In a kingdom where magic is forbidden and anyone who practices it is put to death, two strangers arrive wearing sparkly cloaks and carrying strange staffs with blue crystals on top held in intricate wood carvings. So what does the king – he of ultimate power and the one who most loathes magic – do with these unknown people? He welcomes them with open arms and gives them the run of the castle of course! Because this is Merlin, where no-one learns anything from week to week and they all keep on making the same mistakes.

Uther doesn’t even wake up when his son becomes besotted with Sophia (who has a rather unfortunate habit of pronouncing her name “Sphere”) and demands to marry her after only two days’ acquaintance.

Luckily Merlin is on the ball, and when he can manage to spend some time out of the stocks, he saves the day. Again.

My usual gripes apart, this story worked pretty well, except for wanting this pathetic drip of an Arthur to die so that Merlin can go on a quest to find the real Arthur, who somebody has clearly kidnapped and is hiding away somewhere, along with the real Uther. It worked because of some excellent CGI in the shape of the Sidhe, and some even more excellent character acting by Kenneth Cranham, who was totally believable as the nasty Aulfric. If the Doctor Who casting team is reading this – he would make an excellent Master.

There was a small change to the normal running order too. Merlin didn’t need to lock himself in a room and spend hours practising his Celtic pronunciation before he could defeat the baddies. He already knew how to handle a staff (which presumably he’s now kept, since he blasted its previous owner into rather wet, shredded pieces).

Merlin walks a tightrope every week. A thin line between being too juvenile and formulaic to bother with, and providing some harmless, effortless entertainment for a Saturday night. It almost hits the category “so bad it’s good,” but true to form it can’t even be quite bad enough to qualify for that. In a night that’s always been suited to TV pap, it’s the pappiest pap you’ve ever seen, but for some reason I still keep coming back for more.