Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Not your parents’ Camelot
The cable channel Encore did a bright thing: they followed the season ender of their blockbuster Spartacus (all sex and violence all the time, with very little plot to clutter our heads!) with the first episode of Camelot, the latest reworking of Arthurian legend.
We decided to give it a chance, especially when Eva Green showed up right from the get-go.
She plays Morgan, Arthur’s half-sister, and in that riveting opening sequence she is the prodigal daughter come home to castle to show daddy (Uther Pendragon) that she has learned a thing or two at the nunnery. Soon daddy is dead at her hand, she’s installed in the castle and shagging daddy’s top nemesis, King Lot (James Purefoy, last seen — by me, anyway — as Rome’s Marc Antony). It’s a good shagging.
Then Arthur shows up looking like, I don’t know, the newest teen heartthrob grabbed at random from Teen Heartthrob Camp, redeemed only by his association with a blonde with an awesome body, but she soon disappears and we’re left with the simpering Arthur. Who we’re supposed to believe is born to be king, has king written all over him, is already dreaming of the Lady in the Lake, yatta yatta yatta, and we’re already wishing for John Cleese et al. to deliver us, but it’s not to be. Thankfully, Eva Green keeps showing up at regular intervals.
Joseph Fiennes (Elizabeth, Shakespeare in Love) plays a credible Merlin, who somehow uses his Merlinosity to convince Arthur to follow his lead back to an ivy-infested Camelot. And that’s when things really go to hell, because an agent of Merlin’s has announced Arthur’s heirdom to Morgan and King Lot, who promptly arrive in force at Camelot (as invited) and proceed to not kill Arthur and Merlin and their paltry forces.
That’s when Karen and I start yelling at the TV, because it really really sucks when the only watchable character in the show proves NOT to be as smart as you had hoped she would be. And now everyone is dumb, everyone who isn’t Merlin, and Merlin mostly just thinks he’s brilliant, when really he’s reduxing Wes Studi’s character The Sphinx from Mystery Men.
And I must say, Wes Studi does a much better job of it.
Will we watch more of this shlock? I’m guessing yes.
D.
Will we watch more of this shlock? I’m guessing yes.
Sometimes yelling at the TV because of the stupidity of the screenwriters is more fun than anything. Particularly if there are regular shots of Eva Green.