This telling of an old tale made me happy, and I am definitely not easy to please when it comes to reworkings of legends from places where I have a direct heritage--to wit, I was doing everything but spitting at the screen when I saw the dismal First Knight. What tweaking did take place in this miniseries was mostly forgivable, given show slots and audience and whatnot. It's never easy to adapt a legend like King Arthur to the screen, and more problems arise when the screen is a small one. What could have been an overambitious flop was really a visual masterpiece, fully capturing the magical elements that I always pictured running along with the Arthurian time period. The effects were incredible and the color was amazing. In a lot of movies you wouldn't notice a thing like color, but this was like a Pre-Raphaelite painting for the screen--it was gorgeous. The acting was charming, I loved Martin Short. His character, which could easily have been all mugging and silliness, actually had depth to it. Helena Bonham Carter was wonderful, and Sam Niell--I've not been able to say a bad thing about him yet. *This* is the Camelot, the Merlin, the magic I think of when I read those old books. While some characters may have been a trifle static (Nimue might have been developed more, more time could have been focused on others), the name of the series *is* Merlin, after all, and it does a good job in telling his story. For those who were disappointed, all I can say is if you want something to compare it to, go out and rent First Knight and I guarantee you'll come back to this grateful. It's all a matter of perspective.