The cast of Merlin forewarned us in the press room of Comic Con 2011 that the fourth season was going to be dark but they were remarkably steadfast at keeping secret how quickly we were going to lose not one but two of our major characters. After all, it was just July when we were learning that Uther would be mentally unbalanced this year, or as Anthony Head said to us, “The madness of King George. Who rules when the king can’t?”
And now in the space of the first three episodes, we have lost Lancelot to self-sacrifice and now Uther to treachery. Of course, Uther has to die in order for Arthur to become king, but I must admit that I expected for Arthur to rule more or less as regent for most of this season, having challenges and problems every episode.
“It’s fun playing a madman,” Head said, describing Uther’s scenes as “a lot of starin’ out the window… with the occasional coming back to reality, then off again.” When asked if he got tired enough of staring at the window to beg the writers for a line, he said, “Don’t be silly.” And since it was all over by the third episode in which he got to play a heart-rending death scene, it wasn’t really staring out the window for as long as he led us to believe.
It was obvious in the Comic Con press room that Head relished playing the mad Uther, even though he also reminded us that it was a painful turn of events for Uther and very sad. Head laughed and made faces at us as we tried to guess where Uther would be at the end of the season – still mad, dead or cured by magic?
It was always interesting to consider whether Merlin would use his magic to save Uther’s sanity, for, as Head reminded us, the few times that Merlin has been forced to intercede when Uther has been in trouble, it’s been for Arthur’s sake, not Uther’s. “There’s no love lost between Uther and Merlin,” he made clear.
So, as we speculated whether that cure would come through Merlin’s good magic or Morgana’s bad magic, none of us foresaw a scenario in which Merlin’s good magic would be subverted by Morgana to make it deadly magic. Head chuckled and teased at our guesses, telling us only that, “if Uther is to be believed, everybody who touches magic goes to the dark side.”
Uther and Arthur
What I particularly enjoyed in “The Wicked Day” episode, which aired Friday, January 20, 2012, were the touching scenes between Uther and Arthur. Last season, Uther had finally admitted how proud he was of his son and accepted the fact that Arthur had been disadvantaged by the fact he’d never told him so. Thus, it was nice to see Uther swordfight to save Arthur’s life and admit to his son’s face that he loved him.
“He’s undoubtedly showing more humanity,” Head agreed, “because, he’s much reduced, as it were. So the wall of Victorian parental closure is dissolving. It’s really nice, emotional stuff.”
This is especially true since we got to see Prince Arthur cry at the admission.
Possibility of More Uther?
In all series', there’s always the possibility of flashbacks. And while we didn’t really discuss that at Comic Con, I did mention to Anthony Head that I really would like to see some of the history of what went on between The Great Dragon (voiced by John Hurt) and Uther that lead to the Great Dragon being chained up and the obvious hatred between them.
He laughed and said that someone had asked him how he managed to tie the dragon up. “Got me there!” he grinned and tried futilely to pantomime how it could be done. “Big chain.”
He did go on to say it was an interesting question. “I was talking to someone earlier on… basically, they wanted to go back in time to the Great Purge and actually visit the Purge. The part of the Purge I find interesting is the Uther-Gaius relationship.”
Why? Because he likens it to the McCarthy witch trials and he feels that Gaius did something bad to save himself. “I like the fact that Gaius isn’t all clean.”
But, Head cautioned, “the problem going back to something like the Purge is it’s huge. So if they did revisit it, it would depend on how it really affects Merlin.” After all, he reminded us, this series is Merlin’s story, not Uther’s. Still, he acknowledges it’s an interesting place to go.
Uther as a Sympathetic Character?
Does Head see Uther as a sympathetic character?
“I do, yes,” Head said. “I’ve seen him as someone who’s basically doing the best he can with a very limited tool box. It’s the Dark Ages and there weren’t that many kings around. They made really drastic decisions. He took the land. He didn’t inherit it. He’s a warrior and he hasn’t made a bad job of it. He just did a little bit of ethnic cleansing. Wiped out a third of the population. Occasionally resorted to chopping someone’s head off and quite a lot of burning at the stake -- that seems to be the method of choice.”
Head said he was very glad he didn’t play Uther in the series Camelot because Uther died in the first episode. “Not a lot was known about Uther. It’s believed that he caroused a lot, liked drinking and womanizing. In the Arthurian legend, ah, it couldn’t wait to get off Uther and onto Arthur. So I’m really grateful to something like Merlin that’s fleshed out—made him—just given him substance. And like a Victorian father, the child doesn’t want to make the same mistakes. And that’s what made it fun to play. So far, we’ve had a very interesting theme.”
Screening Merlin at the British Film Institute
Anthony Head also indicated that it was a great honor to see the first two episodes combined like a movie and screened at the British Film Institute. He described it as so cool and mind-blowing.
“This season—I don’t think anybody said -- we’ve moved to 35 mil, which probably doesn’t mean a lot to Americans, because a lot of stuff in the past in America has been shot in 35 mil. But on Buffy we moved from 16 mil to 35 mil in the second or third season. In English TV, when everything is moving to digital and to video, and a lot of American stuff is moving digital, to HD, to me, it’s really powerful when we go to 35 mil. 35 mil is the most beautiful medium and it’s just got richness and depth, you just can’t get with HD. And so for me, it’s the way to go. It may be a retrograde step for the counters but man, it’s good. It’s looking more filmic and more beautiful.”
He gives a lot of credit to DP (director of photography) Dale McCready for the lighting, depth and design.
For him, it’s like the show has gone up a notch. “For me, it’s nice that something gets to progress, when you can visually see something grow, advance, gain ground. So often these days the pen pushers and the counters, they say, ‘Can you make the same thing for less?’ It’s inevitable. They all say, ‘Oh great, that was fantastic. All right, can you make it for, you know, a few grand less?’”
And if that isn’t enough for him to be proud of, he has one more thing. “We now have one of the biggest green screen sets I’ve seen in British TV.”
Check out Merlin on Fridays on Syfy at 10pm ET/PT
Crystal Taylor - I'm a writer of TV one-hour scripts, screenplays, novels, short stories, articles, and poetry. I'm most proud of a story (episode outline) ...
