During peace negotiations between Camelot and the neighbouring kingdoms, Arthur is enchanted in an effort by one king to start a war.

A little bit of plot recycling. A little bit cliche. But despite that I still enjoyed this episode. “Sweet Dreams” had its failings but it was a nice comedy filler that I’m sure will help tide us over through the darker drama that will be coming in the last 3 episodes of the season.

In “Sweet Dreams” we rehash the Arthur is enchanted to fall in love with someone story that we saw in the season 1 episode “The Gates of Avalon” and mix in a little more comedy (like the Uther is enchanted to fall in love with a troll story in “Beauty and the Beast”). Frankly I don’t really know why the writers bothered using the story idea in season 1 at all. It fits much better at this point in the show when they can use it as a furthering of the Gwen and Arthur relationship plot. And speaking of them, I would have to say that their scenes were some of the strongest of the episode. They covered everything from joy to heartbreak and were particularly well written and acted. I remember thinking this romance story line could go either way from its almost non existant set up in season 1. It could have been very bad or very good and I’m pleased that its turned out well. I should never have doubted the writers. On this at least. I suspect the season finale will see another conversation to the same effect of the final conversation in this episode. Hopefully allowing the Arthur and Gwen relationship to move forward in a new direction for season 3.

My main issue with this episode was with Alined, this week’s villain. He was very set on starting a war for rather ambiguous reasons. Something about money. Yes war can improve the economy but he was also intent on not being the one to start the war and so I assume he didn’t want to become involved at all. Essentially all we know is that Uther and Olaf going to war was going to get him money in some way. I would have appreciated a bit of clarification for his motives. As it was Alined was quite one dimensional. To the point that he even felt the need to explain his plot to the audience within the first two minutes of the show. Although, unlike almost every other villain on “Merlin”, he did manage to survive past the end of the episode.

Another problem I had can be summed up with one name, Morgana. She only had one scene this week (How long has it been since she has had a significant part in an episode? I suppose her time is coming next week.) and I almost would have prefered if it wasn’t there at all. I can only assume that she was drunk because she a) didn’t seem to care at all whether Arthur lived or died in this “battle to the death” and b) didn’t notice at all that Gwen practically ran out of the room. I could only laugh when Merlin said that anyone who had spent 5 minutes with Gwen or Arthur could see their feelings as I thought “Well that explains why Morgana still doesn’t know. She hasn’t spent more than 5 minutes on screen.”

As usual the acting in this show was wonderful. I really can’t say enough good things about the actors. Georgia Moffett as the Lady Vivian was a great comic addition. Unfortunately for her, she’s still enchanted by the end of the episode. Hopefully the spell wears off or something.

I must admit that when Merlin went to the dragon this week I was expecting Gwen to get her first mention. As of this point she is the only main character never to have been spoken of by name in conversations between Merlin and the dragon. I don’t know whether this indicates that the dragon doesn’t know about her destiny or whether he just doesn’t feel its important to mention it to Merlin. The great thing about choosing a cliche solution to problems, as the writers did here, is that five minutes in the audience comes up with that idea for how to break the spell but immediately thinks it couldn’t possibly be the case. Thus ending up surprised anyways.

Though it may not have been the strongest overall episode, “Sweet Dreams” was a fun break and a definite improvement over last week. As a general note about the show a confirmation that “Merlin” will in fact be back for a third season was released this week. I know I’ll be looking forward to it.

Andrea