Merlin: Beauty And The Beast (part two)

If ever there was a story which demonstrated to me how I am so not the target audience of Merlin it's been this two-parter, which I've loved but - from the feedback I've had from die-hard Merlin fans - has not gone down so well in other quarters.

After last week's wedding between Uther and the Lady Catrina (who is really a shapeshifted troll), the new Queen starts her campaign to drive a wedge between the King and his heir - Arthur - by first framing his servant, Merlin, for the theft of her family seal.

This effectively made Merlin an outlaw in Camelot and he was forced to operate "behind-the-scenes".

Catrina then sweet talks Uther into tightening his grip on his subjects and increasing taxes to get her more wealth; when Arthur refuses to enforce these new taxes, Uther disowns his son and has Catrina declared next in line to the throne.

By this time Merlin and Gaius have figured out that the troll is using a potion to maintain her human form and so substitute one of their own.

However, even when Catrina's mask slips and she is revealed as a troll to the inhabitants of Camelot, her enchantment over Uther is so great that he still sees her as his glamourous bride and threatens execution for any who continue to call her a "stinking troll".

The story did get a bit far-fetched at this point, even given its already semi-pantomime nature and credibility was stretched pretty much to breaking point that every single person in Camelot (including all the knights etc) would go along with Uther's belief that Catrina was not a troll, despite the evidence before their eyes - especially when she had her chair replaced by a pile of horse dung (the earlier dung-eating moment was great, though!).

Catrina's use of her 'bog breath' to render Uther unconscious was a useful development of her powers, but given the supposed strength of her hold over him it made me question how much of the previous deception was really necessary.

I suppose she had to maneuver him into a position where people would first accept their marriage and then her appointment as his successor, but by this stage believability was being taxed as heavily as the peasants of Camelot.

It didn't help that there were also marked plot similarities to that of this week's excellent Sarah Jane Adventures where Sarah Jane's engagement ring glowed red every time she was manipulated in just the same way that Uther's magic medallion did here.

Unfortunately the sublime set-up of the previous episode required a rather clichéd resolution, which while handled well still felt like a drop in quality from part one of the story.

Where the episode shone for me was the insights into Arthur's character, as - when he was standing up to his father's outrageous calls for tax hikes - we began to see the growth of the strong-willed and good-hearted Arthur of legend; rather than the posh oik he was made out to be in the first season of the show.

The truly classic moment though came in the episode's denouement with his reaction to Merlin going for the inappropriate "matey" hug; that was a genuine laugh-out loud moment in the show that didn't actually revolve around bodily functions.

I don't believe this broad style of humour could be sustained in a show like Merlin, without reducing it to a cut-price Carry On clone, but as an occasional excuse to run stories that are more character-led than action-led it worked well; especially as the plot didn't have to all be wrapped up in a single episode.

That said, I am very intrigued by the darker tones and strong potential of next week's story The Witchfinder - which feels slightly anachronistic, but in a way that could lead to another good episode: