Merlin: The Last Dragonlord

Determined to go out in a blaze of glory, the final episode of Merlin's second season - The Last Dragonlord - kicked off in media res, on the third night of The Great Dragon's attacks on Camelot (as shown in the preview).

Even Merlin (Colin Morgan) finds himself impotent against The Dragon, his magic proving as useless as the crossbow bolts, swords and spears of the knights defending the castle.

Just as the defenders are giving up hope, Gaius (Richard Wilson) tells magic-hating Uther (Anthony Head) that he might know the whereabouts of the last "Dragonlord" (a group of sorcerers who could communicate with, and tame, dragons).

It was thought that Uther had had all the Dragonlords slaughtered, but as Gaius confides in Merlin soon after: he helped Balinor (John Lynch), the last of his kind, to escape. And then drops the bombshell on Merlin that Balinor is also his father!

This rich, dark, emotional episode is heavy with epic echoes of both Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars.

While Merlin may have looked to Lord Of The Rings for visual inspiration (Camelot under siege at night stirred memories of Minas Tirith, while the village and inn Arthur and Merlin visit on the hunt for Balinor bore a strong resemblance to Bree and the Prancing Pony), the father-son dynamic between Balinor and Merlin was straight out of Star Wars - right down to the final "ghostly voice" advising Merlin to "use The Force" when facing down The Great Dragon.

The inevitable plot twist that lead into the story's third act wasn't unexpected, but certainly didn't undermine the gravitas of the moment and set the ball in motion not just for the conclusion of this episode (and this season), but also moved Merlin up a notch on the sorcery power scale for the show's third season.

A strong ending to a season that may have started on familiar ground, but soon came on in leaps and bounds, pulling some genuinely surprising, interesting and intriguing tricks and plot hooks out of its magical hat along the way.