Merlin

Sundays at 8:00 pm you can catch a fairly new show on NBC called Merlin.  I'm a King Arthur fan as much as the next guy so I gave it a whirl and I have mixed feelings about it.  I do like having a show with the Camelot cast, it's on in the summer, so I have some time to catch it (although I'm DVRing it and watching it whenever), and the stories are nice, simple fun.  There is a good supporting cast.  However, the pros seem to end here.

I can get past changing the traditional storyline of Arthur since pretty much every author has his/her own take on the famous king - sometimes Mordred a cool guy, sometimes he is a bad guy, and sometimes (as in Excalibur) he is an annoying little kid laughing while hanging grail knights from a tree.  The storyline here is that Uther is still alive and hates magic because of something that happened when Arthur was born.  Igarine is nowhere in sight and Morgana is like an adopted sister to Arthur.  Merlin, who is a bumbling Clark Kent like character, is Arthur's manservant and saves his life on a routine basis using magic (in secret of course).  Guinevere is Morgana's servant and does NOT look the part at all.  That I have a problem with.  I do not like the character of Guinevere anyway (little strumpet), but I hate it even more now.  The actress is a fine enough person and I have no problems with her, but she is just not a Guinevere to me.  Also, I am wondering why they are creating so many new characters when there are plenty of established ones in the Arthurian canon to pull from.  Oh and lastly, the opening credits make it look like it will be worse than a Sci-Fi original movie.  

I give it 2 1/2  lightning bolts out of 5.  My wife agrees, but gives it a 3.  As she says, it's good, but it is not like 24 where it is, "Oh my gosh, we can't miss it!" type of good.  what do you think, those of you who've seen it.  Care to weigh in?