Summer Finales

I saw the finales of two summer series this week, and both of them disappointed me to a certain certain extent.



The first was Burn Notice (yes, I know this show ended a while ago, but I'm only now caught up). For those of you who haven't been keeping up, Michael got dropped by some super-secret spy organization because he said he wanted out. So then all his old spy frenemies started popping up out of the woodwork. That was kind of entertaining, but also dangerous; so Michael decided he wanted back in. Again. Fiona and Sam were both totally against this, and Fi declared she was going to move back to Ireland. Sadly, her moving alerted Harry Dresden to her wherabouts and he kidnapped her, thus forcing Michael to chose between saving Fi or re-enterting the intelligence community.

Now, I love the character of Fiona on this show. In fact, if the show was all about Fi, I'd be down with that. But I've never liked Fiona and Michael as a romantic couple. I think it's just the fact that Michael is never attracted to, involved, or even seen flirting with another woman--it just seems waaaayyyy too convenient. Like she's there and she's obviously attracted to him, so when he wants a little action he can just ring her up. And when he wants to get back into his spy thing, he just says adios and leaves. That's fine if it's part of the show; I just don't view it as a romantic subplot. And I want my romantic subplots, dammit!

Nevertheless, the writers have been forcing a Michael/Fiona romance down our throats for the entire season, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be until the finale, which had a totally lame wrap up. Fiona finally admits she's still in love with Michael (she's obviously a glutton for punishment), and blah blah blah, he saves the girl. But instead of admitting anything (feelings-wise), he just says, "We're not any good at this." Really?!?!? I hadn't noticed.

Let's face it, Fi and Michael's relationship has nooo future right now. They either need to break up and see other people, or get married. And think we all know the get married part isn't going to happen.



The second show was Merlin. I still love this show, but WTF was the deal with the season finale? Arthur acts like a prat (as usual), and gets bitten by a poisonous monster. Merlin finds out the only way to save his life is to go to a magical island and ask the sorcerers there for intervene. But Arthur's life comes with a price: someone else's life. Illogically, Merlin decides to trade Nimueh (yep, she's there too, and apparently she only owns one dress) his life for Arthur's. But Nimueh twicks him and takes Merlin's mother's life instead. Why I don't know. So Merlin decides to try to trade his life again, because it worked so well the first time (is this summary making any sense? I thought not). Fast forward fast forward, Gaius decides to trade his life for Merlin's mum's, Merlin puts the hurt on Nimueh, and Gaius comes back to life.

What the hell?

Okay, we still have the problem of who traded who's life for Arthur's and then Merlin's mom, so is she still going to die? I'm totally confused. And why did Gaius come back to life again?

Also, there was no denoumet, just Merlin screaming to heavens because old guy Gaius was dead; and then, poof! He's alive again and the show is over. Is this supposed to make me want to watch next season??? Not that I won't watch, mind you, but that's a pretty lame ending to the season.

What summer series have you been watching?

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Merlin

I've been watching Merlin lately, and I have to say it's my favorite show of the summer right now.  It's cheesy (as you can probably tell by the picture above), but it is so much fun!  Basically the show is all about Merlin as a teen.  He comes to Camelot to study medicine and immediately starts butting heads with Prince Arthur, who is a total wanker--although not without redeeming qualities.  Merlin has a natural gift for magic, which he doesn't dare reveal due to King Uther's (played by Anthony Head--squeeeeeee, Anthony Head!) hatred of all things magical.  Fortunately, the doctor guy he lives with (I don't remember his name, but it's probably Gaius or something) happens to have a bunch of books on magic that he lets Merlin borrow.

In the first episode, Merlin saves Arthur's life.  As a reward, Uther makes him Arthur's personal servant.  Hooray!  What a great reward.  Especially since the two boys hate each other.  Merlin also meets Guenevere, who is Princess Morgana's maid, and a dragon under the castle who makes cryptic remarks.  Now, every week Merlin has to save either Arthur or Camelot or both, while surreptitiously using his magic.  Ooooooh.



The costumes on the show are pretty low-budget.  But I love them anyway.  For example, look at Arthur's outfit in the picture above--what are those gloves??  I think I saw a pair of those in Kohl's the other day!  Actually, I think I own a pair of gloves just like that.



Another thing I love about this series are the female characters.  They all look like they just came out of a cheap knock-off of a Pre-Raphaelite painting--which is pretty freaking awesome.  Also, it might just be me, but it seems like the more "bad" a female character is, the more awesome she is.  For example, my favorite character in the series is Nimue.  She gets to wear the best clothes on the show, and she is a kick-ass evil sorceress.  Morgana is pretty tough, too, although not as evil ballsy cool as Nimue.  And Guenevere, well... she's not evil at all.  Let's just leave it at that.

Part of the fun of the show is that you already know the story, but you don't know how it's doing to work out here.  For example, snooty Arthur is going to wind up marrying lowly lady's maid, Guenevere?  Wow.  Aaaaand, on Sunday (7/5), Lancelot is going to show up.  Hooray, Lancelot!!! <3333  Rawr. ;)  So stay tuned for that.

If you want to catch up on Merlin, you can watch all the episodes online. 

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