Over the last few days, Empire Magazine’s BIG SCREEN has been celebrating movies and television in London, and as part of the event, some of the Merlin crew did a panel where they answered some questions about the show.

While no video or more detailed information is yet available – and we’d appreciate hearing from anyone who attended the event! – we do have a recap of the panel as was posted on Empire Online.

Panelists were creators Johnny Capps and Julian Jones, as well as Bradley James who plays Arthur.

They discussed how the show would be “taking a leaf out of Harry Potter‘s book” and heading in a darker direction next season, and revealed that while they will not lose the comedic elements, they are not planning any “stand-out comedy episodes” this year.

As the show really surrounds the myth of King Arthur more than Merlin, the moderator asked why the show isn’t called Arthur, to which Jones explained:

Merlin the magician was something that no-one had explored for a long time. At the time [of creating Merlin] we were all obsessed with Smallville so we started to explore the idea of a ‘young Merlin’. Then we thought, “Why not bring in Arthur? Why not bring in Guinevere?”

Finally they discussed the five-year plan for the series, which involves moving deeper into the mythology and constructing long-winded story arcs. However, should the BBC wish it, the writers have “a very specific idea how season five ends and how to move onto season six,” Capps says.

That’s pretty much all we have, but if you want to read more of the short recap available, check it out here at Empire Online.