"Merlin": Is There Enough Beefcake to Make Up for the Not-Gay Couple?

I'm interested in the Grail legend, because of its origin in ancient Celtic mythology, but the rest of the Arthurian mythos leaves me flat.  It's mythology in mythology, symbolism that leads to deeper symbolism, but no one will say for sure what the symbolism is.  The Castle Perilous, the Sangreal, the Green Knight, the Dark Tower, the Lady in the Lake.  It gives you a headache.

So I went into Merlin (2008-2012, but newly arrived on Netflix) with low expectations.

In this rendition, Arthur (Bradley James, top photo) is a teenage Once and Future King (although the title makes no sense if he hasn't become king yet),a sort of Prince Harry, rabble-rousing under the disapproving eye of the snarling, villainous King Uther Pendragon (Anthony Head).

Enter country boy and magical adept Merlin (Colin Morgon, much younger looking without the moustache).  He has a meet-cute with Arthur, after posturing for a bit about whose penis is bigger, the two settle into a gay-subtext friendship.

Just subtext, although fans are shipping like mad. The producers adamantly deny that any gay reading is intended.  No gay people existed in the Middle Ages, right?

So they both meet girls.  Merlin hangs out with Gwen (Angel Coulby), a "lowly servant girl" who of course will become Queen Guinevere, while Arthur favors Morgana (Katie McGrath), who will become Merlin's nemesis Morgana Le Fay).  I see a future of mixing and matching.

Magic is strictly forbidden in Camelot (in spite of the dragon downstairs who keeps telling Merlin he's the Chosen One).  The first three episodes all had plots borrowed from Bewitched: Merlin uses magic to save the day, then lets Arthur take the credit.

The Once-and-Future-King business will unravel slowly, as episode-of-the-week features "a mysterious stranger comes to town who is not what he seems."  But I read through the cast list to see if I recognized any characters from the mythos.

1. Sir Gwaine (Eoin Marken) is probably Sir Gawain, who will meet the Green Knight.

2. In the mythos, Sir Percival (Tom Hopper) finds the Holy Grail.  But these people don't have a religion, so what can he find?

As long as he takes off his shirt while finding it, who cares?

3.Sir Elyan (Tomiwa Edun, left), Gwen's brother, is a new character. 

4. Agravaine (Nathaniel Parker), who will reveal Lancelot's affair with Guinevere and bring down the kingdom.

Does it seem fair that a king gets dethroned just because his wife schtups some beach hunk?

5. Lancelot (Santiago Cabrera) only appears in six episodes.  I guess he hits it off with Guinevere very quickly, though I can't see why.  I'd take Arthur any day.

5. The evil Mordred is played by Alexander Vlahos (left), who usually plays gay characters.  I hope he's not going to be a stereotyped queer-feminine villain.

6. Fintan Mckeown plays King Odin. Apparently they'll be delving into Norse mythology; there's also a Freya in the cast list.  But no Thor.

7. Taliesin (Karl Johnson), the legendary Welsh bard.

8. Tindr (Paul McNeilly).  What, no Grindr?

9. Sir Pellinore (Sean Francis, left).  In the mythos, he is endlessly chasing the mysterious Questing Beast.

10. The Fisher King (Donald Sumpter), whose kingdom is barren because he is suffering from a mysterious groin injury.

Plus Druids, Queen Mab, Helios the Sun God, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, who first wrote down the Arthurian legends.  But no Beowulf.