Today, we’re celebrating Merlin not by looking back, but looking ahead: if the BBC is looking to do a spin-off, here’s five great suggestions!

Merlin is ending. After our initial panic attack, we’re slowly but surely coming to terms with this fact, and are celebrating the end of the series with our A Month of Merlin initiative.

The actors, at least, seem to be excited about the show ending on a high note, and even though we’ve still got questions that need to be answered, we’ll take their word for it that the story of Merlin, Arthur, Gwen and Morgana is done. There likely won’t be a movie continuing the story from here, and maybe we won’t need one after all is said and done.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re willing to let go of the canon the show has created! And we’ll cling on to any of the characters and actors we can, too. Although Capps and Murphy have left Shine TV (the production company behind Merlin), potential spin-off series are still being considered. What might they be? Don’t worry BBC, your friendly neighbourhood Hypable staff members have got your back!

Last week we brought you our top 5 theories about the end of the show, and now it’s time for spin-off pitches.

Read our five suggestions for Merlin spin-offs that should (or shouldn’t) make it to screen, and vote for your favourite in the poll. Got a better suggestion? Share it in the comments!

This article was written by Hypable staff members Selina Wilken and Pamela Gocobachi, and Talks of Camelot co-host Patricia Spence.

1. The Adventures of Gwaine

In our opinion, the most obvious Merlin spin-off would be a Gwaine-centric series – because clearly, Eoin Macken needs to have his own show. And there’s no excuse for not getting on this one right away, BBC, because it almost writes itself!

Though you could argue that any one of the knights could star in their own spin-off, the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the more interesting stand-alone stories from the Arthurian canon. Gwaine’s story has literally got it all: mystery, action, adventure, and torrid love – and top it all off with the underlying themes of bravery and chivalry that make the Arthurian Legends so enticing, and you’ve got all the makings for a riveting and action-packed, slightly noir adventure.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Gwaine and the Green Knight, here’s what happens in a nutshell:

One Christmas Eve when Arthur and his knights are all well into their cups during a banquet celebration at Camelot, a mysterious man appears at the gates of Camelot. Dressed in green and holding nothing but an axe, he makes his way before the king and all his subjects and introduces himself as The Green Knight. He then proceeds to offer the following challenge: any man in attendance may chop off his head with the condition that he may chop off their heads in a year’s time.

Gwaine, never one to back down from a challenge takes the man up on his offer and severs his head with one blow. But instead of dying, The Green Knight simply walks over, picks up his head and tells Gwaine where to meet him one year later.

This is where our story starts: knowing that he’s got one year left to live, Gwaine sets off on an epic adventure, intending to do everything he hasn’t done yet, knowing that he must eventually travel to the place where he promised to meet the mysterious Green Knight to get his head chopped off (but will that happen?! We don’t want to give away the ending).

Though Gwaine travels alone in the original tale, we’ll need someone for him to verbally spar with while off adventuring. This could be a new character (perhaps a loyal squire?), but we could also see him inviting one of the other knights to come along with him. For example, how amazing would it be to see Tom Hopper reprise his role as Sir Percival in The Adventures of Gwaine?

A big part of Gwaine’s story in the original tale is that he is enticed by the Lady Bertilak, who, though married, repeatedly comes to Gwaine in the middle of the night begging for him to bed her. While there are many actresses who could play the part, we’d like to see British actress Felicity Jones in the role. Jones impressed critics with her almost fully improvised role as Anna in the indie drama Like Crazy, and we would love to see how she would fare in a period piece.

As for the Green Knight? Let’s call up Christopher Eccleston and ask if he’s busy – he looks enough like Eoin Macken that if the series is renewed, the cliffhanger could be that the Green Knight is really Gwaine’s father! Dun dun dunnn.

2. Uther & Gaius: The Early Years

Throughout the Merlin series we’ve heard mention of the years before Arthur’s birth, when Uther was a young king married to Ygraine and Gaius was his court sorcerer and physician. But we’ve never actually seen what this time was like, and the end of the series has left us with a lot of unanswered questions.

