Julian Murphy ('Merlin': Series 5) interview - Part 2 

wow disappointing! No arwen question... no really answer about the time jump... and honestly! was the lancelot question more necessary than any arwen one?! i can`t hear this "i want lancelot back! why did he die?" anymore

Not surprised that nothiing interesting was revealed. Getting tired of the, will Lancelot return questions, or lamenting his demise. Focus on those characters who are alive, and hope for meaty/character developing stories for them. Jeez the way some act it is as if Arthurian legend can not survive/should not exist without Lancelot. While I liked Lancelot, I feel that he has served his purpose and it is time to put him in the past where he now belongs.

Yaaaaaaaaawn re Lancelot. Can we get on with telling the actual Legends now?

Was I the only one that actually kind of found an answer in the non-answer about the time jump?

And I agree about Lance. He's dead. Let it go, peeps.

Yes. I think we got a flashback out of time jump. Did you see something else, Kim? I always love answers that are not answers. They say so much. Oh and my opinion on the Lancie-Boy Thing:

@WRMiller2 asks: Why was it necessary to eliminate Lancelot from the series? Did you consider recasting the role?

“We didn’t think of recasting, no. I’d still never say never about Lancelot, but he’s returned from the dead once, I think that’ll have to be it! He’s a great character and I think Santiago [Cabrera] played him brilliantly, but I think it’s best left there.”

EXCELLENT! Can we now get on with various interesting bits of lore and have some great story telling? Ya know that tiny little thing about building Albion…etc. etc. etc., Once and Futures and all that? Merlin’s rise to being the greatest Wisums? Gawain and the Green Knight…ya know the actual LEGENDS. They are awesomely interesting and filled with intrigue, adventure and romance. GET ON WITH IT!

Why oh why did I read the comments on that other site which linked to this interview? All the bemoaning over Lancelot. For Peeeeeeeeete's Sake! Get over it, please. I know what the problem is though. Gwen didn't cheat in reality, and there are people who are so upset they don't have that mud to sling in her face for the rest of her life. So they moan over the loss of Lancie and moan over the fact that the show did not properly do the betrayal. They wanted that betrayal so bad they could taste it.

Say, Kim, spill. What was the answer you found in the non-answer.
How do you figure that flashback, Stacey? I sure wish!

I'm being coy at the moment, waiting to see if anyone else has any theories. I did PM you, though.

Ugh. Never read the comments on these articles HQ! I agree, the reason certain segments of the fandom are screeching for Lancelot's return has nothing to with canonical authenticity and everything to do with ship wars and misogyny. I love Santiago Cabrera myself, and I'm sad that Lancelot's character suffered as he did (I woulda liked to see him find love with someone else and just stick around and be beautiful Santiago) but I'm so glad they eschewed the ridiculous triangle.

Kim: do tell!

Yes, Kim, do tell.

And even as a fan of Lancelot, I roll my eyes at the bemoaning over his lost. I don't really think that they're doing it out of love for the character but because they wanted something to justify their hatred of Gwen and didn't get it. Because after all, if Lancelot was around, they could always continue with their bullshit argument about how they hate Gwen because she was going to cheat on Arthur with Lancelot eventually. Ah well, sucks to be them.

Exactly, they could give a shit about the character of Lancelot. No, what they are pissed about is that that WOMAN once again got in the way of their precious little HEADCANON ship. Awwwww poor dears and HQ, seriously. Why do you bother reading that rubbish? No, seriously, why? You know the end result of doing so.

This kiss is for you, Stacey. I just finished spamming your inbox with some very detailed accounts of why I bother!!!! LOL Twisted me!

But seriously, though, sometimes I have to give it up for a season. If and when it really gets to me. But usually I get a kick out of it all.

Yep, we're all reading it right.

How breathtakingly arrogant to assume that all Lancelot fans wanted him to come between Arthur and Gwen and that this is the only reason they want him back again and are upset he has been killed off! I only got into the show because I heard that Santiago was going to be in it (I'd liked him in "Heroes") and have been hugely disappointed that he's only been in six episodes. I was always much more interested in his relationship with Merlin than any possible romance with Gwen!

Now it seems as if any possibility of his return as a knight and a friend of Merlin has been brought to an end and of course I and loads of other people are dissapointed - why shouldn't we be? As Arwen fans YOU would be crushed if Arthur or Gwen were written out, and I'm sure you'd expect Lancelot fans to be sympathetic and supportive towards you. So, just try standing in my shoes for five minutes please!

Okay, my thought on the time gap is that it will be at least nine months. That's all I'll say.

And please note my predictions are usually wrong.

LOLOL...

@Kim, lol, nine months, eh. I wish your prediction comes true.

@fjhart: I understand where you're coming from and I don't think any of us are saying this to be insensitive to Lancelot fans. Nor are we saying that every Lancelot fan just wanted him to come between Gwen and Arthur. There's more to his character than a plot device for Gwen and Arthur's relationship. You'll also find that there are many of us Arwen fans who did like the character for the very same reasons that you do.

