MERLIN & MOLINA

Thinking about how this new series about 'Merlin', previously shown on the BBC and now on NBC over here, led me to wonder what TV dimension should be its home. It certainly can't reside in Earth Prime-Time; I think that tele-version of the wizard should hue closely to the legends.

So I thought that at least it should keep company with another adaptation - this time a one-shot TV movie - which also took great liberties with the original source material.

And that would be the adaptation of Agatha Christie's most famous novel, "Murder On The Orient Express", with Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot. In that production, characters were cut out; liberties were taken with the plot; and oddest of all, Poirot had an active sex life!

So this story about the boy Merlin being of the same age as Arthur, and with the possibility that the future Guinevere might be interracial*, would fit comfortably in such a TV Land as would accept Molina's Poirot.

BCnU!

*Although I'm not altogether sure Gwen will turn out to be Guinevere.....