity. I still don't hate it, but I've definitely had enough of Merlin and Arthur's faces at this point to safely call it quits without losing any sleep.

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.

Merlin - Season 1

Merlin is a bastardization of Arthurian legend that shows the supposed early years of Merlin and Arthur before he became king. There are lots of recognizable characters but they're all different from how they were cast in the stories; Lancelot appears as a commoner with knightly aspirations, Guinevere is a handmaiden, and so on. Casting a mythic wizard as a bumbling teenager is certainly a unique take, and you can understand them changing things to fit their new story - but why does it have to be about Merlin in the first place? Is the only way to get the BBC to fund your fantasy show making it about characters British people already recognize? I guess in the end I wouldn't care about the weird characterizations if the show was better.

The main reason I became interested in watching Merlin is that Anthony Head (who starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Giles, one of the show's best characters) plays Uther Pendragon, Arthur's magic hating dad and king of Camelot. Shortly thereafter it started airing on NBC, so I sat down to watch it - and was mostly disappointed. Merlin is a young man who has a gift of deep magical talent in a land where such works are cause for capital punishment, and early on he takes up residence with the court physician of Camelot (because the way to avoid persecution is to move closer to the people who will arrest you?) and becomes Arthur's servant, since a dragon tells him it's his destiny to protect him.

The first half of the season then follows a basic formula where some problem, generally magical in origin, affects the people or rule of Camelot, Merlin makes it worse with his own magic, and then someone bails his ass out at the last second. He does get better over time, but then a new problem appears; Merlin transitions rather quickly from clumsy would-be-hero to cold-blooded murderer. One episode, out of the blue, he decides to kill the antagonists outright with his magic, vaporizing them from behind. Just like that. Yeah, they were sacrificing Arthur to do something or other and it's his sworn duty to protect him, but that situation might have been resolvable without death, and he didn't even try. That's not the last time either, and the character rapidly becomes surprisingly wrathful for someone who so far has not been developed with that sort of disposition. It's just weird. Beyond these problems, the show is not entirely without its entertaining aspects, from the genuine friendship that develops between the two male leads to the whole subplot concerning the non-evil Morgana's own magical ability. Another season is coming, and I suppose I'll watch it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 5

To be honest, I wasn't sure about this season at first, and at times it got fairly cringe-worthy. It's not really as funny as it was before, and almost all of the real-life aspects were taken over by the almost pervasive sadness that bubbles out of the main plot. Still, the quality of that main plot and how it culminates makes this one of the strongest seasons in the show's run. If you only like the show for the cheesy action and laughs it might not be your bag, but it definitely shows a lot of growth in a few years of airing.

It starts out strangely, with Buffy taking on Dracula himself for an episode. That's just a diversion before the story thread that causes everything afterward is thrown to the viewer pretty exquisitely, the mysterious appearance of a character everyone seems to know but the audience is clueless about. They've pulled this sort of thing before when Johnathan went from forgotten recurring background character to adored center of the universe, but it wasn't quite like this. It's a strange tangent at first, but it evolves into the core of the season and becomes the source of a lot of drama and emotionally charged moments. Buffy's mom sees a resurgence in the size of her part after almost disappearing in the fourth season, providing another source of dreary storytelling. There's also some new directions for Spike's character that I didn't really care for too, and for a while I wasn't sold on much of what was happening. But it really came together in the last third or so in possibly the show's best buildup and conclusion. I know that some of the ramifications aren't lasting, but it was still very well-done serial storytelling that had the desired effect.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 4

The fourth season of Buffy had some stand-alone episodes among the very best the show's had so far, though it didn't feel quite as strong overall as it did previously. I'm still interested in the characters for the most part, though some of their problems weren't as good and the main story arc was... I don't want to say silly, because the show's always had a sense of humor about what it is. I guess it was just hokey in comparison to the last couple seasons. One character who did improve was Spike, who's always more entertaining when he's not antagonizing the heroes, and he couldn't for the bulk of the duration here. Someone who I definitely thought took a step back was Giles, who is still and will forever be awesome, but he's just slightly less awesome when the show goes out of it's way to let you know he's awesome.