But that being said, there's a reason for why we're fishy about the bemoaning of Lancelot's lost. I've seen many of the same online names (because many people in this fandom use the same monikers for tumblr, youtube and other places) of the people bemoaning Lancelot's lost, come up for Gwen hate using the reason that they thought Gwen was going to cheat on Arthur with Lancelot to justify their hate. These people didn't previously express any interest in Lancelot other than the possible role that he would play in betraying Arthur. So when I see them now crying over Lancelot's death, I do get suspicious of the real reason why they're upset.

@fjhart: I posted somewhere else about this, but I truly love Santiago Cabrera and I think Lancelot's character is both heroic and poignant. I understand why you might misconstrue us, but Gwen is a character who's always singled out for hatred, so we've become accustomed to the bullshit reasons fans tout for hating her/ wishing Arthur would dump her etc. And as someone else pointed out, foremost among those bullshit reasons is "she's going to cheat on Arthur". So I think, when we're critical of the bring Lancelot back comments, we're critical of those fans who use a supposed love of Lancelot to tarnish Gwen and her relationship w/ Arthur. These same fans, if you visit their blogs and Tumblrs, don't give a rats ass for Santiago/ Lancelot outside of using him to drive headcanon wedges between Arthur and Gwen.
I truly wish the writers had possessed enough dexterity to eschew the love triangle without Lancelot's death, there's so much potential in his story and Santiago is just brilliant. But alas, Merlin writers disappoint again.
Sorry for the super long response! I just wanted to make sure you knew that we aren't hating on Lancelot :)

@Bonne-Bell and @Tassja_G: thanks for explaining the background to the comments. I'm truly sorry to hear there has been hatred of Gwen, something of which I wasn't aware. I don't think Gwen is a particularly well-written character on the show, but that's the writers' fault and displaying hatred towards the character is well beyond reasonable.

I would suggest that people who use Lancelot as a stick with which to beat the Arthur/Gwen relationship are in no sense genuine Lancelot fans. I can only reiterate what I said before, which is basically that many (I would think most) Lancelot fans are genuinely upset and disappointed to see a beloved character written out of the show, but that it has, for many of us anyway, nothing to do with wanting him to come between Arthur and Gwen. I, too, wish the writers had avoided that aspect - there was, surely, plenty of scope to write further stories around Lancelot as a knight of Camelot and a much-needed friend to Merlin. I also find it upsetting that it is most unlikely that his good name, which was so badly tarnished in Ep 4.09, will ever be restored.

His name being tarnished, possibly forever, upsets me too. And thank you for understanding that we're not attacking Lancelot fans, we're just fed up with certain people in this fandom who use him as an excuse to hate Gwen.

Thanks for those good explanations, Bonnie and Natassja, and I too love Santiago as an actor and Lancelot as a character. Agree it's too bad how that was done, especially for his fans.

Looks like you just joined fjhart, so welcome. You'll find we're very protective of our couple and this goes along with it. The reason I said what I did earlier is because I remember when I first became a fan over a year ago, one of the first things I noticed on YouTube was whenever there was a nice Arwen scene there would be all these people talking about the fact that she was going to cheat and that talk continued up until episode 4x09. I saw it all over the place. It was AFTER 4x09 that I would see the complaints about the fact that they did not really do the betrayal and so many folks were irritated that he was taken out of the picture and all hope was lost for Gwen cheating. So it's about those fans I was speaking, but certainly there are people like you who I feel bad for. I know from tv dot com that there are some Uther fans who still haven't recovered from that either.

Well, anyway, thanks everybody. Just wanted to add my thoughts and explanation.

OK, I hear you Kim. I think what you said got lost in the shuffle, lol.

The real crime is if they fluff over the enchantment and never correct this for Guinevere or Lancelot for that matter. THAT is bullshit. Let us see how they handle it in S5.

My jaded brain is reading the word "handle" as "ignore."

And you all know I am very pro-enchantment reveal. I wonder if that will get addressed in part 3 of this interview (is there going to be a part 3?), because I KNOW more people than just me had to have asked about that particular detail.

Yes, you understand my brain well, Kim. That is EXACTLY what I mean by Handle/Address.

Well, thanks for taking the trouble to explain the background to all of this. It's such a shame when fans of the same programme are at loggerheads because they don't like a particular character and set out to cause trouble Just try and remember, please, we are not all like that.

My own feelings about "Merlin" are that I will probably give it a rest now and perhaps catch up with the rest of the series in a few years time when it has concluded and perhaps gain a fresh perspective on it. Right now, I really don't want to be watching it and constantly thinking "I'd been enjoying this a hell of a lot more if I thought I still had Lancelot to look forward to....." Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy Season 5.

^True. You are not all alike fjhart. Hoping for an innovative and interesting S5 too. There is so much genuinely fantastic Arthurian lore to explore. Let us hope they do a stellar job of it.

I just want to share this info I extracted from BBC Merlin Filming Locations site:
Filming dates for Pierrefonds:
Block Two: 14-27 June 2012
Block Three: 06-14 September 2012

Cheers !!!

Thank you, Reten. Always helpful.

Are they going to have tighter security this year? Don't know why I would think you would know, but hey, I'm nosy.

If security isn't tighter, Angel better keep her fingers flexed and poised for battle! Idjits are bound to come out of woodwork and try to screw things up for the rest of us. I want some OT3 shots!

I'm sure all will be well.