EmpireOnline's article on Merlin at Big Screen
EmpireOnline has an article on the Sherlock and Merlin panels at the Empire Big Screen event last Friday. The parts on Merlin can be found below, with slight S4 spoilers and a possible spoiler about the planned future of the show.
By Phil de Semlyen | empireonline.com, original article here
Next up: Arthurian England’s own Derren Brown, Merlin. Fans of all things wizardy and fire-breathing would have been stirring their metaphorical cauldrons in delight at the sight of footage from the forthcoming fourth season (airing on weekend spots before Christmas, fact fans). Then Merlin creators Johnny Capps and Julian Jones, as well as Prince Arthur himself, Bradley James, took to the stage to answer questions devilish enough to have Beowulf howling at the moon.
First things first: would the show be taking a leaf out of Harry Potter’s book of spells and heading in a darker direction? Yay, and indeed, verily. “Season four looks at the mythology, so in that sense it gets darker,’ explained Capps, “but there’s still comic moments in there.” So giant wooden rabbits and tap-dancing Knights of the Round Table are out then? “Well, the stand-out comedy episodes we’ve had before won’t be there.” Sure enough, the crunchingly visceral trailer for season four was a world of John-Boorman-Excalibur bleakness as well as all the swordsmanship, swashbuckling and hag-faced witches we’ve come to know and love in the series.
“Everyone’s very aware of the familiar King Arthur legend so that part of my research was already done,” James joked. “Without being presumptious [sic] enough to think that this would run and run, I knew Arthur’s journey was to go from this idiot at the beginning to the heroic figure he becomes at the end of the show.”
So, wondered Big Screen’s moderator, why ‘Merlin’ and not, say, ‘Arthur’? “Merlin the magician was something that no-one had explored for a long time,” Jones explained. “At the time [of creating Merlin] we were all obsessed with Smallville so we started to explore the idea of a ‘young Merlin’. Then we thought, “Why not bring in Arthur? Why not bring in Guinevere?”
The creators came back time and again to the show’s “five-year plan”, a rare luxury in TV writing that’s enabled them to construct longer-reaching arcs and plot threads. “There’s a very specific idea of how season five ends and how to move onto season six,” says Capps. “We’re looking to move deeper into the mythology. The great thing about it is that everybody has a Merlin - there’s a very famous Croatian Merlin - and we’ve read everything!” Auntie Beeb likes to keep its scheduling info under its bonnet, but look out for Merlin season four on a Saturday evening slot sometime before Christmas.
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By Phil de Semlyen | empireonline.com, original article here
Next up: Arthurian England’s own Derren Brown, Merlin. Fans of all things wizardy and fire-breathing would have been stirring their metaphorical cauldrons in delight at the sight of footage from the forthcoming fourth season (airing on weekend spots before Christmas, fact fans). Then Merlin creators Johnny Capps and Julian Jones, as well as Prince Arthur himself, Bradley James, took to the stage to answer questions devilish enough to have Beowulf howling at the moon.
First things first: would the show be taking a leaf out of Harry Potter’s book of spells and heading in a darker direction? Yay, and indeed, verily. “Season four looks at the mythology, so in that sense it gets darker,’ explained Capps, “but there’s still comic moments in there.” So giant wooden rabbits and tap-dancing Knights of the Round Table are out then? “Well, the stand-out comedy episodes we’ve had before won’t be there.” Sure enough, the crunchingly visceral trailer for season four was a world of John-Boorman-Excalibur bleakness as well as all the swordsmanship, swashbuckling and hag-faced witches we’ve come to know and love in the series.
“Everyone’s very aware of the familiar King Arthur legend so that part of my research was already done,” James joked. “Without being presumptious [sic] enough to think that this would run and run, I knew Arthur’s journey was to go from this idiot at the beginning to the heroic figure he becomes at the end of the show.”
So, wondered Big Screen’s moderator, why ‘Merlin’ and not, say, ‘Arthur’? “Merlin the magician was something that no-one had explored for a long time,” Jones explained. “At the time [of creating Merlin] we were all obsessed with Smallville so we started to explore the idea of a ‘young Merlin’. Then we thought, “Why not bring in Arthur? Why not bring in Guinevere?”
The creators came back time and again to the show’s “five-year plan”, a rare luxury in TV writing that’s enabled them to construct longer-reaching arcs and plot threads. “There’s a very specific idea of how season five ends and how to move onto season six,” says Capps. “We’re looking to move deeper into the mythology. The great thing about it is that everybody has a Merlin - there’s a very famous Croatian Merlin - and we’ve read everything!” Auntie Beeb likes to keep its scheduling info under its bonnet, but look out for Merlin season four on a Saturday evening slot sometime before Christmas.
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