Canonically, Arthur's early reign mostly consists of a long war fought to stop Saxon incursions into Briton territory. I'm guessing Starz didn't have the budget for that.

@kimstaff: You're right, the classical definition of a DEM is an intervention from some person or force previously unconnected to the plot. Not just dramatically convenient timing.

None of this changes the fact that the guy in the picture looks like Orlando Bloom's kid brother, not his father. Oh well, special effects are amazing these days, I've heard.

prof, the BSG example just makes me want to say "if you can't end a story well, why bother with an ending at all?"

"jaime and cersei dont mention the failed assasination once, even when theyre discussing bran. shouldnt they be paniking about the dagger?"

That's what I mean, profdragon. The grail quest normally happens at the end of Arthur's reign, when he's an old (or at least middle-aged) man. At the rate the plot is advancing on this show, it'll take quite a while for them to reach that point. Which is why they might decide to screw with the canon and just hurry…

*way

Who knows? They might get the grail quest out of the wat next week, or have it pencilled in for season 10. It's anybody's guess at this point.

We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot.

They were quoting Aristotle - not quite in a relevant way, mind you, but at least they were trying - and I got the impression this was hearkening back to an older ideal of justice.
My take is that the show is building on the theory that Arthur and his predecessors are Romanized Britons, and so they're trying - however…

The Sword of Mars was just a big ungainly lump of metal. In Arthur's puny hands it looked like a Claymore - and one made for a burlier man. Also, it was half rusted away from sitting in that waterfall so long.

I assumed Ryan meant that he wanted Solonius to follow the plan up until the point of Gannicus' win. That way the freedom thing would have been his first betrayal of Batiatus.

Historically, Gannicus was the name of one of the commanders in Spartacus' army. Along with Crixus and Oenomaus.

I thankfully read this review before watching the episode, and have decided to call it quits with V. And yeah, it's mostly the "soul" idiocy that pushed me over the edge.

This review helped me decide to stop watching the show.

Julie Benz' pants for running to Mexico in were a great costume - in that her ass looked terrific in them.

The surprise is that tacked onto the ending is a romantic comedy with puns based on the fact that simple words in one language sound dirty in another.

Congratulations to Archdukechocula on spewing 80 lines of text in response to a single, somewhat vague, sentence. Perusing the rest of your oppponent's post, I eagerly await your equally impassioned explanations of why Elvis was in fact a menace to society, and why racist lynch mobs were actually a rational response…

The one truly dumb thing about this episode.
Both Sherlock and John leave their only lead/witness to chase after the assassin in what was a very obvious misdirection. Should have been obvious to Sherlock, at any rate.

Worst. School. Ever.
So at this high school teachers can accuse students of cheating with no evidence at all, and the principal will accuse a teacher of sleeping with a student based only on anonymous hearsay.