Merlin actor Bradley James has given a new interview in which he looks back on Arthur’s development and discusses his relationships with the other cast members.

The Merlin cast has been doing a load of interviews as we gear up for the final stretch of episodes. But when speaking to Spinoff, Bradley James looks back on the series rather than ahead to the end, and we learn more about what he thinks about the show overall.

James admits that some of the developments his character went through in early seasons didn’t sit quite right with him. “In the first series there were a lot of occasions where things would happen and the reset button was pressed,” he says. “I’d find myself going through experiences with Arthur where he’d learn something and then the next episode he would make the same mistake, and I thought that was a bit insulting to the character, really, and I think audiences got a bit frustrated with it.”

However, the fourth series “kicked up a gear,” which James believes that it needed to.

He also talks about the show’s fandom, and how different it is in America. “I think in England there’s a touch of cynicism from people when it comes to fandom, whereas here there’s no fear in taking that fandom seriously,” he says. “In England there’s a kind of reservedness; you don’t want to be too expressive about it.”

James goes on to reveal what he will miss most about the experience filming Merlin, saying, “when I’m hanging out with the knights and someone’s making a joke or [Gwaine actor] Eoin [Macken] is saying something stupid. Those are the good times I’ll take with me; I’ll remember those moments of proverbially sitting around the campfire, having a joke.”

Finally, he talks about his relationship with co-star Colin Morgan. “We share a lot of laughs and we have a lot of fun,” he says. “We are quite ridiculous in our humor sometimes, which I think only the pair of us can relate to, but ultimately we have gotten on quite well because we had to spend so much time together anyway with filming the show.” Although when they aren’t filming, “we try to separate ourselves from each other as much as possible,” because, “I think we both need that breather to realize there are other people and other ways of telling jokes!”

Merlin will conclude its fifth and final season on December 24.