Be warned. There are spoilers in this review.
This latest episode of Merlin is connected to the last one, because as we saw at the end of Episode 6, Morgana has managed to turn Gwen to her side. It's an unexpected move - I didn't think they'd do that to Gwen's character, and while this is an interesting idea with some potential it is ruined by the fact that we've seen the traitor in Camelot plot-line a hundred times.
The writers seem to be pushing the series in a "Darker" or "more mature" direction, but if you're trying to tell us that it's becoming mature then please show us that in your writing and plot-lines. The first couple of series/seasons may have been much more lighthearted, and we may have occasionally been treated to completely pointless fart-joke episodes, but at least back then we were getting new ideas, new situations, new meaningful stories.
The supposedly "mature" stories have much less impact because we've already seen the lighter version of it, or the funny version of it, and so on. To be honest, the only maturity I'm feeling is in Gwen's low-cut dresses (which I find ridiculous and don't appreciate) the writers have so far failed to provide anything new to match the new tone.
Also, somewhere on this show they lost the concept that things need to have explanations and motivations and reasoning. I was particularly disturbed by the lack of believability in the Merlin being thrown in jail parts. First of all, how did no one question Merlin's guilt. Why did no one recognize that Merlin would never do such a thing? One of the knights should have spoken up or at least shown their displeasure when Merlin was thrown in jail. Even if they believed it, I wanted to see some kind of reaction! We were not allowed to see any of the knights' thoughts on this.
Second, I wasn't really sure why Merlin needed the old man disguise to escape from prison. I mean, it was funny, I like seeing old-Merlin, but I don't see why it was necessary. There are other, easier ways of getting past the guards.
Another problem I have with that whole part of the story is that - again - no reaction, reasoning, relief or ANYTHING was shown at Arthur's decision to just take Merlin out of jail. Any kind of reaction from the knights or even from Gwen would have been nice.
Also, in past seasons Merlin used to actually think about and prepare and practice before trying new, powerful/tough spells. Now... he just hung out in his cell for hours doing nothing until Gaius sent him the potion and then he randomly said impressive sounding words which luckily worked. It doesn't seem believable. I do have to say that Colin Morgan's acting when he thought it hadn't worked was excellent, but they didn't give it enough time to have an impact before revealing that it actually had worked.
Finally, I just want to say that this episode was boring. We've seen Arthur passed out/almost dead about a million times by now, we've seen the traitor thing a million times, we've seen Merlin's old man disguise before, we've seen Gaius do nothing before, and so on.
I almost wish that Arthur had actually died, or been perceived to be dead so we could have seen Gwen's takeover.
The most interesting scene this episode was, for me, the conversation between Leon and Gwen. Probably because Leon doing anything important/of his own volition is kind of new. Colin Morgan's acting was also awesome, but the writers, producers, and directors on this show really need to know by now that Colin Morgan's awesome acting can only keep audiences interested for so long before they get completely turned off by the lack of good storytelling.
At this point, I feel like the show might as well just end because it's not going anywhere. I feel sad saying this, but it really is stagnating. I wish the fans could be allowed to write an episode or two. Then we'd finally get the reveal and actual characterization and powerful magic and so on...
*sigh*
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