This show actually managed to make me cheer for Morgana Le Fae and spend most of my time watching it waiting for Arthur to die.
It turns Arthurian legend into some twisted version of it where Uther Pendragon is a genocidal tyrant who only recently went on a bloody, genocidal purge of all wizards and druids in the Kingdom, up to and including slaughtering infants because they possessed magical talent.
It turns Arthur Pendragon from the wise and heroic King of legend into a spoiled, arrogant brat.
It turns Morgana le Fay from an evil witch to an unloved and neglected young lady whose only reason to dislike Arthur and Camelot is that her parents were killed in their genocidal purge, and the only reason she wasn't killed is that nobody knows she's a sorceress (then, in the later seasons, has her suddenly be malevolent out of nowhere, as the writers probably realized she was becoming far sympathetic than the "heroes")
It similarly turns Mordred into a sympathetic figure as well, who like Morgana is only opposed to the Pendragon dynasty and Camelot on very justifiable grounds.
In this version of Arthurian legend, all the troubles of Camelot owe themselves to a bloody, genocidal purge that Uther Pendragon began twenty years before when he mis-blamed a witch for killing his wife, because his wife died in childbirth.
It turns Merlin from a wise and sage advisor into a put-upon servant who spends his time mucking out stables and doing other menial labor all while secretly saving Arthur and Camelot repeatedly.
It invents a new character of Gaius as a mentor to Merlin, who was a wizard who betrayed his own kind to survive the purge, and now lives as Uther's court physician. This traitor who was complicit in genocide is supposed to be a sympathetic mentor.
The more I reflect on the show years later, the more I can think that the show really did nothing but make me wait for when Arthur would die and Camelot would fall and wonder why would Merlin repeatedly place himself in danger for a Kingdom that wasn't worth saving and a royal house that deserved to fall.
It turns Arthurian legend into some twisted version of it where Uther Pendragon is a genocidal tyrant who only recently went on a bloody, genocidal purge of all wizards and druids in the Kingdom, up to and including slaughtering infants because they possessed magical talent.
It turns Arthur Pendragon from the wise and heroic King of legend into a spoiled, arrogant brat.
It turns Morgana le Fay from an evil witch to an unloved and neglected young lady whose only reason to dislike Arthur and Camelot is that her parents were killed in their genocidal purge, and the only reason she wasn't killed is that nobody knows she's a sorceress (then, in the later seasons, has her suddenly be malevolent out of nowhere, as the writers probably realized she was becoming far sympathetic than the "heroes")
It similarly turns Mordred into a sympathetic figure as well, who like Morgana is only opposed to the Pendragon dynasty and Camelot on very justifiable grounds.
In this version of Arthurian legend, all the troubles of Camelot owe themselves to a bloody, genocidal purge that Uther Pendragon began twenty years before when he mis-blamed a witch for killing his wife, because his wife died in childbirth.
It turns Merlin from a wise and sage advisor into a put-upon servant who spends his time mucking out stables and doing other menial labor all while secretly saving Arthur and Camelot repeatedly.
It invents a new character of Gaius as a mentor to Merlin, who was a wizard who betrayed his own kind to survive the purge, and now lives as Uther's court physician. This traitor who was complicit in genocide is supposed to be a sympathetic mentor.
The more I reflect on the show years later, the more I can think that the show really did nothing but make me wait for when Arthur would die and Camelot would fall and wonder why would Merlin repeatedly place himself in danger for a Kingdom that wasn't worth saving and a royal house that deserved to fall.