Speaking after a screening of Merlin’s fifth series premiere, attended by CultBox, the show’s co-creators and executive producers admitted making “hundreds of mistakes” on earlier episodes.

“If we look back at the first and second series,” observed Julian Murphy, “we’re pretty horrified at the way we executed it, genuinely. Because we can do those things so much better now. The look and feel of the show is richer and more detailed, and that has a real effect on how you experience it as a viewer, and I think we’re quite proud of that shift.

“I think in terms of character,” he continued, “we’ve gone from telling relatively simplistic stories-of-the-week to a little bit richer, a little bit more psychology, a little bit more depth. If you look at a good Hollywood PG family film, you get all of that, and there’s no reason why television can’t do that.”

“I think we are our own worst critics,” added Johnny Capps, “but I think that’s good, and I think the stock-take that we do at the end of every season has helped the series. We’ve always wanted to push the show, and not let it rest on its laurels, but keep pushing it forward. And I think what’s interesting as well is our technology has changed – the way we shoot John Hurt now, being the dragon, [compared] to how we did it four years ago is completely different; keeping up to speed with the technology helps the show as well. And I think we’ve learned a lot about how to shoot CGI and action, and each year you just get better at it, so you do kind of look back and think ‘Oh, we could do that a lot better now…’. But I think that’s healthy.”

How do you feel about the early Merlin episodes in light of what the show’s done since? Let us know below…

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Watch the Series 5 trailer…