Just when things were going so well, along comes an episode that took us so far out of our suspension of disbelief that we were laughing out loud throughout. Which was a shame, as we were supposed to be feeling sad for the poor, dead unicorn.

OK, I can take, just about, the crops all dying overnight. That’s perhaps just a bit of dramatic licence combined with a soupcon of magic. But why would that cause the storerooms of Camelot to become empty instantaneously? Like, the next day? Now we need a dramatic licence as big as a house.

And I know it looked good, but since when have you been able to pump sand?

So anyway, this curse business. Arthur killed the unicorn and brought it on the people, and only Arthur could lift it by being pure of heart. The mercy he showed the young thief in the grain store temporarily restored the water supply, but he just can’t help losing his temper, and a later altercation with the same thief resulted not only in the shutting off of the water again, but also the instant rotting of all the remaining grain stores. (That means that small pile under the hopper.)

Good old Uther, who can always be counted on to do exactly the wrong thing in a crisis, ordered the immediate cessation of grain supplies to all of his people. “One day you will understand what it means to be King,” he told Arthur. Well that’s an advantage Arthur will have over you then Uther. You should take a leaf from Merlin’s book. His recipe book. A Hundred and One Ways to Cook Rat.

That final test was all a bit Krypton Factor, lateral thinking and drama by numbers for me. In fact the whole episode returned to the bland predictability of earlier weeks, which was a bit of a let down when the last couple of weeks have been relatively good.

Merlin has two more weeks to run.