Camelot, Series Finale, Channel 4

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This wasn't only the series finale, but the last ever episode of Camelot, since the American Starz network has decided to scrap plans for further seasons. It's not hard to see why. After a fairly promising start, Camelot spent several instalments staggering around aimlessly, as if writers and directors had been beheaded by King Arthur's Excalibur. Annoyingly, this tenth and final episode offered belated flashes of what the show might have been.

At last, Arthur himself, played by the aggravatingly petulant Jamie Campbell Bower, began to - if you will - grow a pair. His ridiculous but heroic single-handed defence of Bardon Pass while his bruised band of Camelot warriors made their escape suddenly brought out unsuspected reserves of ingenuity and brutality in the Once and Future King. Displaying a stamina hitherto believed unique to the Energizer Bunny, a muddied and bloodied Arthur spent the night tirelessly digging pits and rigging up booby traps bristling with pointed sticks, pausing only to slaughter the lone spies sent over by the enemy.

He even resorted to coercive interrogation techniques, slicing open the cheek of a grovelling captive (after his foot had been impaled on a spike) and then threatening to take his eye out if he didn't talk. Throwing away the Geneva Convention produced spectacular results, as he learned that his diabolical sister, Morgan, had been plotting his death.

Eva_crowned_SMALL With Morgan (the increasingly mad Eva Green) installed at Camelot and on the point of crowning herself queen in his stead (pictured right), Arthur made it back to base in the nick of time. It had been a long night and he was in a foul temper, even though the death of the faithful Leontes (pictured below) had left the way clear for the king to get his paws back on his widow, Guinevere (the Bambi-blonde Tamsin Egerton). Thus we bade an untearful farewell to the sinister nun Sybil (Sinead Cusack), who was brusquely beheaded by Gawain (Clive Standen) after she took the fall for most of Morgan's sins. However, Arthur, although very cross, lapsed into fatal wet-liberal backsliding when he let Morgan off with merely being disowned and stripped of the Pendragon name. And this even though she'd callously murdered his mother, the duck-faced Igraine (Claire Forlani), for Chrissakes.

Leontes_bier_SMALL I suspect that the underlying strategic error in the production was to have begun with what is now fashionably known as the "origin story". Everybody thinks they have a rough idea about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - gallant knights riding out from Camelot to slay dragons and giants and rescue damsels in distress, with a few extracts from the quest for the Holy Grail on the side - so viewers were probably bewildered to find themselves confronted with a bunch of crude rustics with unfamiliar names. As for Camelot, it looked like a bunch of derelict farm buildings without ceilings or floors, let alone a Round Table. Far better to have begun the saga further down the line, when Arthur's court was in its pomp and packed with gallant household names, and saved all that back-story business for series three.

merlin_SMALL You also have to wonder if there was some sort of collective nervous breakdown in the screenwriting department. After Camelot had kicked off with a blast of lust, slaughter and black magic, including Morgan getting lewd with James Purefoy's villainous King Lot, it was as if somebody in a senior position said, "Hey, we don't want another Spartacus, thanks," whereupon everyone panicked and replaced all the sex and violence with a series of Dark Ages tourist board commercials.

And whatever happened to Merlin (Joseph Fiennes, pictured above)? As the series progressed, his mystical powers shrivelled away to nothing, taking his entire dramatic purpose with them. He didn't even get to pull out the magical stops to save his beloved Igraine as she lay dying, since she nobly talked him out of it and told him to go and look after Arthur instead. We wanted swords and sorcery and we didn't get enough of either, although Morgan's last-gasp shapeshifting ploy to impregnate herself with Arthur's child had hugely disruptive potential. Unfortunately she was wasting her time.

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Comments

Such a pity the initially complex character of Merlin was neglected. A powerful, brooding performance by Joseph Fiennes sadly neglected - it would be good to see more of him!

typical everyone wants instant results; does no one have the time anymore to allow a plot and character to develop......such impatience. It always takes the first series to settle down before the 'real' story grows.

I think the point is being missed here. The idea of Arthur defeating his opponents single handed is nothing to do with Home Alone, I would say it is alluding to the supposed historical account of the battle of Badon by Gildas who claims "In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his[Arthur’s] hand alone”. I think the real problem with this series is the difficulty we have sympathizing with the main character, especially at the end of the final episode. Arthur at the beginning is too immature to realise his honour and obligations as a king should take priority over his hormones, but I can accept portraying him like that at the start and seeing his character develop and mature. But just as we think he’s starting to grow up he blows any fledgling respect we might begin to have by sleeping with ‘Guinevere’ when Leontes is barely cold in his grave. Leontes is noble in a way we expect Arthur to be, but Arthur is just two-faced accepting Leontes forgiveness then betraying yet again the man who saved his life. I have problems with the way he is blind to the fact that ‘Guinevere’ (as he thinks she is) is behaving totally out of character by coming to his room at all. He ought to smell a rat, or send her away believing her to be vulnerable after losing Leontes and that they would both regret it in the morning. Instead he guiltily closes the door and selfishly takes his opportunity. Hardly “treasuring” her, as Leontes asked him to do! I also wonder why Morgan is allowed to still be on the loose to cause trouble in the first place, and why Merlin didn’t at least warn Arthur about her shape-shifting. I know Morgan has to conceive Mordred, but I think there could have been better ways of working this into the storyline.