Looking back on Destiny & Chicken
“The time has come”, the Walrus said, “to talk of Merlin things: of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax. Of cabbage heads – and kings.”
As mentioned in the podcast:
Annabeth’s Playlist, His Name: Merlin
Check the comments for more fic recs
2022 Winter Olympics – Fic & Art Masterlist
Check out The List of Destiny to see where we ranked all Merlin episodes so far and write in for our Lessons Learnt game by Sunday midnight, the week after the episode airs.
Visit Poetry & Chicken to delight in our listener’s creative output.
We love hearing from listeners! Come talk to us on Twitter and Tumblr, or email us and please review us on iTunes.
If you wish to support us, you can do so from $1 a month via Patreon, or as a one off, by buying us a Ko-Fi or two. Thank you.
30th October 2023 @ 9:08 pm
I listened to the Destiny and Chicken towards the end of 2021 when I rewatched Merlin for the first time since I was a teen. I can’t believe I missed this episode! I couldn’t agree more with what you say in this final episode; yes, the show is dumb but it’s my dumb show and I love it.
I know I’m very late now but I also wanted to thank you. I really enjoyed your views and insight as I watched along and it added a lot to the experience for me. I look forward to following along in real time when you watch another show I love!
9th November 2023 @ 3:21 pm
oh wow, what a nice surprise, 2 years after you thought it was all over… like every time bradley james tweets about Merlin out of the blue, and we all get a little flutter, because we remember how much we like this dumb dumb show hahahaha
We’re so happy you enjoyed Destiny & Chicken, thank you so much for taking the time to let us know! And yes, hopefully we’ll cross paths on a future project, in real time 🙂
M Xx
5th March 2023 @ 7:43 pm
Hello!
I know I am very late, but I just want to leave some thoughts here.
I just fell back into BBC Merlin a few months ago, and only found out the surprisingly lively fandom and this awesome Podcast recently. I absolutely love Destiny and Chicken and I finish it within a month! Crazy, I should study harder. I really enjoyed listening to Ruth’s criticism on storytelling and Michelle’s funny episode summary. It’s hard to get bored in your conversation.
Sadly I missed all the discussion. I don’t want to write too much since it ended quite a while ago. However, I want to thank you for creating this wonderful Merlin Podcast. The analysis of the show was so explicit and interesting. There were many things that I felt the same, and was so happy that someone else not only pointed out but also explained specifically(eg. every time Gaius is the worst, the Goblin episode. ) . Also, there were many scenes that I vaguely remembered I disliked, and after listening to the podcast, I finally realised why. I also discovered some good scenes that I missed before. I feel that I understand the characters more now after listening all those moments in which they were written strange in the show for plot reasons. I’m a big fan of Arthur and Bradley James as well, so I couldn’t help smiling every time Michelle express her love for them.
Anyway, I had a great time enjoy the show and the podcast. Thank you very much!
14th March 2023 @ 2:55 pm
Hi Cynthia!
Within a month?? That is insanely impressive!!!
Ironically, I am one of the slowest podcast listeners in the world! There’s a number of podcasts that I actively follow and really enjoy, and try to listen to on my travel to and from work every day, and still I am about 47 episodes behind on each and every one of them! hahaha
Thank you so much for taking the time to write to us, and for your kind words. D&C may have ended a while ago, but hey, the show itself ended over 10 years ago, and we’re still crazy fond of it, so it’s never too late to message us about D&C or Merlin, especially when you’re saying such lovely things!! Especially that it’s hard to get bored in our conversation, which means a lot, and is always reassuring to hear, considering we DON’T EVER STOP TALKING!! LOL
Lots of love
Michelle Xx
22nd May 2022 @ 7:16 pm
Thank you so much for all you have done. It’s been an amazing journey.
