Had his brother been cast or maybe even a more known actor would it have saved the show? Although the actor who played Arthur was terrible I am not sure even the perfect Arthur would have been able to save such a weak script.
shareThat's hard to say.
The Arthur actor was absolutely horrible, but the writing itself was really, REALLY bad.
Just imagine, what actor could be a good Arthur with the script they had?
No-one. Clive Owen? NO. He would refuse.
So while the main character is obviously a huge miscast, the writing alone is really, really bad.
I'm pretty sure Morgan is supposed to be the villain, yet everyone thinks she is the better ruler.
She is fierce, hard, maybe ruthless, but she knows how to rule.
Teen!Arthur just wants to have sex with people and has no control at all!
Morgan is obviously the better ruler. The show simply failed to show this.
Morgan is fierce but fair, Arthur just cares about his hormones. This is the finale of the season.
This is why the show failed.
I don't know if Clive Owen would have refused but I sure hope no one would have thought of bringing him the script. This show was about a young, teenage Arthur becoming king in name out of nowhere, and having to learn the ropes as he went. Clive Owen is a full-grown man! It's like asking Maggie Smith to play a kid in American Pie. Owen was great as war-veteran Arthur in the 2004 movie, but that was a very, very different story.
I disagree that everyone thought Morgan the better ruler, if only because I didn't think that. "The end justifies the means" is not one of my mottos, and Morgan was a treacherous killer; that doesn't spell good ruler IMHO.
I do think, however, that she was by far the better actress and the better character (better as in better-written, and more interesting). This, to me, is why some people rooted for her.
I still don't think JCB was bad, even if his delivery, when the scenes required that he communicate intensity or passion, was occasionnally pretty weak and unconvincing. But on the whole, he did the job he was given: that of a young, clueless, far-from-perfect guy who is suddenly taken from the comfort of his everyday life by a stranger who tells him "you're the king!", without giving him the user's manual to the task.
I think a different actor cast (a more handsome one) might have antagonized less some of the viewers. But I don't think it would have changed a thing to me, or to others who found flaw with the writing. They blotched that job, pure and simple, and no amount of recast can cure that.
"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."
Kuni makes some good points.
I think you're right hob, in that the script was so weak it probably would not have mattered. I also partly blame the creators/producers in that they didn't storyboard the series very well and should have known better before the start of filming. Either that or the people whose job it was to bring to life what the writers described (aside from the actors - I'm talking props, costumes, sets, casting directors, etc) failed miserably in their adaptation. The best example I can think of in this regard is Bardon Pass and how it could have possibly been written to actually be a pass; yet when they scouted locations, they picked that wide-open field & farmhouse.
Honestly, I think the casting of Arthur was just the icing on the cake and only added insult to injury. The fact that JCB kind of looked like Smeagol from LOTR did not help and when he acted like a 14 year old selfish, horny asswipe, it really turned off a majority of the viewers. In the season finale when he yelled at the soldier, "WHO SENT YOU!!!?!", was some of the most cringe-worthy line delivery I have ever seen. As easy as it would be to blame him for the ship sinking, you really can't put it on JCB. Honestly speaking, I think if properly cast in a certain role, he'd actually give a good performance.
Someone said way back in Jan/Feb when the show started that if the writers had actually stuck to the cynical idea of Merlin fabricating the entire Arthurian myth himself, it *might* have worked casting JCB. The "Excalibur" episode was a great example of this and was one of the strongest episodes of the season, imo. Of course, that episode featured heavily on Fiennes and Green and almost zero on Arthur so... bah, I don't know.
I agree that it's mostly writing. The actor wasn't great, I'm not a fan of him, there wasn't much any actor could do. It was the writers who removed any motivation, conflict from this character. Morgan being a better leader is neither here or there, the fact is she's doing something. She has a goal. She has desires for the throne. Arthur only cares about undermining a man's marriage who calls his champion whenever he can.
Another note about the writing, there's alot of telling and no showing. Merlin calls Igraine the "Queen of Hearts" and that people go to her for advice. We never see that. I think there's one scene where she talks down to Arthur for starting something with Leontes. Guinivere wants to organize the settlers in Camelot so they're not living on top of each other, no follow up there.
You're right, nothing and nobody could have improved this series without the scripts being severely reworked. I'm only on Episode 3 and I can't believe how lame and cliched it is.
But in all the blasting of Bower's total unsuitability for the role (justifiably so), the chick who plays Guinevere is apparently given a free pass although she is just as bad as he is. Can't find much criticism of her performance. I cringe whenever she opens her mouth.
And WTF was with that Titanic Jack & Rose ripoff scene on the battlements in Episode 2? The whole series hasn't an ounce of creativity in it. Since I'm not a viewer who thinks inclusion of boobies and butts redeems a story, there has been absolutely nothing to commend the series. It's not epic in the slightest. :-\ I've gotta bail, for my brain's sake, and go rewatch Excalibur again.