Merlin (TV series)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ability Over Appearance: Given the time-period and the fact that Guinevere means "white" or "fair one", there were some raised eyebrows over mixed-race Angel Coulby getting the part of the future queen. The producers said that they had looked at hundreds of potential Guineveres, but Angel Coulby was the only one that could nail the quirky, clumsy servant girl, but also "bring the queen" when the occasion called for it.
  • Acting for Two: Eve Myles in "The Dragon's Call" playing both Lady Helen and Mary Collins.
    • Also, Colin Morgan has portrayed a total of three different characters including standard Merlin, Dragoon/Emrys, and Dolma. How he manages to pull off making all three different characters with different quirks is amazing.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: When the production team offered the role of the Great Dragon to John Hurt, they didn't actually expect him to agree to be part of a small show with a cast of unknowns. His response to the offer, though, has been paraphrased as "hell, yeah, I want to be a dragon."
  • Billing Displacement: Angel Coulby is credited before Bradley James in the opening credits; a little strange considering Arthur is the show's Deuteragonist. Speculation is that Angel went first because she was the most established cast member at the inception of the show, or that the names are simply in alphabetic order after Colin Morgan.
    • In the episode "Another's Sorrow", James Fox is ranked before Janet Montgomery, even though Montgomery is in nearly every scene of the episode and Fox's role barely constitutes a cameo.
  • Casting Gag: Giles the ex-black sorcerer outlaws sorcery entirely.
    • Harry Melling (Gilli) is best known as playing a magic-fearing Muggle in the Harry Potter films.
  • Channel Hop: In the USA, the first season aired on NBC during the Summer of 2009. From the second series onwards, it was transferrred to the SyFy Channel where it faired much better than it did on Broadcast TV and it stayed there for the rest of it's run.
  • Deleted Role: Emilia Fox as Morgause was all set to return after her death (at the start of Series 4) in order to appear to Morgana in a vision and give her the coin that she later uses to resurrect Lancelot. The scene was cut and never released on DVD, though there are some promotional shots out there.
  • Fake Brit: Morgana is played by Irish actress Katie McGrath, and Merlin is played by Northern Irish actor Colin Morgan. Morgana, however, retains her Irish accent, possibly because Colin Morgan's natural Armagh accent is much more distinctively regional to British ears than Katie McGrath's softer and unfamiliar South Dublin lilt. Gwaine is also played by an Irish actor (Eoin Macken.)
  • Fan Nickname: Slash Dragon for the dragon and lately, "Smirkgana" for Morgana. King Giles for Uther.
  • Fan Nickname: The Slash Dragon.
    • Merlin and Gwen are often called the Camelot Detective Agency.
    • Agravaine was already being called Uncle Creeper after his first two appearances. Once he hit Scrappy status he became known as "Aggravating".
  • Follow the Leader: The show is essentially repurposing the premise of Smallville for the Arthurian mythos. Both shows feature the untold adventures of a well-established hero and his supporting cast when they were teenagers, with a mix of Teen Drama and Monster of the Week elements, designed to appeal to the same Target Audience and Periphery Demographic. The similarities have been acknowledged by the cast & crew in interviews. To whit:
    • The teenage hero is developing special powers hithertofore used only instinctively which he must master and hide for fear of discovery, surreptitiously saving people around him with them without them knowing. The hero is told of the great destiny that awaits him whether he likes it or not, and has to deal with conflicting messages from his peers and mentor figures about how to use his powers. Many of the canonical character relationships are also inverted at the beginning of the show. Both works feauture an socially awkward, reluctant but chronic hero who comes from humble origins that are actually fantastical (Merlin/Clark); a friend-destined-to-be-nemesis (Morgana/Lex Luthor); misdirected love interests (Gwen and Merlin/Chloe and Clark); lovers initially disinterested in their destined spouse (Arthur and Gwen/Clark and Lois); an ethnically-recast female lead (Gwen/Lana), a loving and sternly cautious father figure contrasting an ambiguously motivated supernatural mentor (Gaius and Jonathan Kent/The Dragon and Jor-El's recording); a Plucky Girl who won't keep her mouth shut (Morgana/Lois); a faithful female friend (Gwen/Chloe); future allies who initially dislike each other (Clark and Oliver/Merlin and Arthur); awkward friends from radically different social classes (Merlin and Arthur/Clark and Lex); the rich friend is heir to a vast empire but has misgivings about it (Arthur/Lex) and has an extremely powerful Well-Intentioned Extremist father and is both a potential ally and an implicit threat to the hero if he were to discover his secret (Lionel Luthor/Uther Pendragon).
