tardis_stowaway (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tardis_stowaway) wrote2011-12-05 01:35 am
tardis_stowaway) wrote2011-12-05 01:35 am
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Merlin continues a run of lousiness
Goddammit Merlin, all I want to do is love you. Why do you insist on making that difficult and painful?
-4x09, "Lancelot du Lac": It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say about this. Many of my favorite shows break my heart sometimes. A well-written heartbreak hurts, but I'm not going to stop watching. If anything, it makes me care for the characters more. However, there are few things more frustrating to a viewer than badly written, unnecessary heartbreak.
Tragedy is in the bones of Arthurian mythology, but 4x09's treatment of the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot love triangle was lazy, robbing the story of power and subtlety. Instead of Gwen being torn in half by loving both Arthur and Lancelot, we get Gwen and Lancelot only cheating on Arthur because Lancelot is a mind-controlled shade and Gwen has been enchanted with a bracelet. I wish the show had the emotional maturity to admit that sometimes human hearts are big and messy enough to love two (or more) people at once, even though it causes problems when society and partners expect monogamy.
Getting Gwen with Lancelot didn't require the stupid overused enchanted jewelry trope. (BTW, how has it not occurred to everyone in Camelot that if someone is acting oddly the first thing to do should be to check for new jewelry, clothing, or other gifts? Everyone in this castle is a moron.) It wouldn't make Gwen a horrible person to love Lancelot without magic, just human. It certainly didn't require taking away Lancelot's entire personality and then killing him deader than before. (I resent this bit a lot. Lancelot was my favorite. He's also the best known knight of the round table in popular knowledge of the legends. I guess nobody is 100% dead when we have magic, but this latest death looked pretty final. Why?!) This love triangle could have been a fascinating tragedy (or sexy threesome!). Instead, it was just some particularly hurtful shenanigans from Morgana.
I think Arthur banishing Gwen (as opposed to just calling the relationship off) was somewhat out of character, though maybe even worse was Merlin being so passive and ineffectual.
On the plus side, damn, Angel Coulby acted her heart out. Also, Lancelot emerging from the lake was a very pleasant bit of fanservice. Yum. That's about it on upsides.
-4x10, "A Herald of the New Age": Unless I'm overlooking something, there were no women in this episode. Zero. Fuck this.
We get an Elyan-centric episode. That's nice! However, instead of getting some character development (like how he feels about his sister being banished, for instance!), we get some not especially great knight teasing, then Elyan spends the rest of the episode possessed. Not only do we miss a chance for character development, it's problematic when one considers race. Elyan (a person of color) functions as a vessel to let Arthur (white) and the druid child (also white) deal with all their Very Important Feelings. Does anyone in charge of the show stop to think about things like this? What am I saying, of course they don't.
This episode wasn't a complete waste of time like the previous two weeks, but it wasn't good enough to make me overlook the aforementioned Big Problems. I am excited that maybe Arthur is getting prepared to have a change of heart about magic. Will we actually get a reveal of Merlin's magic sometime soon? (Answer: no.) On an unrelated note, when Elyan showed up all dripping, I had Waters of Mars flashbacks.
I'm going to stick through at least the end of this season, but I'm starting to wish I knew how to quit my feelings for these characters. In the meantime, I'll just watch this fluffy S1 OT4 video over and over and write fic that will probably never get finished/good enough to post, but makes me feel better.
On topics other than Merlin, back in the land where women exist and even get their own stories, here is a wonderful vid linked by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymercury_10. It's a medley of fairytales and Marina & the Diamonds music, and it's well worth your time.
-4x09, "Lancelot du Lac": It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say about this. Many of my favorite shows break my heart sometimes. A well-written heartbreak hurts, but I'm not going to stop watching. If anything, it makes me care for the characters more. However, there are few things more frustrating to a viewer than badly written, unnecessary heartbreak.
Tragedy is in the bones of Arthurian mythology, but 4x09's treatment of the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot love triangle was lazy, robbing the story of power and subtlety. Instead of Gwen being torn in half by loving both Arthur and Lancelot, we get Gwen and Lancelot only cheating on Arthur because Lancelot is a mind-controlled shade and Gwen has been enchanted with a bracelet. I wish the show had the emotional maturity to admit that sometimes human hearts are big and messy enough to love two (or more) people at once, even though it causes problems when society and partners expect monogamy.
Getting Gwen with Lancelot didn't require the stupid overused enchanted jewelry trope. (BTW, how has it not occurred to everyone in Camelot that if someone is acting oddly the first thing to do should be to check for new jewelry, clothing, or other gifts? Everyone in this castle is a moron.) It wouldn't make Gwen a horrible person to love Lancelot without magic, just human. It certainly didn't require taking away Lancelot's entire personality and then killing him deader than before. (I resent this bit a lot. Lancelot was my favorite. He's also the best known knight of the round table in popular knowledge of the legends. I guess nobody is 100% dead when we have magic, but this latest death looked pretty final. Why?!) This love triangle could have been a fascinating tragedy (or sexy threesome!). Instead, it was just some particularly hurtful shenanigans from Morgana.
I think Arthur banishing Gwen (as opposed to just calling the relationship off) was somewhat out of character, though maybe even worse was Merlin being so passive and ineffectual.
On the plus side, damn, Angel Coulby acted her heart out. Also, Lancelot emerging from the lake was a very pleasant bit of fanservice. Yum. That's about it on upsides.
-4x10, "A Herald of the New Age": Unless I'm overlooking something, there were no women in this episode. Zero. Fuck this.
We get an Elyan-centric episode. That's nice! However, instead of getting some character development (like how he feels about his sister being banished, for instance!), we get some not especially great knight teasing, then Elyan spends the rest of the episode possessed. Not only do we miss a chance for character development, it's problematic when one considers race. Elyan (a person of color) functions as a vessel to let Arthur (white) and the druid child (also white) deal with all their Very Important Feelings. Does anyone in charge of the show stop to think about things like this? What am I saying, of course they don't.
This episode wasn't a complete waste of time like the previous two weeks, but it wasn't good enough to make me overlook the aforementioned Big Problems. I am excited that maybe Arthur is getting prepared to have a change of heart about magic. Will we actually get a reveal of Merlin's magic sometime soon? (Answer: no.) On an unrelated note, when Elyan showed up all dripping, I had Waters of Mars flashbacks.
I'm going to stick through at least the end of this season, but I'm starting to wish I knew how to quit my feelings for these characters. In the meantime, I'll just watch this fluffy S1 OT4 video over and over and write fic that will probably never get finished/good enough to post, but makes me feel better.
On topics other than Merlin, back in the land where women exist and even get their own stories, here is a wonderful vid linked by
ladymercury_10. It's a medley of fairytales and Marina & the Diamonds music, and it's well worth your time.