How is 'Merlin' faring in America?
Published Wednesday, Aug 5 2009, 1:00am EDT | By Ben Rawson-Jones
Given its quintessentially British nature, Merlin always faced an uphill battle to make inroads into the cutthroat US market. Would appearances by the likes of Richard Wilson and Will Mellor serve up any postmodern thrills for non-Brits? I don't believe it, as Victor Meldrew (aka Gaius) might say. The recurring presence of Michelle Ryan as the wicked sorceress Nimueh might also put off viewers, given the star's part in the recent US megaflop remake of the Bionic Woman. (Mind you, perhaps this was counterbalanced by Anthony Head's involvement, given his cult status as Glies from Buffy). In addition, the series took several episodes to hit its stride on BBC One - a luxury often not afforded Stateside, with several shows unceremoniously yanked out of the schedules after only a couple of episodes.
The New York Times deemed that "although both Merlin audiences were relatively small, they were enough to propel NBC to second place on the night". Repeats of Million Dollar Password and Cold Case won the evening for CBS. It also didn't help that a family-orientated show like Merlin was shown between 8pm to 10pm when much of its target audience would be tucked up in bed, which perhaps explains why the double bill shed viewers during its second hour.
The following week, another Merlin double bill cast its spell on one million fewer viewers - a very worrying development. Yet since then, ratings have mostly remained above the 4.2 million mark, which is testament to the improving quality of the episodes during the season. The fact is, the show is still on air and in its original 8pm time slot, which is a feat in itself.
The Monsters And Critics website labelled Merlin as a "wonderful gift" from the BBC as "the quality of the casting, production and writing make it one of the summer's best series to enjoy". Adam Markovitz from the highly influential Entertainment Weekly delivered a rave review, saying that "there's enough sword-clanging action - not to mention homoerotic tension - to keep viewers happily entertained for a spell".
However, both Variety and The Washington Post clouded the waters with venom, much like Nimueh's fiendish scheme in the third episode of the season. The former publication felt that the "rather tepid" show would soon "disappear without much lamentation", while the latter surmised that it "takes the stuff of legend and imagination and makes it dry and commonplace. You look forward not to the next exciting chapter, but for the whole enterprise to go 'poof' and disappear".
The final word should go to The Hollywood Reporter's rather amusingly-named reviewer Randee Dawn, who wrote: "How this ever made it on to American primetime I'll never understand, but maybe that's just one of Merlin's magical mysteries. We should all be so enchanted."
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