wiktor

BBC Merlin (2008-2012)

It's complicated because on the one hand I can absolutely see Lestat's version of Daniel being a kind of dialed up version of reality, making him extra rude, extra loud mouthed, and also tacking on him being loudly racist and homophobic too. But if that was the case I think they should have made that more overt in Lestat and Daniel's dynamic, even if it was just a throwaway line from Lestat implying that Daniel is probably a racist or something, just something to lay a trail of breadcrumbs to that. It's annoying because I don't want this show to have to hold my hand and explain it's intentions, but they've kind of dug their own grave with this one.

The problem I have is that the show has kind of lost any grace I might have been willing to give it by being so loud and insistent about this season being something entirely new and trying to separate it from the previous two seasons. If this was Interview With The Vampire Season 3, I might have been a lot more willing to let my trust in the writers from their racial storytelling and sensitivity carry forward into this season, but instead they've axed their Black creatives and hailed this as a separate project, something that can be watched without the first two seasons (I do not agree AT ALL that that is the case either), something that an audience who didn't enjoy the first two seasons can love. And I just have to question who exactly this new audience that they're trying to reach is, because unfortunately the more the season goes on the more it looks like they're trying to bring back a white audience who were alienated by a show which centered around a Black man and his racial identity.