I quite enjoyed that. The adverts suggested it could go either way, but I thought it was nicely made, and certainly full of potential.  

I used to have a decent collection of child-friendly Arthurian legends - second only to my Robin Hood shelf, I think - and I could recite them backwards. Merlin wasn’t usually in them, but the show has obviously built upon the basic Arthurian structure. I like the modernisation so far, with all the characters starting out young and away from their usual roles: Guinevere as a servant was particularly surprising. The setup certainly gives a few hints as to future plot developments, but I don’t think the characters are so culturally ingrained as Robin Hood, so the twists should be new to lots of people. I thought it was well-structured, too. Magic’s always a tricky plot element as it’s a bit all-problem-solving, but they balanced it well in this first episode - it’ll be interesting to see how they handle it in future.

Yeah, I’d have loved this when I was a kid.