I know that this has been brought up before but so as to do no necro-posting....

Has anyone else watched the first episode? In my opinion better than I expected. Better than the Merlin series, even if I can't say that I'm going to be a big fan of the main actors. Except James Purefoy and probably Daragh O'Malley when he shows up. Yes there was nudity and there were a few sex scenes, which I guess are a requirement to make it on Starz but I will reserve judgment on that until I see if it reaches the point of being softcore porn....

What do you think?

I have watched it. Thought it was better than Merlin! I liked the fact that Arthur was more of a womaniser, though I worry it'll help make the series more of a soap opera. But you never know.

I've seen the first three episode and have to say I've not liked them. I will persevere though. I've found some of the acting wooden. Some of the detail is off as well, metal shields anyone? I'm sure there were some other things that bothered me but I can't recall them just now.

I've watched almost all of Merlin & the first four episodes of Camelot and enjoyed them both. Camelot *is* a strange beast though, almost as if the writers had an idea for a story and then set it against an Arthurian backdrop, I'm not seeing much *legend* here. For the most part I like it - I'm now sold on Fiennes' Merlin despite being unsure at first - but the issue I have so far is fairly major; the inversion of the Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere betrayal, assuming of course that Leontes is meant to be Lancelot (why the need for the name change?). While the writers may have felt this was necessary to set their tale apart I think this change very much weakens the story. In the last episode (ep4) I saw Arthur display all of the things I would more expect from Mordred. This is not the type of king that I could genuinely see men loving and laying down their lives for. The original rendition makes for such great tragedy, this just makes Arthur unlikeable.

Of course, if this all changes in ep5 when/if the real Lancelot shows up then it's a doh moment from me ::)

Hey all,

Coming a bit late to this post, but I'd like to share my opinion.

I'm something of an amateur Arthurian scholar - I've read the entire medieval canon (translated into English) and have a life-long love affair with the Matter of Britain. That said, I tend to cringe when I see Arthuriana in the movies and on tv. I definitely understand the difficulty of translating old medieval yarns onto the big screen, and am sympathetic when it comes to directors' choices. "Excalibur" was the best I've seen, thus far, in terms of movies - despite Boorman's quirkiness.

Televised Arthuriana has been pretty bad, imho. There was a 1970s BBC version of King Arthur that was quite good and can't find now - it seems to be out of print.

I saw 20 minutes of BBC's "Merlin" and I wanted to chuck a brick through my tv. The actor who plays Merlin needs to eat a burger or something.

I'm surprised that Starz' "Camelot" actually has me interested. The production values are superb. The acting of Arthur, Merlin, and especially Morgan, are commendable. The rest not so much. Guenevere looks lost, and some of the other knights are too model-esque. One of the knights has a Justin Bieber haircut. There's some pretty bad soap-opera dialogue, too.

I'll watch it for now.

The one thing I really, really like - and probably why I'm still interested - is the depiction of magic. Really interesting!

D

My wife and I thought it was horrid. The best thing about it was Eva Green, who put in a very commanding performance given the scripts she had to work with. But other than that—horrible. I'd love to see someone treat this material with the seriousness it deserved. The Tudors was a superb marriage of writing, performance and lavish production values. Too much gratuitous sex for my liking—I don't get why someone thought I needed to see Henry jerking off—but it was pretty spectacular overall, if at times a bit dodgy with the history. Would love to see someone deliver The Once and Future King like that, or Mallory. You could have several seasons of good material and you wouldn't have to change it all around or dumb it down too much. The dialog in The Tudors was really well done—not period authentic, but a little challenging and very smart. They made it four seasons. Probably 'cause of the gratuitous sex...

T.