What a great review of this series. SO far, I have only seen bad reviews (some of them were even posted here in the Netflix and streaming community on Steemit). The one thing in your review that caught my attention is the role of Floki from Vikings as Merlin. I didn't like him in Vikings (his personality), but he sure acted fabulously, so I guess he would be my main motivation for watching this if I ever decided to do so. However, there is so much else I'd rather watch, so I guess I will skip this for now!
Being in someone else's place, it would take me Cursed to understand a bit the story of the original work. The participation of the actor who plays Floki is very good, a little distant from what we would expect from Merlin but even so it is a great point in favor of this series. I highly recommend Vikings, it's great.