User Reviews

While I certainly didn't dislike "The Last Defender of Camelot", it just really isn't The Twilight Zone. It's a fun flight of fantasy revisiting old literary friends. Some really good casting also gives this episode some extra quality. Sure the wizardry effects are a bit dated (at the time, when I was a kid, this would have been cool, though), and the cavern and foggy Stonehenge "duel of power" are small scale television budget sets, but there's a fine spirit to it all.

Merlin is awaken from centuries sleep by old pal Lancelot when Morgana Fey (responsible for Camelot's destruction; after many years, she has since found herself a bit guilt-stricken about her actions) tells him the wizard wants to rebuild Camelot. However, Merlin wants to regain all his power and a human sacrifice is require: a spell influenced Lancelot (Richard Riley, in fine form) to bring along a "squire" (a punk kid in London with spiked hair and a switch blade) be that sacrifice. Lancelot has remained immortal thanks to a spell by Merlin with Morgana also maintaining her youth and sorcery. Lancelot loses that when Merlin surmises he might want to rescue the kid from his purpose for being in Cornwall.

Merlin and Morgana duking it out with bolts of lighting is a scene that might be considered cringe-worthy considering how spoiled we are today with state-of-the-art effects even in commercials. There's a charm to them that many might still find, including me. Riley as an aging warrior, even upending punks with a silver-tipped cane in London, soon in a suit of arms against Merlin's own manufactured knight is a pleasure to watch do his thing. Jenny Agutter is used much better here than in the sci-fi episode, "Voices in the Earth", taking a drag from a cigar with her smoke literally sending folks to Cornwall!

I have to admit that I've always been a huge fan of the tales of the Knights of Camelot and when I read the television listing about "The Last Defender of Camelot" I was anxiously awaiting watching it on television. To my surprise it exceeded my expectations! Warning-Possible spoilers.

The plot begins with a group of young thugs in London in 1986 attacking an apparently helpless older man. Well to the youth's astonishment, the so called helpless man overpowers all of them and demands that the one unharmed one takes him to the one who ordered the attack.

We soon learn that the old man is the great Sir Lancelot, still alive and well and the one who ordered Lancelot taken to her is none other than the so called "evil" witch Morgan Le Fay. Morgan Le Fay is here to warn Lance, as she calls him that Merlin has summoned Lancelot to Cornwall to revive him from his centuries old sleep.

The major twist here is that Merlin, normally written in books as a hero is revealed to be the villain in this episode and Morgan Le Fay, thought to be normally the villainess is a heroine.

I won't reveal the rest but I will reveal the ending narration: "Once upon a time there was a realm of myth and magic, a high bright dream that shimmered briefly and then was gone, leaving only memories and one ageless, weary, slightly tarnished hero, who proved at last that wisdom and valor go hand in hand - on Earth, in Camelot, and in the Twilight Zone." I have a DVD of this show and I still get chills when I hear that final narration. I believe this show and "Message from Charity" were the best two shows of this incarnation of the "Twilight Zone."