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trude
This series, while technically well-made, has made it obvious to me that the stories the show-runners want to tell about those characters are not really the stories I want to see. That doesn't necessarily mean they always tell bad stories (and I'm not three years old and they are not a kindly relative trying to fit a story exactly to my liking) but...bullet points will be rather negative.
* No more Hunith? Sigh.
* I did really like Merlin's confrontation with Agravaine. Well, at least Merlin's part (excellently acted), it was a bit sad (if expected) to see Agravaine die without getting to know what his motivation was apart from possibly finding Morgana hot in her emo-goth outfit.
* Other moment I liked: Merlin talking Arthur into pulling Excalibur out of the stone. (OTOH, while I've never been heavily invested in the reveal, it's beginning to feel overdue by now. If nothing else, it would allow the writers to replace the lame Arthur-Merlin master-servant humor with lame king-warlock humor.)
* I liked the basic concept for Tristan and Isolde (as well as the actors), shame they weren't used better.
* There was an Arthur-Morgana confrontation! That was good.
* There was also a Gwen-Morgana confrontation which was bloody unsatisfying.
* Elyan/Percival-reunion: Aaaaaw
* No Geoffrey in the coronation scene? Boo.
* Still love Gwen's dress, though.
* Kilgarrah, you're like the world's worst baby-sitter. (I liked that ending. I'm not sure quite why, given that I'm still not all that fond of Morgana, but I did.)
* And now for the Arthur/Gwen. Oh dear. I'll try to be brief.
OK, I've said before that my least favorite scene with Gwen and Arthur EVER is in ”To Kill the King” when he tells her she will always keep her house and her job, and the only saving grace is that Arthur is obviously uncomfortable with having the power to offer her that. Well, this year it felt like their entire relationship took place in that scene, only now Arthur is smug and Gwen is not only OK but HAPPY with things as they are. Angel Coulby and Bradley James can still sell individual scenes to me if I block out the context, but on the whole I don't like their relationship anymore.
And this is what they used Lancelot's death for. I'm guessing he would have died no matter what for Doylist reasons, and that's OK, but they used his stupid, horrible second death to shift the power balance between Arthur and Gwen even further in Arthur's favor, and I resent that.
* No more Hunith? Sigh.
* I did really like Merlin's confrontation with Agravaine. Well, at least Merlin's part (excellently acted), it was a bit sad (if expected) to see Agravaine die without getting to know what his motivation was apart from possibly finding Morgana hot in her emo-goth outfit.
* Other moment I liked: Merlin talking Arthur into pulling Excalibur out of the stone. (OTOH, while I've never been heavily invested in the reveal, it's beginning to feel overdue by now. If nothing else, it would allow the writers to replace the lame Arthur-Merlin master-servant humor with lame king-warlock humor.)
* I liked the basic concept for Tristan and Isolde (as well as the actors), shame they weren't used better.
* There was an Arthur-Morgana confrontation! That was good.
* There was also a Gwen-Morgana confrontation which was bloody unsatisfying.
* Elyan/Percival-reunion: Aaaaaw
* No Geoffrey in the coronation scene? Boo.
* Still love Gwen's dress, though.
* Kilgarrah, you're like the world's worst baby-sitter. (I liked that ending. I'm not sure quite why, given that I'm still not all that fond of Morgana, but I did.)
* And now for the Arthur/Gwen. Oh dear. I'll try to be brief.
OK, I've said before that my least favorite scene with Gwen and Arthur EVER is in ”To Kill the King” when he tells her she will always keep her house and her job, and the only saving grace is that Arthur is obviously uncomfortable with having the power to offer her that. Well, this year it felt like their entire relationship took place in that scene, only now Arthur is smug and Gwen is not only OK but HAPPY with things as they are. Angel Coulby and Bradley James can still sell individual scenes to me if I block out the context, but on the whole I don't like their relationship anymore.
And this is what they used Lancelot's death for. I'm guessing he would have died no matter what for Doylist reasons, and that's OK, but they used his stupid, horrible second death to shift the power balance between Arthur and Gwen even further in Arthur's favor, and I resent that.