5th July 2022 @ 3:44 pm
Thank you for taking the journey with us!!! <3
15th May 2022 @ 8:21 pm
I must say, this last little episode did make me a little sad. D&C was such a big part of my pandemic experience. And additionally to that it introduced me to the Merlin fandom and all its beauty. I’m so grateful for that and it was so much fun. Thank you for making this wonderful podcast and making me think so much more about Merlin. It brought me so much happiness. I will miss it. I already miss it.
On a different note, at the end of the episode you asked for ideas for what to talk about on thinky thoughts. I would love to hear your thoughts on our flag means death. Idk whether the fact that it isn’t available in the UK will negatively influence that, but I love that show so much and I think you would too!
5th July 2022 @ 3:50 pm
I could have sworn I responded to this, but maybe we’ve talked about OFMD somewhere else? hmmmm.
Anyway. I’ve got all of the first season one my laptop, but haven’t yet had a chance to watch it all. Plan is for me to test watch it and determine whether Ruth will be interested in watching it, as my current thinking is that pirates = definite YAY, however comedy/over the top silly = definite NAY, and I cannot tell yet how that balance plays out in that show, so will have to wait and see… but one day, I will have more than 5 minutes of brain space to watch this show and find out. one day…. oh, hopes and dreams! haha
M Xx
14th May 2022 @ 5:24 am
Thanks for this bookend episode! Bradley on D & C was definitely a silver lining of 2020. I guess my only burning question for that interview would have been ‘Did you really think Merlin ended on a high?’ Though to be honest, it’s not one I’d want answered! I remember that Bradley used to be up front about things in Merlin that could have been better, so I always found it strange that his reaction was that line, which I imagine was the official media statement adopted by all the cast/team back then. But I think enough time has passed that it’s probably wiser not to put out direct criticisms even if any of them initially felt it about the ending. Overall, your interview had this nice feeling of coming together to celebrate Merlin and making peace with whatever qualms any of us had. 🙂
On the non-swearing, I am curious, is this something you had to pass on to him or no one had any tendency to swear on that occasion? Because I certainly heard the occasional f-bomb in interviews from other cast members! Speaking of which…highly recommend the Eoin interview on ‘For the love of Merlin’ podcast.
I wonder if you guys will do a Thinky Thoughts on other things that the Merlin cast appear in? Some people might find some hidden gems to watch in that list. And some more fascinations and frustrations!
5th July 2022 @ 3:58 pm
— I guess my only burning question for that interview would have been ‘Did you really think Merlin ended on a high?’ Though to be honest, it’s not one I’d want answered!–
I completely completely agree. I think there’s a difference between ‘conversations I would like to have with him in a pub’ and ‘questions I would want to ask him on air, knowing it’s for “mass consumption”‘, and the ‘okay, what do you REALLY think of the ending of merlin’ is most definitely a pub conversation, not an on air conversation haha
And no, just like Bradley knowing that the podcast is spoiler free and running with that, he also didn’t swear of his own volition. Tough I’m not sure whether that was because he realised we don’t swear on the podcast from listening to it, or because he was on good PR manners.
It honestly wouldn’t even have occured to me to state it as a ‘Up front rule’ because we edit the podcasts, so cutting out an accidental swear is easy enough. And also sometimes saying ‘you can’t swear’ leads to more swearing… certainly that’s the case for me lol
As far as ‘up front rules’ go… see below. Sneak Peek Exclusive lol 😉
https://www.fascinationandfrustration.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bradley-SoundBite-Edited.mp3
–I wonder if you guys will do a Thinky Thoughts on other things that the Merlin cast appear in? Some people might find some hidden gems to watch in that list. And some more fascinations and frustrations!–
we’re definitely not against it, and now that we are back from holidays and had a bit of time to decompress we’ll also hopefully have the brain space to sit down and plan Thinky Thoughts properly for the rest of the year and early 2023. We’ll see what that brings! lol
17th August 2022 @ 2:13 pm
Aww thanks for the behind-the-scenes content 😀