There are a lot of stories within the Arthurian Legends that began before Arthur’s birth. Although these legends traditionally included Merlin, he could easily be replaced with a character that practiced magic, like Gaius or Nimueh, who was a High Priestess of the Old Religion.

The Uther we knew in Merlin was a bitter one, and after the Great Purge (which has never actually been shown, only alluded to) everything changed in Camelot. But how cool would it be to see Camelot before all magic was banned? A Camelot in which sorcerers ran free and people with magic were accepted everywhere? Where Nimueh was a friend to the King and Kilgarrah lived in the wild with his dragon kin?

Storylines could include Uther conquering Camelot as a young man (was this a Robert Baratheon/Ned Stark kind of situation? Who ruled the kingdom before Uther? We need to know!), Uther and Ygraine’s courtship and marriage, the prophecy surrounding Arthur’s birth and the magic that made his birth possible, as well as how Morgana was conceived. We could learn more about the start of Uther and Gaius’ friendship and Uther’s rule, as well as Gaius’ relationships with the ladies, including Nimueh and Alice (do we sense a love triangle? Are you Team Naius or Team Galice?).

Let’s do some fantasy casting! We think that The Vampire Diaries actor Joseph Morgan would make a spectacular young Uther, and let’s bring Jamie Campbell Bower back to Camelot as a young Gaius. Yes, the age difference is a little off… but this is a Merlin spin-off, what did you expect?! As for Ygraine, Uther’s beautiful young wife? MyAnna Buring might need a steady gig after Twilight, and we think she’d be perfect for this role. And let’s bring back Michelle Ryan as Nimueh, too.

Like the Harry Potter fans who want to see a Marauder-era prequel series, for us this spin-off would be the next best thing to another season of Merlin. There would be actors that are easy on the eyes, magic, and old characters reinvented. If for no other reason, let’s do it for the love of Camelot!

3. Mordred: The Lost Years

We first saw Mordred as a young druid boy in season 1 of Merlin. We saw him again in season 2, first living with the druids, and then again having joined sides with a group of bandits, all the while maintaining a close bond with Morgana. By his first appearance in season 5 we found that he had joined Ragnor and his renegades, roaming the Northern Plains, and seemingly living without magic.

This had all of us questioning what he had done in those in-between years. This whole season we’ve been wondering whether or not he has an ulterior motive. Was he just living with bandits all this time? Did a sorcerer train him? How strong is his magic? Does he know his foretold destiny?

These are the types of questions that still need to be addressed. We might have some answers by the end of the Merlin series, but considering how little time is left, most of the story will probably remain untold.

But one plus of knowing nothing of his lost years is that this series would have a lot of wiggle room and could develop the characters and the plot practically from scratch. Mordred is a complex character with an important role to play in the Arthurian Legends, and we think it is time we get to know Mordred for the man that he is in Mordred: The Lost Years.

As for other characters in this series, we’d obviously need a druid love interest (how about Narnia’s Anna Popplewell?), and Malcolm McDowell could be Mordred’s druid mentor. Did he maybe have some kind of magical pet, too? We’re thinking Sarah Jane’s robot dog, but medieval-y.

If for no other reason, this series would give us a chance to hold on to Alexander Vlahos. We can probably all agree that the actor has been a great addition to Merlin and that he portrays Mordred impeccably. He has become a fast fan favourite, and it is a shame that he was only cast for this last season. We would like to see more from him, and we would like to learn more about Mordred from his point of view.

4. Knights of Camelot

Now here’s a fun, upbeat adventure series which is going to have all the little boys and girls donning their capes and faux chainmail to take up live action role playing in the forest!

Knights of Camelot follows the four main Knights of the Round Table: Percival (Tom Hopper), Leon (Rupert Young), Gwaine (Eoin Macken) and Elyan (Adetomiwa Edun). It takes place during the three-year period following Arthur’s coronation where Camelot is at relative peace, and where the knights complete all their legendary quests which Merlin never showed us.

