Aye, let us all gather around a nice warm strumpet with a horn of meadish ale and sing a merry nonny for the heady days of yore, when damsels were permanently in distress (except on alternate Tuesdays, when they wore dat dress); enormous, flaming reptiles other than Keith Richards roamed the British countryside, strange women hung out in bodies of water and flung enchanted edged weapons at future monarchs and the propensity for eligible young men to prance around in full suits of armour meant that tearoom sex took a lot longer and required the assistance of a can-opener and some WD-40. So put your feet up on that blacksmith’s anvil, help yourself to some suckling spit pig, grab a handful of your favourite comely wench or squire and do try not to catch the Black Death as we cross lances with MERLIN (Sundays, Ten-6:30pm)
For those of you who know your Arthurs from your Marthas, the series is based on the ancient, celebrated tale of the heroic and almost certainly fictitious King Arthur, whom was prophesized to rule all of England due to a complicated series of events involving a magical sword that used to belong to a woman who lived underwater but later got wedged in a rock, an evil faerie-witch who birthed Arthur a son who was half-demon, a very big, winged lizard with problem halitosis and an old wizard who helped Arthur claim the throne before trying to get it on with the lake lady and getting turned into an oak tree for his trouble. And you thought that Brooke sleeping with every male on the set of BOLD & THE BEAUTIFUL was hard to follow.
MERLIN takes the SMALLVILLE/ STAR TREK: ORIGINS route of going back to the start of the fable and seeing how things developed. When we meet him, King Arthur is still just Prince Artie Pendragon (Bradley James) – a twenty-something himbo with a good heart who is bossed around by his dad, King Uther Pendragon (BUFFY’s Anthony Stewart Head). Nor is Artie the main focus of this version – that role falls to his best friend, Merlin (Colin Morgan, last seen providing beefcake relief in the terrifying DOCTOR WHO episode Midnight) who is secretly quite an adept sorcerer – secret because King Uther is rather intolerant of magic in his kingdom of Camelot. So Merlin must keep his magical skills a secret, even from his best friend, Arthur, whilst he gradually becomes a sorcerer to be reckoned with under the combined tutelage of Court Physician Gaeius (gay actor Richard Wilson from ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE) and the Great Dragon (voiced by John Hurt) a huge, immortal creature imprisoned by King Uther in the dungeons below Camelot – guess the King is Pendragon by name, Pen Dragon by nature! Ha! Err… sorry. Anyway, Merlin’s a wizard, the king’s a wizardophobe, Prince Arthur is coming into power and going on all sorts of knightly quests, and Arthur and Merlin are possibly playing hide Excalibur together.
What?!! Yes, you read that right – several scenes in the series, despite its “Family†classification, suggest more of a “We Are Family†vibe – one episode ends with Arthur and Merlin in bed together (clothed); another has them playing sort-of-footsie; they go skinny-dipping and take sneaky looks at each other’s bodies, and another actually has them using the “L†word- and I don’t mean “Lancelotâ€. You may have noticed that a lot of people in the cast have been on episodes of Gay writer Russell. T.Davies’ reboot of DOCTOR WHO; Davies’ team is responsible for MERLIN as well, hence most of the cast of WHO and TORCHWOOD popping up (I’m waiting for John Barrowman to show up as Guinevere), the vaguely Silurian/Ice-Warrior feel to the CGI effects of the Great Dragon and also for the somewhat homoerotic vibe between the two Medieval Man-crushes.
Hot guys, Hot-Breathed Lizards, Sword-Polishing and Spell-Casting. Stop being a Questing Beast and watch it already!
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