The usual plot elements were given a stir this week. Not too much, you understand. This is Merlin we’re talking about after all. But at least, with Morgana in the frame as “magical person protector,” Uther was prevented from condemning any major character to death. Sadly for Arthurian legend lovers another nail was driven home into the coffin of original myth as Mordred morphed into a boy druid. Good grief.

Mordred, for those who aren’t familiar with the myth, is represented in much of the modern legend as the illegitimate son of Arthur by his half-sister Morgause (or, in some stories, Morgan le Fay) after a more-or-less accidental incestuous relationship.

That’s probably a bit on the strong side for a Saturday tea-time, but even so it’s a few hundred miles away from him being a simple Druid. He never had any magical powers either, originally. At least the writers hung on to the theme of Mordred as a traitor though, if only by implication.

I’m not sure what “End” this story was meant to be the “Beginning” of – unless it’s the end of Arthur, which must be many years in the future as he’s not even king yet – but as with previous weeks it tripped along nicely enough with its harmless chase sequences, Merlin’s anguish, an unintelligible message from the dragon, Gaius being kept in the dark and Uther even more so. As I said at the start, all the usual plot elements were there, the only question was: in what order would they play out?

Next week a large black knight, looking like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, arrives in Camelot determined to do some kind of mischief.