The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin

The Stones Cry Out

Arthurian legend is a crowded room. From the romantic chivalry of Malory to the gritty revisionism of recent cinema, the Matter of Britain has been deconstructed until there is often very little "matter" left. Yet, *The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin* arrives not as another deconstruction, but as an earnest act of reconstruction. Directed by Ryan Whitaker (alongside Jeremy Boreing and Jesse V. Johnson), this adaptation of Stephen R. Lawhead’s seminal novels attempts something unfashionable in modern fantasy: it treats the spiritual collision of paganism and early Christianity not as set dressing, but as the engine of history itself.

The series enters a cultural landscape fatigued by irony, and its sincerity is both its greatest weapon and its most notable stumbling block. By adapting Lawhead’s unique fusion of the Atlantis mythos with post-Roman Britain, the show demands the viewer accept a heavy lore-load immediately. We are not merely dealing with knights and swords; we are witnessing the refugees of a sunken world grafting their tragedy onto the wild, fractured tribes of the Celts.



Visually, Whitaker and his team eschew the polished, high-saturation aesthetic of Amazon’s Middle-earth for something decidedly muddier and more tactile. The 5th century here is a place of ruin and damp wool, where the withdrawal of Rome has left a vacuum filled by desperation. The cinematography favors natural light and claustrophobic framing, emphasizing the isolation of these characters.

However, this grounded approach clashes—sometimes jarringly—with the fantastical elements of the first act. The sequence depicting the bull dancers of Atlantis is a technical gamble. While ambitious, it strains the budget of a television production, creating a dissonance between the gritty reality of the British Isles and the CGI-heavy spectacle of the lost continent. The show is far more comfortable, and visually authoritative, when it settles into the mist-shrouded forests of Britain, where the threat is a Saxon blade rather than a crumbling civilization.



The narrative burden falls heavily on the pacing, which struggles under the weight of adaptation. Lawhead’s first book, *Taliesin*, is a slow-burn tragedy, but the series compresses this foundational lore to rush toward the titular Merlin. As a result, the romance between Taliesin (James Arden) and the Atlantean princess Charis (Rose Reid) feels breathless, racing through emotional beats that require patience to fully ripen. We are told of their great love and spiritual convergence, but we are rarely given the quiet moments to feel it.

Yet, when Tom Sharp’s Merlin steps fully into the frame, the series finds its center of gravity. This is not the wizened beard-stroker of Disneyfied memory, nor the purely secular warrior of recent reboots. Sharp portrays Merlin as a man burdened by dual heritage—half-mad bard, half-prince, fully tormented. His performance anchors the show’s central thesis: that the transition from the Old Ways to the New Faith was violent, confusing, and profoundly human.



Ultimately, *Rise of the Merlin* is a fascinating artifact of its time. In an era where fantasy is often used to modernize social mores, this series looks backward with a gaze that is almost defiant in its traditionalism. It posits that civilization is fragile and that faith is the only bulwark against the dark. While it occasionally buckles under its own ambition and the logistical difficulties of spanning two distinct worlds, it succeeds in creating a mood of mournful gravity. It is an imperfect song, but one sung with a conviction that is impossible to ignore.