Anyway, the main thing that's going on is Buffy and Willow arrive at their college, and before long realize that there's a secret government facility beneath it that's the base for a military project called The Initiative, and some people they've met and grown to like happen to be part of it. There's a bit of conflict as we're not sure what everyone's true motivations are and eventually the main villain presents itself, an interesting if goofy experiment gone wrong. It's hard to say what exactly made it weaker than earlier stories, other than it simply was. Still though, the season is worth watching for those standout episodes. Both of the early holiday-themed ones, the dream-sequence heavy finale and especially "Hush" are all fantastic hours of television. We're reaching the point where maybe Whedon's being stretched a little thin thanks to Angel and eventually Firefly, but Buffy's still a very watchable series.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 3

The third season is an important one, as it's end marks the split where some of the cast continues on in Sunnydale, and some move to Los Angeles for the Angel spin-off. It's pivotal for most of the characters too, as it's the last year of high school before everyone can move on, and they have to make decisions about their future. Buffy's desires are at odds with her destiny and blah blah blah she keeps fighting monsters. Willow is transforming from genius bookworm into genius bookworm that can do some magic, Xander's still occassionally funny but irritating whenever stuff's actually happening, and Giles cements himself as possibly my favorite character, although I suspect his role will be diminishing soon if not immediately.

The story this time is about the town's mayor, who has been hinted in the past as being more aware of the town's supernatural troubles than he led on, but to this point has been unseen. He's fairly friendly and non-serious for a major villain, and although that isn't exactly a unique idea, it's executed well enough. There's also Faith, a new slayer in town who appeared after the death of the other slayer at the end of the second season, who was summoned because of a glitch in the logic at the end of the first season. She has some problems. Besides the main story, there are a few other pretty entertaining tangents like an alternate universe where the sidekicks are bad guys. There's also an especially good one surprisingly focusing on Xander, where a pretty dramatic event requiring all the other main characters' attentions happens mostly offscreen while he gets into some trouble before anonymously saving the day. I've decided to watch Angel's first season next, so I can alternate between the shows until I finally finish.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 2

It's hard to say how exactly it happened, but the second season ended up seeming noticeably better than the first. The characters just grow on you and you end up caring about what happens more than before. It helps that it was ten episodes longer than the first run, giving them more opportunity to set up a strong story arc and pull it off. My favorite episodes are still the ones where the whole status quo is flipped on its head for a while, because it's always fun to see how the cast changes for a bit, but the main story worked better this time and actually made the one-offs seem a bit more out of place. The show still has a strong emphasis on humor, but the plot is more dramatic instead of campy.

The focus is on the relationship between Buffy and Angel, and it what appears to be typical Whedon fashion things go less that favorably in that area leading to the true threat after the mildly interesting vampires Spike and Drusilla antagonize the good guys for the first half. Buffy's not the only one who gets close to somebody with pretty much every main cast member hooking up with someone. Some of it doesn't seem totally realistic, but the huge expansion of that aspect really pushes the characters forward and helps the series grow. Even Xander's more likable, even if his constant wisecracks still wear on you pretty often. I'm already almost halfway through the next season, and I'm sure I'll be watching pretty heavily until I'm done with the series. It's pretty good!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 1

Dollhouse's thus far very mediocre run on FOX has left me wanting something a little more fun from Joss Whedon, and the first three seasons of his first show being available on Hulu seemed like a good way to get that. The key to enjoying Buffy is to not take it too seriously, because it's often goofy as hell. It's clearly intentionally humorous, although I'm not sure if the special effects are part of that. They're a bit rough at times, although it's hard to say if they were actually good for 1997. Some of Buffy's stunt work has to be intentionally silly though, because otherwise, yeesh.

The first season's pretty short, and has a pretty good balance between (often silly) one-off episodes and a more central story arc involving an ancient vampire and his attempts to return to the earth's surface and unleash the fury of hell and all that. It does a nice job of setting up the world of Buffy and Angel and introducing the characters, although I ended up liking some more than others. For example, Giles is a really likable mentor-type while Xander is tolerable but more annoying than funny and can easily be summed up with a single, non-flattering facial expression. Buffy herself is played well enough by Sarah Michelle Gellar, although I can't say I find her delivery of sarcastic witticisms during tense moments to come close to, I don't know, Nathan Fillion's in Firefly. In general, the first season was a solid enough mix of humor, action and horror (mostly humor) to justify my continued watching of further episodes.