The press release, issued yesterday but embargoed till now, reads as follows…

Hit family fantasy drama Merlin, produced by Shine Television, has been recommissioned for a third series for BBC One.

The announcement comes as the second series of the Saturday evening show continues to enthral audiences, pulling in a peak of over 6 million viewers and a 31% share.

Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning, says: “With its mix of magic, adventure and humour Merlin is perfect Saturday evening family television, and we are thrilled that Shine Television will be creating a new series for BBC One. I’m looking forward to seeing what adventures our popular young wizard, and his friends in Camelot, will go on in series three.”

Johnny Capps, Executive Producer, Shine Television, says: “Merlin is ready to burst back onto BBC One with more action, romance and, of course, magic to delight fans of all ages. After the thrilling finale of the current series audiences will be left wondering what happens next – and with so many of Merlin and Arthur’s adventures yet to unfold, we can’t wait to continue the story.”

Merlin stars Colin Morgan as Merlin, Bradley James as Prince Arthur, Anthony Head as King Uther, Katie McGrath as Morgana, Angel Coulby as Gwen, Richard Wilson as Gaius, and John Hurt as the voice of the Great Dragon.

Series two has seen a host of high-profile guest-stars including Mackenzie Crook, Emilia Fox, Sarah Parish, Charles Dance and Adrian Lester, and continues on Saturday evenings on BBC One until the final episode on Saturday 19th December.

Merlin is executive produced by the award-winning Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy for Shine Television, with Bethan Jones executive producer for BBC.

The show has been recommissioned by Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning, and Jay Hunt, Controller BBC One.

The first series is a worldwide smash hit and has been sold to 52 broadcasters in over 180 countries; to date series two has been sold to more than 40 broadcasters in 165 countries, and counting.

Reinterpreting this kind of legend is a double-edged creative butter knife – stray too close to the established elemental expectations and you risk tediously regurgitating what’s gone before, stride too far away and the exercise becomes pointless; you might as well have made up your own thing. Like Hood, the Arthur myth is a fairly well trodden journey and emphasising Merlin as the main character has also been tried fairly successfully before, notably in the Hallmark mini-series with Sam Neill.

They cram-a-lot of action in

Portrait of the wizard as a young man

For me, the best Merlins have been tricksters, elemental forces in humanoid form who have strayed into Camelot or Middle Earth or wherever they’ve got their beards caught and get wrapped up in human affairs. I’m not sure there’s been anything as good as Nicole Williamson in John Boorman’s Excalibur in this regard, who managed to be deadpan and dotty as well as dark and demonic – though I’ve also a soft spot for the druid seen in the underrated King Arthur.

I often wonder if it’s possible to tie all of these different versions together by saying that it’s the same force or man, existing on his own plane and we’re simply seeing how it or his manifestation is bent to fit within each reality. I’m sure there’s a book to be written about that some day.

BBC1’s Merlin takes the Smallville approach of making the familiar characters much younger and showing their “adventures” before the time we’re more familiar with. In this iteration, Arthur and Merlin are of the same generation, though not social class, a prince and his manservant and – in an interesting twist – they hate each other, though that’ll change in the future (think Flash Thompson and Peter Parker in the early Spider-man comics). Arthur’s fated to be king anyway through succession, which should make for less amazement when he pulls Excalibur from the stone and declares himself master of the realm. And by that point, Merlin will be about the same age instead of the wizened old gent we’re used to.

Around them buzz the kind of Propps that Joseph Campbell crystalised – the mentor in the form of Richard Wilson’s Gauis (rather fulfilling the slot that Merlin had in Disney’s Sword in the Stone), a companion in the shape of Angel Coulby’s Gwen(iviere) and the unattainable princess Morgana (a glacial Katie McGrath). Anyone who knows their Camelot apples will have spotted an abundance of mythology ripe for the picking. Morgana’s already got her eye on Arthur – will they introduce the rather lovely stumbling branch that she’s his half sister or decide instead to emphasise the potential love triangle between Gwen, Merlin and Arthur… or will the writers simply chuck all of that out for something else?

