It might not have had the weight of Game of Thrones or the budget of Harry Potter, but back in the early 2000s BBC's Merlin was a key bit of fantasy programming. The show was brought to a somewhat abrupt end nearly two decades ago, but its co-creator Julian Jones revealed he saw some issues right from the beginning.
Speaking on The Ladies of the Lake podcast (via Radio Times), Jones revealed his one regret with the show. "I mean, we made a lot of bad decisions. Is that too harsh? I don't think we made the right decisions in the first [episode]," he explained.
"We shot them in blocks of three, and that first block... I think what happened was we were able to have a look at that, and in seeing it, we were able to go, 'Okay, oh, now I'm beginning to see the show and then the episodes that follow.'"
Jones did explain that he believed the show "gradually" got better. There are still fans of the show to this day, warts and all, but it seems very much to be a product of its time. Lacking effects and a tongue-in-cheek tone might not impress the more serious demands from fantasy fans today.