We’ve now had two episodes of the BBC’s latest entry to the “Doctor Who” Saturday teatime slot: Merlin.

The show is basically Smallville meets Arthurian Legend. A young Merlin is sent to Camelot by his mother, who is finding it increasingly difficult to help him with his growing magical talents. So she sends him to stay with Gaius, who appears to have some knowledge in the ways of magic although not a magic-user himself. He quickly identifies that there’s something different about Merlin, who is able to use magic without the use of potions or spells, unlike all other magic-users. However, with King Uthar having banned all magic in the kingdom on pain of execution, Merlin has to balance keeping his powers discrete, while at the same time, embracing them.

To me, this show has proved much stronger so far than the other “Doctor Who” slot candidate, Robin Hood. There’s a confidence in this show in what its trying to be, and the cast all suit their roles well (while I’ve enjoyed episodes of Robin Hood, and its got some nice ideas, its never quite gelled for me, although I did quite enjoy season 2). The first two episodes were good fun, with some nice character building, with the first establishing Merlin and the setting in Camelot, while the second episode took the arrogant young Arthur from the first episode and showed the pressure he’s put under by his father as prince.

If I have any worries at this early stage, its that there could be a trap of falling into a predictible pattern, with some magic-related threat to the kingdom, Merlin discovers it, however is angsty about revealing the threat without being able to use his own powers.  Merlin manages to discretely foil the threat.   However, as I say, its only two episodes in, and I hope that with setting and characters established, we’ll see some more arc elements start to emerge.   We obviously know the outcomes for these characters, so it’ll be interesting to see if Morgana’s villainous future is hinted towards, and you have to wonder how often Merlin will be able to visit the Great Dragon before someone notices…

Its great teatime TV, and its definitely something I’m looking forward to every Saturday.  I’m very interested to see how the storyline develops.