Merlin, episode 1

I wanted to write this before I found out what anyone else thinks. I've been excited about the first episode of Merlin and I wanted to write down an uninfluenced response.

Episode one seems rather like Robin Hood, which I found unwatchable due to the casting of the least Robin Hood-like Robin Hood. But this has the same historical, based on legend (and thus freeing accuracy of detail) feel to it. Merlin has much more scope as a story, as well as not having been umpteen TV series and films before, so there is potential for something new. Maybe.

It's hard to gauge something like this from the first episode, the majority of the episode was scene setting and introducing the characters. But so far it seems good, the cast is strong and I'm anticipating following this through to the end. I had a momentary glimpse into the future of a nostalgic look back to this first episode.

I like Colin Morgan as Merlin. Victor Meldrew, sorry, my mistake, Richard Wilson is likable enough as ???? - I have no idea what his character is called. Anthony Head is ace, I'm still waiting for him to borrow a cup of coffee, except for the excruciating conversation where I have to explain why I don't actually buy Nescafe, gold or otherwise. Hmm? Oh yes, I liked him as Uther. The dragon bizarrely looks a bit like John Hurt. According to the Radio Times, he had detectors all over his face as he spoke so as to accurately portray the speech of the dragon, so maybe that's why. Or maybe I imagined it. I don't know the other actors' names, but Arthur fits what is said about him, Guinevere's nice enough, but you can't not see her as a gold digger, you know what happens. Morgana said two words so you can't really tell much about her (but she's baaaad).

I now need to brush up on my Arthur knowledge because I'm SURE I'm meant to know things. I'm confused as to things like, what about Excalibur? He knows who he is, so surely he'd say "Well, I'll have a shot, saying as how I'm the King's son and all". And was Arthur not quite young when Merlin was really old?

Unfortunately, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and my Horrible Histories: Arthur are both in storage, so I'm going to have to activate sleeping synapses, resort to Wiki, or get a reliable source.

I can't decide whether this will be heralded or slated. I like it, I have appalling taste.

The inevitable comparisons make me wonder how Harry Potter would have been received had it been a TV series. Would it have been so popular, would it have been less mocked (by those that haven't read it, no less), would it have gone to seven series? Would it have been better than the films if each had a 13 episode (a total of nearly ten hours) run? Hmm.