Whereas we could also see Gwaine leading his own show (see #1), the legend of Gawain and the Green Knight would also work well as an ensemble quest. As would, of course, the search for the Holy Grail (the original Percival’s claim to fame), which for the purposes of this spin-off we choose to imagine isn’t quite the same as the Cup of Life (which was already used in Merlin).

One convenient thing about Knights of Camelot is that the show has an end date. We know that everything the knights do must be resolved within three years (although however long of a time they decide to make each season span is up for debate, so if we want to we can make this baby go on forever), and we know where the characters ultimately end up.

But the very best thing about Knights is that it would allow for us to finally get to see the Leon, Gwaine, Elyan and Percival take center stage in the story and go through some real character development, and the series could explore their backstories and their friendships with one another. Plus, Knights would allow for occasional cameos from all of the other characters: we could potentially see the quartet return to Camelot for special reunion-style episodes, or even meet up with Arthur and/or Merlin while out on their quests.

There’s also the potential for flashbacks, that could show us some missing moments between the knights and other characters – were there any interactions we missed between Gwaine and Merlin? Elyan and Guinevere? Percival and Arthur? Leon and Uther? Or even Gwaine and Morgana (okay, that one is just our personal wishful thinking)?! All of this could be shown or alluded to, all the while taking us on a great buddy-cop style road trip across Albion.

5. Merlin: Reincarnated!

Come on. You know you want this to happen, even though it’s silly.

Whether or not Merlin ends with the characters reincarnated in present day (one of our major theories, though it may be a crackpot one), there’s nothing we’d like more than to see the exact same cast gather together and continue to portray the characters we’ve fallen in love with for the past five years.

And maybe the actors are right and there’s nothing left to tell of the story… but then, hey, why not just start it all over in the present day? Tabula rasa!

Let’s set the scene: The events of Merlin are summed up in a hazy dream; we see the characters live, love and die as Camelot stands and falls and the passing of time sees the landscapes paved with roads and the monsters retreat to the depths of the earth as magic seeps out of the land.

An alarm clock beeps loudly and Merlin Emrys wakes up in his cramped London flat. Damn, he’s gonna be late for his PhD seminar again! He hurries out, wondering what those crazy dreams he’s been having are all about… only to run head-first into Arthur Pendragon, stuffy businessman who has absolutely no time for a lazy student with wrinkled clothes who’s spouting off about destiny and royalty and all kinds of crap.

Throw in Merlin’s best friend Gwen and her brother Elyan, Arthur’s raucous football buddies Percy, Gwaine and Leon, his posh and haughty sister Morgana, the sexy foreign exchange student Lance and Arthur’s stern, controlling father Uther, and you’ve got yourself Merlin: Reincarnated!. Yes, the exclamation point is very important for capturing the tone of the story, which is fun and frivolous, and we’re actually half considering pitching this as a musical instead.

If this sounds like the beginning of a fanfic, it’s cause it probably is. The fandom has embraced the reincarnation idea from the very beginning, imagining the characters in modern settings, and having them rediscovering their destinies and their relationships to each other – and while an AU timeline is a very popular fanfic trope across all fandoms, we can’t help but think that in the case of Merlin, it might actually work.

Let’s forget for a second that this has about a 0.1% likelihood of actually happening in real life, considering that the actors probably wouldn’t be on board, and that it’d be super cheesy.

The reincarnation idea is actually a big part of Arthurian Legends, and it has often been said that King Arthur will return when Britain again has need of him. And seeing as Merlin very intentionally tried to modernise the legend and make the characters behave in a very contemporary manner, it is very easy to imagine them actually existing in present time.

It’d be a chance to (re-)reinvent the legend, too. The short-lived Starz series Camelot failed because it tried to tell a very well-known story in a very unimaginative way, but Merlin: Reincarnated! would take the legends we love and re-contextualize them, making them even more relevant for modern audiences than even Merlin itself did.

Plus, in this beautiful alternate reality in which this show would actually exist, we’d get to keep the entire ensemble cast, which we can’t imagine that any fans would have a problem with. Let’s Reincarnate!

Now it’s your turn

You can read all about A Month of Merlin right here on Hypable, and check out the other columns we’ve done so far. If you want to submit your own piece, go here!