Merlin: The Moment Of Truth

Merlin's mum turns up at Camelot with a black eye and tales of bandits raiding her village. The young secret-sorcerer manages to get his mum to speak at court, pleading with Uther to send forces to drive off the bandits. The king is sympathetic but won't help because the village is in a neighbouring kingdom and to move troops there would be seen as an act of war.

So Merlin, along with Morgana, Gwen and Arthur decide to go and see what can be done on their own... and suddenly Merlin has become a stripped-down version of the Magnificent Seven, with the four Camelot residents trying to train a village full of farmers how to defend themselves.

Merlin meets up with an old friend - who knows Merlin's secret (which increasingly sounds like a metaphor for homosexuality throughout this tedious and trite story) - and this old friend urges Merlin to use his magic to defend the village, while Merlin is still keen to stay in the closet (magically speaking) because of Uther's violent opposition to any manifestation of wizardly ways.

By the time the story lumbered to its inevitable climatic fight, I was nearly asleep from the constant barrage of tedious dialogue and inane posturing from the central characters.

Given Uther's heavy-handed protection of both Arthur and Morgana, it seemed quite unbelievable that he didn't send someone out to drag them back to Camelot and stop chasing off on some fool's errand to protect a load of peasants.

Alexander Siddig, who has starred in such major films as Syriana and Kingdom of Heaven, is totally wasted as the one-dimensional bandit leader in the plot that could almost as easily have been a left-over from one of the recent incarnations of Robin Hood. The set certainly was.

With no magical opposition and the usual use of the 'reset' button at the end to avoid Arthur stumbling over Merlin's great secret, The Moment Of Truth was a new low for this series which has bumbled along for several months, but never achieved the potential it promised.

After this episode, I'll be very surprised if the show comes back for a second series.

Next week:


(Film Clip Only Available In The UK)