TV is the New Reading

NBC’s “Merlin” somewhat less than magical

The cast of characters is familiar. Their roles are not. And magic has little to do with it.

Despite several reinterpretations, modern-age revivals, animated features and some serious liberties over the years (including randomly bursting into song), the latest, “Merlin,” NBC’s Sunday night serio-comic reimagination of life in Camelot, has some power still to surprise.

We meet Colin Morgan as the title character himself, for instance, as a teenager. He has extraordinary gifts of magic – outlawed in the realm – and is sent by his mother to apprentice with Gaius, Camelot’s apothecary, physician royal and scientist.

Merlin manages to save Gaius’ life and that of the teenaged bully and heir to the throne, Prince Arthur, through his use of magic. But he risks his own life in doing so because Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, played by the magnificent Tony Head (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), is sworn to execute those found guilty of using magic – although Uther himself keeps a dragon, voiced by John Hurt chained up in his dungeon.

Uther also keeps a ward at Camelot, the darkly beautiful Morgana, served by the rather plain but good-hearted serving girl Guinevere. And a sorceress, Nimueh, is at large in the land, whose magic threatens the lives of Camelot’s fair citizenry without, so far, much direction or apparent motivation.

Reimagination

I mentioned surprises and everyone’s relative youth and contemporaneity are not the extent. Everyone speaks using modern speech patterns, sometimes for comic effect, sometimes to be more relatable to present-day teens and sometimes because it seems like the writers didn’t know the proper word. Anyone tuning in to this program, for instance, would be perfectly comfortable with the word “grimoire,” so there’d be no reason to refer to it repeatedly as “the magic book.”

In the wake of the “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” phenomena, this show with its magical boy wizard with his flashing eyes and pretty young courtiers and its active lack of adherence to previous iterations of the Arthurian legends seems to be targeted toward modern unlettered teenagers and, the way it’s filmed, particularly teenagers of the girl variety.

That being said, I do recall a number of similar short-lived swords-and-sorcery series when I was growing up, so clearly there’s a persistent draw.

Liberties

I’m all about opportunities for multicultural casting and storytelling, but even in a post-Crusading England it’s hard to believe there’d be quite so many black people in Camelot, and as closely aligned with the court – even in one instance as a blacksmith.

It’s harder still to imagine the blacksmith’s daughter, Guinevere – Morgana’s servant and herself a black woman, however lovely – being presented as a fit consort for Prince Arthur.

And there’s the whole problem with Merlin being the same age as Arthur. I understand the desire to explore Merlin’s development as a character, wanting to delve into his teenage years, and how pointless it would be for Merlin to be much older or much younger than Arthur. But servant, friend, confidant and savior from his teenage years onward seems overwrought when there’s nothing especially compelling about Merlin’s doing all this development actually in Camelot in the first place. And honestly I’m a little uncomfortable with the storyline developing with Guinevere as Merlin’s love interest. This weekend features an episode titled “Lancelot,” however, so I guess we’ll see how things develop from there.

For his part, Arthur seems to be having some love-hate thing with Morgana, which I suspect could get a little dicey down the road – at least no one’s running about the castle claiming to be Mordred – as yet.

Haphazard

Like I said, there’s quite a few liberties being taken with this iteration of an otherwise familiar and much-beloved story. Indeed, a number of them do shake things up for old fuddy-duddies like myself who resist changes, and make a story that could come across as dull and stilted to modern young people much more accessible. I know I myself am much more drawn to the character of Uther Pendragon than I ever was elsewhere if for no better reason than I really enjoyed his work in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (I’m not too familiar with the rest of the cast, who otherwise seem to be tolerably capable actors).

But I’m not 100 percent convinced that exuberant multiculturalism and shifting everything around seemingly for the sake of shifting everything around – it all does seem a bit haphazard – is necessarily a good idea. I guess we’ll see how it plays out as the summer series continues.

“Merlin” airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on NBC.

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