Merlin: Series 3 (2010)

The beautiful Merlin and Arthur have gone from my TV screen for another year. Sadness. This was another cracking series, building on the last one, but again not moving the over-arching plot along too much - still no one died, still Merlin is hiding his magic secret from Arthur. However, evil Morgana, who spent much of the series giving evil dastardley looks and only just stopping short of cackling an evil mwahahahaha, while pretending to be meek old king's ward. Really she was scheming with her sister Mongoose (or similar) to kill Uther or Arthur. Why they didn't simply stab them and have done with it I do not know, except it wouldn't help the narrative arc.

At least at the end of series 3 Uther saw Morgana for who she really was, and as a consequence he'll either mellow a bit or get even more pissed off with magic. I really hope there isn't a series reset button like at the beginning of the series when Morgana came back. Arthur's relationship with Gwen has moved on a bit, and it has been quite sweet really. Meanwhile, Merlin's only relationship is with Gaius - whether Merlin and Gaius or Merlin and Arthur, the pairings are wonderfully formed, with easy wit and sparky chemisty. The humour is one of the joys of the show. What more do you want from a Saturday night family-friendly drama - action, heroism, romance, magic and laughs. For these reasons I hope Merlin continues for a long time yet. It'll be interesting to see how the dynamics of the show may change next series, particularly now that Arthur has formed his male models knights of the round table.