Comments | mab2701: TV Post

mab2701

TV Post - Merlin

Dec 30, 2008 14:10

The plan over the weekend was to catch up on the Sarah Connor Chronicles episodes i'm behind on. Instead I got distracted by BBC's Merlin which has apparently been picked up by Channel 10 for next year and watched all 13 episodes of it. Yes I was bored and had nothing to do all weekend ( Read more... )

tv: merlin

Comments 6

charis_kalos December 30 2008, 04:28:28 UTC

Hmm. I've been reading about this in SFX but they haven't given the nice neat synopsis that you have. I did hear the 'magic is banned' plot point (and then all the magic=homosexuality stuff and I've heard about fanfic based on Merlin 'coming out' to Arthur).

Which makes me wonder, is there anything in sci-fi/fantasy that doesn't = homosexuality? Mutation= homosexuality; being a slayer = being gay. That's why TW is such a shock; there's no metaphor! Jack and Ianto really are bisexual!

I'm looking forward to this, especially to Tony Head as Giles. But if Morgan is Uther's 'ward' then they've got rid of the incest theme which is central to later Arthurian myth. Bah humbug!

mab2701 December 30 2008, 05:00:27 UTC

They've gotten rid of a lot of the stuff central to the myth... It's still there sort of but it's twisted into a 7pm family friendly version of it. But if you know the myth there's always some funny asides thrown in as well. But I did have to forget pretty much everything i knew while watching it because if I didn't it would've pissed me off ( ... )

charis_kalos December 30 2008, 22:35:38 UTC

But I did have to forget pretty much everything i knew while watching it because if I didn't it would've pissed me off.

Oh dear. I actually tutored in "King Arthur: History and Legend" at uni, so if they play around with the myth too much I may throw things. (Never watched the Clive Owen version for that reason although, God help me, I did watch First Knight because I was still teaching it then and was looking at every interpretation I could find. But only so I could make fun of it ( ... )

mab2701 December 30 2008, 23:17:40 UTC

Yeah, you may have more trouble with this than I do. On the plus side it's a positive representation of the myth. They aren't ignoring the mythology and saying "this is the true history of Arthur and England" which the Clive Owen one did (and got it distubingly wrong). Julie Gardner has said the idea came from watching Smallville and seeing how it changed the Superman stories and this was supposed to do the same thing with Arthurian legend. In this case it's the geeky, awkward still learning his powers Merlin that comes across as the hero rather than the muscle of the team which is obviously Arthur.

First Knight came out on video when we were studying myths and legends in high school. Our teacher hired it out for us and we spent a lesson mocking it and picking it apart... that was fun :-D

Wow that last version sounds horrible. I mean i get modernising it and if it works i'm all for it but in that context its just offensive and wrong.

Thread 6