with over used idea such a the legend of king arthur and filmmaker often have their work cut out for them unless they be willing to go the extra mile to be creative . the producer of merlin be no exception and a they have fail miserably in that aspect . the performance be laughable to say the least . sam neill wiseguy persona seem out of place for the typically cold and reclusive merlin . and just when thing couldn not get any bad than helena bonham carter speak with an annoy lisp and enter martin short . a frik and he deliver line after line of irritate one line inanity . the producer probably think it be funny to employ racist joke and but i sure do not . what do dress up in traditional chinese garb and slant your eye and blurt out farro mee . farro mee . ( follow me and follow me ) in a mock chinese accent have to do with sword and sorcery in medieval britain . absolutely nothing . with a script so trite and meaningless and it surprise that they do not even bother to go all out and have the rockettes perform with darth vader in front of macy camelot . hallmark have do here to the legend of merlin what they also do to the bible in the horrible 1999 nbc mini series noah ark . they turn it into a laughable la vega nightclub act . unlike it brilliant cinematic counterpart excalibur and merlin play like an awful made for tv movie because it happen to be just that an awful made for tv movie .