The Time Tunnel (TV Series) Merlin the Magician (1967) User Reviews

Meeting King Arthur, Merlin and Guinevere

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 15 February 2010]

Doug and Tony are transported to Cornwall, England, in 544 AD by Merlin the Magician to help King Arthur against an invasion of Vikings. Doug is stabbed by one warrior while Tony and Arthur are imprisoned in the dungeon by Wogan and his warriors. However, Merlin revives Doug and together with Guinevere they try to break in the castle to save Tony and Arthur.

"Merlin the Magician" is a funny episode where Doug and Tony meet a young King Arthur, Merlin and Guinevere. This show is silly but entertaining and uses stock footage as usual .My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Túnel do Tempo" ("The Time Tunnel")

Arthur against Vikings??? Yes in the Time Tunnel!!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 19 October 2017]

The writer William Welch should be searching more to developed this not accurate story as follow, the Arthur's kingdom which in just a fair tale, supposedly was in west of Britain near of Walles, according to the story the Vikings attacked the kingdoms on the east side of the coast, not to mention about the first Vikings invasions were around 700 A.D. and Arthur's tale was 100/200 years before, so a little mistake from Irwin Allen's writer, but it's Time Tunnel's fantasy everything is possible!!

Resume:

First watch: 1971 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 7

No!

[fcabanski · 5/10 · 23 November 2016]

Merlin's favorite line in this episode is a perfect exclamation for the episode - NO! Like many episodes of Time Tunnel, and Allen shows in general, this episode had a promising premise that never reached its potential. It's a pretty blah episode only saved from a 1 star rating by Merlin tooling around.

Merlin is trying to make things happen as they should. His "magic" is powerful, but nothing that hasn't been seen before on TT as the result of technology - traveling in time, teleportation, reversing time, healing people, changing people's clothing in the blink of an eye, causing explosions. Merlin's magic is also limited. He can only perform a certain number of "miracles" in a given time span. Maybe he's a time traveler from the future whose power needs recharging just like TT power needs recharging.

The stock footage in this one is of vikings attacking a castle defended by vikings. That's why Merlin uses his final miracle to change a neighboring king's (Gwen's father's) knights into vikings - change their garb. The explanation Merlin offers is that vikings aren't afraid of knights, vikings are only afraid of vikings. Utter hogwash.

At one point a viking is on the ground on the roof of a tower. The neighboring king's men (disguised as vikings but carrying torches) approach the castle. The viking looks at a stone wall, but he somehow sees the approaching men through the wall. From the ground, he had no angle to see to the ground from above the wall. He blows the horn to alert the vikings in the castle.

When Merlin makes Ray disappear to prove Merlin's power, and later when Merlin causes a power surge that injures Ray, the TT staff's ability to control the TT doesn't suffer one iota. Why? Ray, like Ann, is incompetent.

William Welch & Chris Cary Join Forces

[StuOz · 11 August 2006]

In the 6th Century UK, Merlin The Magician requests that Tony and Doug help Arthur - the future King - rid the UK of Vikings.

This was the 4th last episode of Time Tunnel and from this point on all common sense and reality is thrown out the window and is replaced by comic strip spaced out thrills, or in this case, total fantasy. Is total fantasy bad? No, it can be fun if Chris Cary is playing Merlin The Magician and if William Welch is doing his lines.

Frankly, I have no interest in the 6th century, so almost this whole show is about waiting for Merlin the wizard, dressed in black, to come out with the next bitchy arrogant line (for example, he looks at the Tunnel's blinking light computers and says "toys").

Whit Bissell as General Kirk attempts to bring reality to the tale - "Could this be one of those miracles you said we needed?" - but is brought down by his co-worker - "This is no time for romantic non-sense, General".

More humour is found when a gentleman says "America? Does such a place exist?". To which Doug responds "We're beginning to wonder".

William Welch really had a way with words, and in this case, even if the storyline is crap, Welch can dress up the story with clever lines, and actors like Whit Bissell and Chris Cary can bring life to such lines.

In a nutshell, I am saying that Merlin The Magician is just a clever bit of showmanship, and since Irwin was a master showman, we can only guess that Mr Allen was on deck during the making of this outrageous, flamboyant hour.

Please note, the music used here is often stock music from Tunnel's The Death Merchant episode (that score is on the Fantasy Worlds Of Irwin Allen CD set). The score is also vital to Merlin The Magician. Not everyone will like Merlin The Magician, but as a bit of screen showmanship, it works rather well.

Inexcusable error

[gregf-4 · 1/10 · 21 March 2017]

I know the Time Tunnel had a small budget, but that is no excuse for such appalling, inaccurate writing. King Arthur lived in the 6th century and fought the Saxons. The Viking raids didn't start until the late 8th century. Could the writers and producers not have come up with a plausible storyline lifted from something like Mallory's Le Mort d'Arthur? This was embarrassing.

Wotan Conquers the Britons!

[Gislef · 4/10 · 24 November 2022]

It's Vincent Beck! Voldar in 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians'! His sneering, creepy voice haunts my nightmares, and if you squint you can make out that he looks like Voldar. Yes, Beck appears in many TV shows in the 60s and 70s. But he's very Voldar-ish here.

The rest of the episode is very... Irwin Allenish. Merlin blips in out and does things in flashes of lightning, in typical Irwin Allen TV style. It's the same not-so-special effects you see in all of Allen's show, and I guess he expects us to be as thrilled with hackneyed camera tricks and smoke pots as he is. We're not.

Otherwise, the episode is typical 'Time Tunnel' fare. Doug and Tony run around a lot. See Doug and Tony run. Run, Doug and Tony, run! That's when they're not getting into sword fights, or there's stock footage from old historical movies. In this case, the 1954 'Prince Valiant'. In the present, Ann is the typical 60s female, Ray is a skeptic for no particular reason (after 27 episodes he finds "magic" hard to believe?), and General Kirk is very patronizing.

Christopher Cary as Merlin isn't bad, and I like the idea of him using the Time Tunnel to his own ends. If 'Time Tunnel' were more sophisticated, the idea of another time traveler (or whatever Merlin is supposed to be) hijacking the Tunnel for his own use might be interesting. As it is, it's just grist for another Irwin Allen production.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?