Attractively packaged featuring the snowscape from the opening story, this is a three disc-set, with the third disc containing extras.

Audio commentaries:

Provided by the cast and crew, these are present on four episodes and vary wildly in tone. For ‘Arthur’s Bane (Parts One)’ Executive Producer Justin Murphy and director Justin Molotnikov give quite a technical take whereas Colin Morgan and Alexander Vlahos are more thoughtful on ‘Arthur’s Bane (Part Two)’.

The comedy double act of Angel Coulby and Rupert Young provide an entertaining, if rambling commentary on ‘The Death Song of Uther Pendragon’ and finally Executive Producer Johnny Capps and Colin Morgan make a detailed, informative and funny assessment of ‘The Disir’.

Deleted scenes:

From ‘Arthur’s Bane’, we see some comedy surrounding Arthur and Merlin’s alfresco sleeping arrangements and a little of Percival shirtless action, as well as a scene with Queen Gwen and Merlin challenging Arthur’s decision to go on to Ismere alone.

Scenes from ‘The Death Song of Uther Pendragon’ set up Arthur’s grief for Uther and see Percival raising a toast. More importantly are a series of scenes that reveal an edge to the Arthur/Gwen relationship, involving flowers and the start of the haunting.

From ‘Another’s Sorrow’, there is a nice Mordred scene where he requests to accompany Arthur on the mission to Nemeth and is denied, and from ‘The Disir’, a scene mentioned in the commentary where Merlin voices his concerns to Gaius about Mordred. Finally from ‘The Dark Tower’, Arthur laments Morgana’s evil and how she has changed.

Storyboards:

Some interesting storyboard sequences show the original plans for various scenes including Arthur’s death vision and Gwaine’s encounter with the Euchdag, which seems to be drawn very differently from how it was eventually presented.

Outtakes:

Two and a half minutes of amusing fluffs, silliness and corpsing.

Trailers and vouchers:

The extras disc also contains a couple of brief trailers, for Warwick Castle’s ‘Merlin: The Dragon Tower’ and for Merlin: The Game.

Released on DVD on Monday 26 November 2012 by Fremantle Home Entertainment.

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