The real innovation the BBC introduces, is that far from being an autonomous collective, this realm is governed by the usually much talked about but not seen Uther Pendragon who’s banned magic because as far he’s concerned it was used for the wrong ends 20-odd years before. That puts Merlin in the position of being naturally magical without the ability to be practical, not only keeping down the budget because he can’t just fly around or walk through walls without being seen, but also suggesting a future moment when someone he loves is in peril but he can’t risk wobbling his nose (or in this case make his eyes glow) for fear of being found out – see also Clark Kent watching Lois Lane fall from a building without a telephone box or alley in sight. That’s the season ending cliff hanger right there, you mark my words.

On the whole then, really good fun and well directed by Who veteran James Hawes. It’s not perfect – some of the performances have a bit of genre-itis (I’m in a chainmail so that must mean they want my best panto acting) – but Colin Morgan is a real find and brings some geeky charisma to Merlin. He stole many of his scenes – the magnesium chemistry with Coulby’s Gwen a particular pleasure – and the production design is very clever, managing to be both convincing medieval and yet modern at the same time, something which First Knight tried but failed. Plus any series that has John Hurt voicing a dragon can’t be all bad.

Writer Julian Jones’s haikuic revenge plot was good enough for the first episode and helped immeasurably by Torchwood‘s Eve Myles as a witch who sang like an angel. But if all Merlin does is spend the next 12 weeks defending his prince from magical men and women, it could become very repetitive. It just has to be careful not to fall into the trap of having our hero become too powerful so that his magic can simply save the day every week, this series’s equivalent of the kind of deus ex machina brought about whenever the Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver.

And I managed to get through all that without mentioning a certain other in voguish boy wizard…

Magic for Saturdays

Britain doesn’t have a particularly deep well of folk myths to draw from, so it’s not surprising TV screens have for so long been empty of even low-key attempts at tales of myths and legends.

The story of Arthur and his overblown feats involving recalcitrant swords, rowdy dragons and, to coin a phrase, strange women lying around in ponds is too hoary for revisiting. It’s also currently being milked to death in the West End. All the more reason, then, to welcome this adroit side-stepping of all that King of the Britons baggage and recast history from the point of view of his sorceror-in-chief, Merlin.

The BBC need to throw everything at this production, both to do it justice and to to match its own hype. On the basis of the first episode, the big guns/big budget approach has worked. This is really quite thrilling television, a country mile ahead of its stable-mate Robin Hood in terms of coherency, structure and acting.

It’s nicely-paced, dispenses with the boring scene-setting very quickly, and unfurls Merlin’s wizardry in wisely staggered moves. For once we’re given a Young Hero whose naivety isn’t embarrassing to watch and whose humanity (perversely, for a magician) is plausible. Colin Morgan, whenever he’s not pulling gawky faces and being given poor stage directions, is persuasive in the title role. The supporting cast – Richard Wilson, Anthony Head, Angel Coulby – all do the job as you’d expect. Inevitably, the leading member of the BBC Wales repertory company, Eve Myles, turns up, but she’s killed after two minutes (this isn’t giving anything away) so that’s fun.

There are a few weak points. The incidental music follows the pattern set by previous BBC Wales fantasy dramas (Doctor Who, Casanova) in turning one too many scenes from functional storytelling into a Tex Avery cartoon; there’s a lazy preponderance of women looking suggestively from high windows; and the dialogue falls down the same mantrap as Robin Hood in shuttling disconsolately between a Blackadder-esque vernacular (“Yeah, what?” “My fans are waiting!”) and an unconvincing grope at authenticity (“A hand to hold, a voice to guide…”).

In addition, Camelot perhaps looked a bit too stylised and well-scrubbed. Confining the action – exciting as it was – to a very limited number of interiors couldn’t help but focus attention on the upholstery at the expense of the acting.

Even so, watching the episode, there’s something about the Merlin legend that returns again and again to override any grievances you might have. Maybe it’s just that it’s never been properly told on television before, unlike the life and times of Merlin’s future employer. Depicting Arthur, at this point in his life, as thoroughly unlikable adds to the charm of proceedings. It’s always good to see a hallowed icon brought down to earth.

There’s much to enjoy here, and much potential. Hopefully the series will conjure up enough swagger and imagination to render its early flaws forgettable.

Merlin begins on BBC1, 7.30pm on Saturday