Merlin; Childhood Binge.

A very guilty pleasure of mine in terms of watching something binge-worthy, Merlin.

Also known as The Adventures of Merlin in the USA, it's a family show about the early years of Merlin the wizard and his building friendship with Prince Arthur as they both stave off magical threats to the kingdom of Camelot, but the only problem is, magic is illegal and Merlin has to keep his magic secret otherwise he will be executed.

The show itself I remember watching when it first started in 2008 on BBC One when I was 12 years old and thought it was one of the best shows I had ever seen. Airing at 7PM it was deemed for a more older family, with the show being slightly edited for CBBC to air during the day later on in the week.

Already you can think about it, "7PM," Family friendly," "CBBC?" This is going to be very simple, it's a kids show!

And it is. The show itself doesn't bother to go into complexities, keeping it's plots very simple and straightforward, but it also has some rather mature elements, having characters deal with things such as the death of loved ones, something a child probably wouldn't understand fully. The show itself is wonderfully written, with character development and relationships that develop before us in an authentic way over time, and story arcs that keep it interesting with one story arc per season of a looming threat and one overall for the whole story of Merlin making sure that Arthur becomes king and fulfill each others destinies.

Being a fantasy TV show on BBC One in 2008, the budget was very... slim; enough for Anthony Head and John Hurt, two big names in the British acting world, to be on board with a load of relative unknowns filling the main cast, and possibly the best special effects a terrestrial tv station could supply on such a budget which was, for lack of a better word, garbage.

But I find myself watching it over and over again.

When I can't find the mental willpower to watch The Crown (as of writing I am currently part way through season 3,) or Sex Education (I just finished season one,) or even Hunters (I watched the first episode and saved it to my watchlist but couldn't bring myself to watch more since it's a rather heavy show,) I go back to Merlin.

Merlin is what I go to when I can't decide on what to watch. If nothing in particular strikes my fancy, if I'm just not in the mood to try something new or continue something I've already started, Merlin goes on.

But why is it my guilty pleasure?

Watch it. It's a kids show. It's simple. It's fun. The jokes and gags are stupid but hilarious. The action is exciting despite it being rather tame. The effects are garbage, and you know that it's garbage when the villains' most powerful spells are to just launch people three feet backwards which somehow always knocks the poor unfortunate sent through the air unconscious, and when a dragon and the various magical creatures look like they belong on an educational games website you go on when you're in primary school. But other than that, I grew up with it so it has that one thing that other shows seldom have; familiarity, and that means comfort to me.

If I hadn't watched this show when I was a prepubescent kid and somehow came across it now, I'd have likely hated everything about it.

Yet I watched it. This was at a time when various media was being tweaked and famous characters were being reimagined into younger versions of themselves in TV shows such as Smallville for example, but before the trend of taking something from childhood and revamping it into something overly dark, sexy and graphic for more mature audiences.

When I find myself discussing it with friends and colleagues, nobody seems to have a clue what I'm talking about. It seemed to slip under the radar for a lot of people despite being on a major channel at prime time on Saturday nights.

Now it's on Netflix and Amazon Prime, I can tell people to go and give it a go. Then all come back with the same thing.

It's garbage. I guess they're too old for it to be of any worth to them now.