    • Oddly enough, they got accused of doing this with Series 5 and Game of Thrones, as it features snow, Gwen learning politics, and a more multi-stranded story line. The creators pointed out these tropes are hardly original to Game of Thrones, although they do envy their production budget.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: John Hurt voicing a dragon. How cool is that?
  • Hide Your Pregnancy: Emilia Fox as of "Queen of Hearts". This is probably why Morgause was flung into a wall, buried under rocks, deformed, put in a cart, and stabbed to death!
  • Missing Trailer Scene: In the official trailer for Series 3, there is a scene with Uther and Arthur embracing while wearing their crowns. It doesn't appear in any episode or deleted scene.
  • The Other Darrin: Mordred's been recast as 23 year old Alexander Vlahos.
  • Romance on the Set: Bradley James and Georgia King (Princess Elena) started dating after "The Changeling". Hilariously ironic given that their characters mutually agreed to call off their Arranged Marriage after coming clean with the fact that they definitely don't love each other. Apparently, the actors felt a bit differently. There is also plenty of speculation surrounding Angel Coulby and Rupert Young (Sir Leon) considering their closeness on-set and their tendency to do a lot of publicity together.
  • Separated At Birth Casting: It's easy enough to buy Hunith as Merlin's mother.
  • So My Kids Can Watch: Nathaniel Parker (Agravaine) apparently joined the cast because his children were fans of the show.
  • Throw It In: Arthur smushing his foot in Merlin's face in "The Moment of Truth" was ad-libbed by Bradley, and Colin's reaction is real.
  • Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: The reason Bradley stopped updating his Twitter account (it's still there but is no longer being updated by him personally), as "fans" started attacking his girlfriend on Twitter. The girlfriend in question, Georgia King, also closed down her Twitter account at the same time. The whole thing warranted at least one newspaper to run with the story.
  • Word of Saint Paul:
    • In interviews, Katie McGrath was pretty adamant that Aithusa was female, though the only mention of the White Dragon's gender was when it was first introduced, when Kilgarrah refers to it as "he".
    • Eoin Macken, who plays Gwaine, has mentioned that his character wouldn't react much if he discovered Merlin had magic. Given his gratitude towards the Euchdag and the fact that he only seems to truly hate sorcerers who commit crimes, this agrees with canon so far. Bradley James has also said that Arthur has reached the point where he's ready to learn about Merlin.

General Trivia

  • James Callis, who is best known for playing Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica, not only played opposite a character called Gaius on Merlin, but rode a horse called Galactico.
  • Katie McGrath and Emilia Fox also played sisters in the TV movie The Queen. (Not to be muddled up with the film version of The Queen.)
  • * Uther's forehead scar is made by applying makeup to a natural crease in Anthony Head's forehead-the crease is prominent in most of his Buffy photos.
  • Stories of the legendary King Arthur usually place the day in which he pulls the sword from the stone as December 25th. The episode in which this version of Arthur pulls the sword from the stone first aired on Christmas Eve, 2011. (Though if you're an international viewer, there's a good chance that you watched it on Christmas Day).
  • Angel Coulby and Janet Montgomery (Guinevere and Mithian) never interacted during the episode in which they both appeared, however, they are going to share several scenes in the upcoming drama Dancing on the Edge.
    • Though Bradley James and Janet Montgomery also featured together in Dis/Connected, along with Hunith, Sophia the Sidhe, and Sir Owaine.
  • If you're a fan of Miss Marple, then the ITV adaptations starring Geraldine McEwan/Julia McKenzie is a line-up of familiar Merlin faces, including Morgause ("The Moving Finger"), Nimueh ("By the Pricking of My Thumbs"), Valiant ("Nemesis"), Lady Vivian ("Why Didn't They Ask Evans?"), Lady Catrina ("Sleeping Murder"), the Gleeman ("Sleeping Murder"), Edwin Muirden ("Ordeal By Innocence"), and the Witchfinder ("By the Pricking of My Thumbs").
    • And from Poirot we have the Callieach ("Five Little Pigs"), Queen Annis ("The Mystery of the Blue Train"), Edwin Muirden (again) and Princess Elena ("Halloween Party").
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