Review: Merlin 3.3: Goblin's Gold

Distinguished Actor and Comedian, Richard Wilson.

"Merlin! What have you done?" - The Continuity Announcer for BBC1

When I saw the trailer for this episode, laden with ridiculous, childish humour, I was horrified. So early in the series, and Merlin was making a misstep that I fear could never be fixed. Then I watched the episode. It wasn't as bad as I feared, but it still didn't rise to the standards of Series Two. While it did stroke the mythology once in a while, the incursions were brief, and mostly the episode was mindless filler.
     Merlin goes to fetch a book for Gaius, and in the porcess finds a secret room. In the room, he accidentally releases a Goblin from its lead cage, which then goes about vandalising the castle and playing pranks. Yeah, because this series of Merlin is so much darker in tone. When Merlin and Gaius get round to trying to catch the Goblin, it possesses Gaius and makes him become a straight-talking, rude prankster who likes to lick gold coins. Among his escapades are:

• Making Uther bald
• Telling everyone about how Merlin is a wizard. (Unfortunately reversed by the end.)
• Making everyone in the throne room flatulate. (The real down point of this episode.)
• Burping loudly.
• Insulting knights and getting hideiously drunk.
• Exorcising money from the townspeople by selling fake potions.
• Scaring Morgana.
• Giving Arthur the ears and voice of a donkey.

Regardless, the status quo (or whatever seems to be reminiscient of that in Series Three) is restored by the end of the episode. While the episode wasn't the train wreck I imagined it to be, one still has to consider the sparse amount of influence it actually had on the overall plot. This felt more like a Series One episode - but it shouldn't. It really shouldn't, not at this stage.
     Series One of Merlin was battling, in spirit, with the other Doctor-Who filler Robin Hood. They both had medieval fantasy based off of a British myth, but Merlin was still finding its feet and thus Hood proved more popular. When the already shoddy Robin Hood declined in its third series (as we witness here) Merlin's second series became high-quality entertainment. And now it seems to have snapped back to the first series again. Why? It can't be budget, because it's got the highest budget the show has ever had.
     Merlin needs to pull its socks up if it's going to get anywhere with the already stunted mythological side of things. Next weeks' episode looks like even more filler.

Thanks.