Merlin related rant for ep. 4.03...spoilers if you haven't seen it.
I'm kind of rehashing what's already been posted at C_L and OAF, but I'm really just kind of furious about this. Now my comments will include spoilers for the ep, but anything else is speculation because I don't know spoilers beyond. The release of scenes that were possibly filmed and cut or simply written and cut just infuriates me. All these scenes included Gwen, A/G and most of them were very short scenes that easily could have been part of the ep. And I think it's not just a disservice to the fans of A/G to not include them. I think it's a disservice to the show's continuity.
I'm assuming that A/G are eventually going to get married. And it seems that Lancelot will be coming back too. So to come to those two crucial points there has to be continuity. The scenes that were cut included Gwen holding Arthur as his father was dying. It included sharing smiling looks as it's Arthur's birthday. It included even a crucial talk of magic that had mention of her father. And we got none of these? That's just insane. And a huge error in judgement. I have no idea who puts things on the editing floor, but whoever were the people who decided to cut, huge mistake. Half of those scenes should have been there and easily could have been without much time spent.
To take away these scenes everything that they might have set up to happen is lacking. The character development is weakened, for everyone. To me, you don't even have to be an A/G fan to be angry about this. The show has set up A/G for a lovestory and yet to take away the details of that relationship, it makes it hollow. I rarely get angry with this show, but I'm furious right now that they didn't see this.
And I'm a fan who loves A/M friendship scenes. I have no problem with them. Arthur Merlin friendship I think is awesome, but yeah, we could have had less of A/M silliness in the forest, especially the not so appealing 'pee' talk for me, to instead have strong charcter development for Gwen and Arthur. And I could also take less of Gaius and Merlin too, because just my opinion, those are never my favorite scenes.
But it all comes down to balance. I understand this is a show mostly about Merlin and then his friendship with Arthur. I get that. But if one of Arthur's vital relationships is with Gwen then you better include her, not cut her scenes, even non talking ones! It's crazy! What are they going to do when they get married? Because I assume they're going to? How are they going to show depth when they skipped scenes of her? If there's a triangle with Lancelot why should we care so much when her relationship with Arthur has so many holes in it?
When Bradley and Angel have short scenes together, because they rarely get long ones, they nail them. But if there's no character development there's always going to be an issue. I hope strongly whoever decided to do all this editing is listening. It's amazing to me they revealed this, all these cuts. Because there's a part of me that wishes I didn't even know. I'm that angry about it. But there's another part that says, oh you guys better wake up. Because you just revealed a huge issue with this past episode, and possibly others in the past or future. Wake up and think a lot more carefully before you start cutting scenes. Get some balance in how you do it.
I guess that's all I have to say on this. Would love to hear what you guys think. I'm just so angry about this right now. And really let down by this show for making such poor decisions.