The rulers of The Five Kingdoms of the land are gathering at Camelot to negotiate, and sign, a peace treaty but wicked King Alined (David Schofield) is determined to sabotage the conference for his own - vague - reasons.
He employs his magically-inclined jester Trickler (the ever creepy Kevin Eldon) to enchant first Arthur (Bradley James) and then the Lady Vivian (Doctor Who's Georgia Moffett) to fall in love with each other.
The rude and haughty Vivian is the daughter of the over-protective King Olaf (Mark Lewis Jones), who doesn't take kindly to anyone showing any romantic interest in his virginal daughter.
Sweet Dreams rapidly develops into a wonderful farce, with confessions of love being directed to the wrong target, people being whisked in and out of bedrooms etc and if it wasn't for the emotional hurt that Gwen (Angel Coulby) suffers, this would have been one long uproariously comedy episode.
Gwen, unfortunately, receives a love note and flowers from Arthur (by mistake) and finally believes he has overcome the social barriers separating them and professed his true feelings. Sadly when she learned that Arthur was to fight Olaf to the death for the honour of Lady Vivian you could see Gwen's heart breaking on the screen.
The duel between king and prince was excellent - the stunt team on Merlin deserve some recognition for their wonderfully choreographed fight scenes - but it was the kiss between Arthur and Gwen, to break the enchantment, that had me grinning from ear-to-ear like a teenaged Twihard sitting through a screening of New Moon.
While there may have been some minor plot holes in Sweet Dreams, it was - without a doubt - the strongest and cleverest episode of the show to date with outstanding performances, again, from Bradley James and Angel Coulby as the star-crossed lovers.
It was good to see their romance, although still on the QT, slowly developing in a very touching and tender way - while at the same the bromance between Prince Arthur and Merlin (Colin Morgan) goes from strength to strength.
Although Sweet Dreams did feature a crucial appearance by The Great Dragon (voiced by John Hurt), the story proved that you don't need a big, CGI monster for Arthur and his men to fight to make a strong episode of Merlin.
I hope King Alined and his jester are allowed to return later as recurring villains - as Trickler proved a worthy foil for Merlin's magic.
Kudos to Lucy Watkins for writing such a splendid tale; if only Merlin was this good every week.
Next week:
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- The Acrobatic Flea
- I was a regular salaryman, earning a crust with my meager writing skills, until an aneurysm tore open my aorta unexpectedly in early 2005. I suffered a stroke during surgery and a collapsed lung afterwards. I have since realised that I now have a new chance at life, which (body willing) I shall indulge in with positiveness, happiness and the good companionship of my wonderful wife. The Acrobatic Flea handle comes from the name of my favourite - and most successful - Villains & Vigilantes RPG character in the '80s.
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5 persons have something to say about this!:
Agreed. A stonking good episode all round with just the right balance between humour, plot advancement and drama. Great stuff!
And the next one looks like it's going to be a good one too.......
Agreed about the next episode. It's taken almost two whole seasons, but I think I'm finally really getting into Merlin. If only it had been this good from day one...
The kiss had me grinning too - the character interaction really was excellent in this episode. That said, the utterly contrived exchange between King Alined and Trickler before the opening credits made a really poor start. Uther's lines to Arthur had already made the purpose of the talks, both the potential gains and risks, quite clear, so there was no need for laboriously spelling out to the viewer exactly how the plot would unfold.
Gaping plot holds let it down as well. Watching Arthur and Olaf duel, I'd been wracking my brains wondering how it could all possibly be fixed. Thanks to the high standard of series two thus far the anticipation had me positively gleeful... only for it all to be tied up with one line from Arthur and a bit of applause. Even after Olaf has been depicted as a "nice guy" in early scenes, the sudden flip from furiously angry to smiling just didn't work.
As a result, it was an episode I really enjoyed, then became frustrated with as it tapered out. I'm glad it ended with that beautiful tenderness between Arthur and Gwen or it would have put me in a pretty poor mood.
Agreed. Angel Coulby was fantastic. I'm glad we're getting more insight into Gwen and Arthur's relationship after all the teases since "The Once and Future Queen."
Thank you both for comments.
Aelystriel, what you referred to was some of the plot-holes I mentioned in my review: such as how exactly Alined reckoned he would get rich out a war (surely war is a drain on resources?)?; If Olaf was so protective of his daughter why bring her with him in the first place?; Olaf's sudden change of heart at the end, just because Arthur didn't kill him etc
There probably were justifiable plot reasons for all these things, but we weren't let in on them!
That said, unlike yourself, the rest of the episode was so good that it let me overlook these in my final assessment of the episode.
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