The Merlin showrunners participated in a Q&A following a screening of the series 5 premiere, where they talked about the “inevitable changes” and darker tone as the show goes on.

CultBox attended the screening of the premiere, and has reported comments made by Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy about the fifth series.

The showrunners are very aware that their audience is more mature than it was early on in Merlin‘s run; Murphy says that their over-40s audience is “huge now.”

They partly attribute this to the later BBC time slot. Because it’s later than it was when it first came on the air, “You do have to think about the tone, and make the tone a little bit more sophisticated, and a little bit more darker,” Capps says.

While they do not want to lose the feel of an action-adventure show for the whole family, they are definitely writing for a more mature audience, meaning that fans can expect a shift in character and story dynamics this year.

Capps explains that, “there are inevitable changes as the characters get older and their statuses change, then the stakes of the stories get darker.”

We can also look forward to more mythology from the Arthurian legends. “We’re tipping more to the mythology of Arthur and the Round Table,” Capps teases. But, “there’s always enough comic fun in an episode, and it’s always that counterbalance in every episode when we’re storylining: we make sure you can have a good laugh as well as jump out of your seat!”

We are definitely excited to see the show grow up, and series 5 sounds like it’ll take our characters to very exciting new places! We wonder what other parts of the Merlin and Arthur legends the writers will delve into this year?

Check out a new ‘Merlin’ series 5 trailer:

It seems like the show will be returning on October 6 in the UK, and series 5 will have a total of 13 episodes.