Apologies for being a little late with this review. The way Merlin jumps around the Saturday night schedule it’s taken me until now to track down the episode. So without further ado here we go with a story in which Julian Rhind-Tutt proves that it only takes different lines in a script for him to be able to tell a different story using his enormous range of characters from A to B, and Uther proves that he’s an even worse judge of character than we had previously suspected.

The mysterious Edwin sticks an enchanted beetle in Morgana’s ear and effects a brilliant cure when Gaius proves incapable of a correct diagnosis.

On this flimsy pretext, Uther abandons twenty-five years of friendship, loyal service, dedication and countless cures, and installs Edwin as court physician, throwing Gaius out into the cold night without a pension. Another kingly decision well made. Gaius knows who Edwin is – one of the casualties of Uther’s old crusade against sorcerers – but his lips are sealed owing to the inconvenient fact of Edwin’s knowledge of Merlin’s closet sorcery.

With Gaius out of the way and having the run of the castle, Edwin prepares a paralysing draught for Uther and makes him a present of another brain-eating beetle, thus avenging his parents’ unfortunate deaths.

Naturally Merlin learns the right bit of magic in the nick of time, saves the king and gets absolutely no credit, and Uther backtracks on his previous decision with absolutely no loss of face because he’s the king.

Now here’s your chance to write next week’s review for yourselves. Watch the preview clip on the BBC’s Merlin pages to give you an idea who the new villain will be and what their abilities are, and then imagine a story where the baddies try to do something awfully naughty, Merlin (probably, but possibly Gaius) tries to stop them but doesn’t quite manage it, thereby incurring the wrath of Uther. Uther makes a totally stupid decision – like banishing Merlin (again) or Gaius (again) or condemning one or them to death (again) – and then someone like Guinevere or Arthur gives Merlin the chance to redeem himself, save the day and make Uther realise he’s been a total prat (again).

Not that I’m saying this series is predictable, or anything.