Merlin (SPOILERS)

(This is a post about the final episode only, for those not wanting to be spoiled.  Although in hindsight, I think I may have been grateful to have been spoiled so I didn't expect a wonderful ending.  Your choice.)


I enjoyed the British tv show Merlin.  It is fantastical and funny and the acting is quite good.  I mean, it has Anthony Head who will always get love from me just for the fact he played Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  In fact, the show deserves its own post where I say nice things about it.  And when I get past the series finale, I will write about the good things... BUT having just watched the final episode, I feel utterly misled.  I don't know if I am missing something about British tv, but I'm trying to figure out exactly what the point of the series was and/or what the writers of this show were thinking.

A little background: Throughout the series,  at the beginning of each episode is a voice-over that says: "In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name... Merlin."  There are also numerous references to the destinies of Arthur and Merlin and how they are destined to unite all of the U.K. (I think) as the Land of Albion.  This is not just something someone mentioned once, those two things are mentioned in almost every episode.  Everything in the series builds towards Merlin becoming a great wizard and Arthur and Merlin restoring the land of Albion (which I think means something in Arthurian legend but I'm not entirely sure what) together.  Ok, so those viewers who watched the entire series felt like they were witnessing the birth of a legend... BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WAS TOLD TO THEM ALMOST EVERY EPISODE!!!!

So now I watched the final episode.  I assumed there would be an epic battle, Arthur would learn of Merlin's magic, he would accept his friend and they would bring about a wonderful kingdom together.  Yea... that's not what happened.  Instead, Arthur takes an entire episode to accept that his friend uses magic... and then he dies.  Oh, and then we see a lonely Merlin walking along a modern road, apparently waiting for Arthur to rise again?  I'm sorry, but what just happened here??  For five seasons I have been waiting to see Arthur and Merlin creating greatness together and for Arthur to allow magic back in to Camelot...  So that doesn't happen.  I've been waiting to see a few episodes where Arthur learns Merlin's secret and how that plays out to become a great destiny... and we got about twenty minutes.

I don't know if the writers were trying for a hopeful end, thinking that the best is yet to come and Arthur will apparently rise from the dead?  But they just failed miserably.  Instead it is a depressing end where an apparently friendless Merlin wanders around with no purpose.  And I don't care if the best is supposed to come in a future time... then show us that time in the future!  As viewers, we've watched the whole series with the promise of these two men sharing a great destiny and that promise does not come to fruition.  It is not shown on-screen.  I feel like it would be like watching Smallville or Superman if they ended right before Clark Kent actually BECOMES Superman, in which case those would be a show or movie about a boy growing up with cool powers and they should be advertised as such.  Don't let viewers spend the whole time waiting to see the guy fly around in a red cape if your intention is never for him to do so.  It's ridiculous.  It's way more ridiculous than Lost.  It may be akin to the Red John reveal in the Mentalist (which, in my opinion, was horrific and ruined the show up until that point).  Either way, it was depressing and I feel cheated because they promised one thing and then never gave it.  If the show was supposed to be a set-up to the glory days of Camelot, I apparently missed those short days.  I also can't imagine any viewer who watched the show who was not expecting for Arthur to accept Merlin and finally accept magic as part of the world in which the show is set.  It's just ridiculous.

Obviously this is all only my opinion.  Others may feel differently.  I feel like I was the subject of a long con by the producers of this show.  Not cool.