Merlin managed five seasons and no movies before the BBC decided to call it a day and close down production. There was some talk of a spin-off, but that’s now dried up and, really, Merlin is complete. There’s a bow on top.
If nothing else, that can allow the upcoming full-series DVD and Blu-ray box set to be fully exhaustive. And let’s be honest, five seasons is a pretty good showing. Plenty of excellent TV shows didn’t get even one fifth as far.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The set will contain16 Blu-rays discs or 24 DVDs depending on your choice, priced at $197.50 for HD or $129.98 for SD. The new supplements include a couple of previously unreleased season five commentaries – again, there’s scope for a pretty definitive point of view here, looking back over Merlin in its entirety – a video of 2012 San Diego Comic-Con panel and a video feature on stars Colin Morgan and Bradley James travelling across Wales.
Meanwhile… definitely not cancelled, and going strong at 34 seasons, several specials, one ill-fated TV movie and two off-canon big screen movies, is the BBC’s flagship entertainment show, Doctor Who. There’s a new box set coming here too, promising us The Complete Matt Smith Years.
The word ‘Years’ is all important as the one thing missing, I expect, will be a certain telephone call. But all other meaningful appearances of The Eleventh Doctor seem to be present and correct, right down to the 2013 Proms, The Ultimate Guide and The Sarah Jane Adventures two-parter, The Death of the Doctor.
We Brits, or at least the 99.99% of us with some kind of emotional stake in Doctor Who, each have a favourite Doctor. “Our Doctor.” For most, it’s the one they grew up with, so mine should probably have been Tom Baker. But it wasn’t. It was Matt Smith.
I was quite overawed with his performance; the calibre of the episodes didn’t hurt, either. Sure, the run got patchier as it went along but The Eleventh Hour, Vincent and the Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, Asylum of the Daleks, The Day of the Doctor and even more of Smith’s rank amongst my favourite Who and, in most cases, amongst my favourite TV, period.
I’ll find it hard to resist this box I think (yes, it’s being packaged in a big blue box, but not that one). Maybe I’ll put it on my Christmas list.
Both sets will hit shelves on November 4th.
