Merlin Season 5 Episode 3 Review The Death Song of Uther Pendragon

Spoilers Ahead. Proceed at your own Risk! 

My problem with this episode begins with the title. Namely, it has the word Uther in it. However, there were some good things about it as well, so I've decided to format this review in the form of two lists for the good and the bad.

The Bad: 

- Uther coming back (I know people think he's a good actor, but no matter how good an actor he may be       the writers drove us insane with the constant attempts at his life so that by the time he was dead... well, I was hoping it would be permanent...>.>

- ANYONE coming back from the dead. This has been done so many times on Merlin that it is no longer shocking or frightening or a problem.

- Lack of real stakes/risk for characters... Gwen got attacked, Uther unscrewed the candelabra on top of the round table, Percival even got hit with an ax and Merlin got pinned to a wall/door with two gigantic spears. All of this, and I was feeling bored during the episode. Why? Because you knew none of the characters were  actually in any real danger.

- Lack of development of the "differences" between Uther and Arthur's reign. The whole episode was supposed to revolve around this, but the only actual examples given were
               1) non-noble born knights (which we saw coming since episode 1 or 2 in series 1!)
                and 2) Arthur marrying Gwen (I can understand why Uther was upset by this, but let's face it, Arthur did it because he loved Gwen and that's hardly a revolutionary change - it could be, but it hasn't been handled as such so far).
              3) They also alluded to the whole round table thing, but let's be honest here. The Round table is a concept and a symbol for a whole new way of thinking, and so far the only thing we've seen of it on the show is its shape and characters telling us it's awesome - we need to be shown this!

- Almost-reveal: Like I said in the past episode the reveal of Merlin's magical power has been overdue for a long, long time, so these almost-reveals are just annoying and they're going to water-down the effect of it when it finally happens. The ONLY thing that will redeem this huge problem in the series for me is if it turns out that Arthur's known for a long time and elected to watch Merlin from afar instead of facing him.

- Gwen continues to be pointless. Again, the only thing that seems to have really changed about her is she's wearing a more low-cut dress than she was when she was a serving girl. I know some people got their hopes up last episode when she was acting all strong and calculating and so forth, but I can't honestly say I'm disappointed because I never had my hopes up in the first place.


The Good: 

- The fact that they addressed the changes/differences between Uther and Arthur's reigns at all. It's by no means enough. We need to see a lot more of this. We need to see more of Arthur addressing peasants' problems and so on and actually doing the day to day things that make him a good king.

- The slight hope that they are building towards revealing Merlin's magic to Arthur.

- Merlin vs. Uther confrontation. Merlin was awesome, and I loved the bit when he told Uther that even while he was a live there was magic at the heart of Camelot. WIN!


Overall, it wasn't the best episode, but I still see potential for them to right many of the wrongs of this series.

Hope you enjoyed this review. Let me know what you think.