By Will Barber – Taylor

Morgana and Mordred gather a horde in the mountains and prepare for war. Merlin must fight to save both Camelot and himself.

The Diamond Day Part One is a pretty odd story. It has some of the best scenes the series has ever offered but also has terribly paced parts which really should have just been cut. The story amazingly does great justice to the original Arthurian myths, even keeping with parts of the story that aren’t that well known. The story shares similarities with the recent Batman film The Dark Knight Rises in which the villain, Bane breaks Batman’s back and takes him to a prison far from Gotham so that he cannot stop him from taking over Gotham. Similar tactics are used in this story when Morgana traps Merlin. After a slow beginning, The Diamond of The Day Part One picks up when Merlin rides to Crystal Cave with Gwaine. From that point of the plot slowly speeds up until, rather unexpectedly Arthur’s final battle begins in this episode. Even though the backdrop for the battle is a rather obvious quarry, this does not dampen the some excellent cinematography and very nicely choreographed fight scenes between Arthur’s Knights and Morgana’s Mercenaries.  With Arthur’s impending doom looming we also get a very nice cliff-hanger for the next episode in which Merlin transforms into his ultimate persona, that of the older Merlin, who has featured in several episodes already.

However, again we do not have any outstanding acting so I shall be instead talking about the excellent cinematography. The wonderful full screen shot of Arthur fighting his way through the mercenaries is very well done and even though it is in a form of slow motion, the action does look as though it is happening before our eyes. Another good piece of cinematography is the scene in which Morgana creates a new sword for Mordred using the breath of her pet dragon. The shot was so good that they used it in the trailer to promote the two part finale.

Amazingly, after several episode of being below form, Merlin has returned to the height of its powers. Hopefully The Diamond Day Part One and The Diamond Day Part Two will be the justly deserved last hurrah that the show needs.

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