Press Release
The magic is back! The popular series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan, Bradley James and Anthony Head, returns for a third season on Syfy beginning Friday, January 7, at 10PM (ET/PT), immediately following tag team partner WWE Friday Night SmackDown®.
The second season of Merlin, which concluded in June, averaged 1.72 million total viewers and a 1.3 HH rating, based on Live +7 DVR data. SYFY will be re-running the first season of Merlin starting December 13 and a marathon of Merlin Season 2 episodes during the day of January 7.
Season three sees the young wizard Merlin (Colin Morgan) in increasingly more dangerous and dark battles in his secret quest to protect Prince Arthur (Bradley James) in the fabled kingdom of Camelot where magic is forbidden by King Uther (Anthony Head). They rejoin Katie McGrath as the mesmerizing Morgana, who has a dark destiny of her own, Angel Coulby as her loyal maid Gwen, and Richard Wilson as wise Court physician Gaius. The new season sees our heroes pushed to their limits as the kingdom is thrown into turmoil by the return of Morgana from a year’s absence. As misbegotten secrets are exposed and old friends choose new sides, the battle for Camelot has truly begun.
A host of new guest stars joins the regular cast to enthrall audiences over the 13-episode run, including four actors from the Harry Potter films: Harry Melling (The Harry Potter Series) will play Merlin’s friend Gilli; Warwick Davis (The Chronicles of Narnia) assumes the role of bridgekeeper Grettir; Miriam Margoyles (Being Julia) will play Grunhilda; and Mark Williams (The Fast Show) is voice of a mischievous Goblin. Guest stars from the previous season such as Emilia Fox (The Pianist, Ballet Shoes) who plays Morgause, and Santiago Cabrera (Heroes, Che), who plays Lancelot, will also be returning for the new season.
Legendary actor John Hurt once again provides the Voice of the Great Dragon.
FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) holds the exclusive distribution, home entertainment and licensing rights to The Adventures of Merlin. FME has sold the series to over 52 broadcasters in more than 183 countries including Network Ten in Australia, MICO in Japan and RTL in Germany. FME has also secured licensing deals to produce numerous multi-territory Merlin branded products including a publishing range, figurines and an iphone application. FME has invested in the Merlin series alongside UK broadcaster BBC One. The show is produced and created by Shine TV. Series three is currently broadcast in the UK and on Monday 25th October 2010 it was announced that a fourth series had been commissioned by the BBC.
10 Comments
Anyone watching this? DVR worthy??
If you like fun fantasy, it’s definitely DVR worthy. It’s a different take on Merlin and Arthur myths, but it’s usually very entertaining and sometimes just plain funny. I think the cast is amazing and most episodes are just wonderful.
This is great news… it got much lower ratings in it’s second season (on this side of the pond) so I was worried that it would be dropped. It’s a neat take on the legends, so if you like Arthurian-esque shows then it’s worth catching up on if you can.
It’s kind of an Elseworld version of the Arthur legend though, because Merlin and Arthur are the same age, and Arthur lives with his father in Camelot instead of the whole sword in the stone origin. Also, Uther is, if not a villain outright, one of the driving forces of the narrative because he has outlawed all forms of magic. This means magically-inclined people like Merlin and Morgana have to hide their abilities.
Being a Brit I can safely say that the third series is the best yet, still too many filler episodes of questionable quality and a tad formulaic but they sink their teeth more into bringing more recognisable elements of Arthurian myth into the series and the budding character progression and development that has been hinted at but no more for the first two seasons actually happens at a not half bad pace.
The sooner they kill off Uther and let Arthur take the throne, the better. I love Anthony Head, but Uther is just a twat.
Thankfully “Merlin” has been picked up for a 4th season, so hopefully we’ll finally see Arthur reigning over Camelot.
I’m surprised he didn’t get offed in the S2 finale… That Dragon was one pissed off beastie. It also would have made for great drama if Merlin was responsible for the death of Arthur’s father. Anthony Head does a great job with Uther, but I agree… it’s time for him to die.
I’m interested to see how the Great Dragon will figure into the season now that he’s released and not all that fond of hanging around Camelot, unless he’s burning it down.
As a real Arthurphile, I love this as a different representation of the Arthurian legend.
While it suffers from beastie of the week syndrome on occasion, the development of relationships is genuine and often touching.
It’s just a shame you have to wait to watch the epic end of season 3.
I must recommend 3 books by Bernard Cornwell – The Warlord Trilogy which are the best interpretations of the legend ever committed to paper.
Thanks for the book suggestions!!
The 3rd series is great, just recently finished here in the UK and its much darker but still really funny at times.
I liked the show at first, and nothing really changed to make me like it less, I think it just turned into one of those shows that I like when it’s on but I never want to actually hit play on the DVR.