You like fantasy shows. There is a new and fairly expensive-looking swords-and-sorcery series now streaming.
Buuuuuut….
There is a catch. At least, there is for some.
The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is an adaptation of Stephen R. Lawhead’s bestselling novels which blend historical elements of post-Roman Britain with mythic tales of King Arthur and Merlin. The show’s trailer (below) shows a splashy production with plenty of action sequences. Executive producer Jeremy Boreing has said the production’s budget is seven figures per episode — eight figures overall for the first season — which makes it the most lavish production in his former company’s history.
That company: Right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire, which is best known for conservative podcasts such as The Ben Shapiro Show, though has also been making headway into film and TV production in recent years (most notably Matt Walsh’s hot-button documentaries, 2022’s What Is a Woman? and 2024’s Am I Racist?).
Daily Wire released The Pendragon Cycle‘s first two episodes last week. So far, major media outlets have seemingly declined to review the series (the documentaries were likewise largely ignored by major outlets). The show’s Rotten Tomatoes audience score, based on a modest number of reviews so far, is 88 percent.
Efforts to rally viewers against a show or movie for strictly political reasons — particularly reasons that have nothing to do with the content itself — typically fail so long as the content itself is of high quality. Most viewers are fairly pragmatic (perhaps even ideologically apathetic) when it comes to their viewing choices.
In the case of The Pendragon Cycle, however, watching the seven-episode season also means subscribing to DailyWire+, which for some is a bridge too far.
“If Amazon picked up [Lawhead’s novels], I’d cheer,” wrote one commentator amid a debate on Reddit about the show. “But The Daily Wire, the propaganda organization, making this means it will automatically be something I wouldn’t touch with a 100 foot pole. I’m not shocked Lawhead took their money, but I’m sad.”
“I get separating the art and artist, but actively supporting the Daily f–king Wire just to watch the most generic looking fantasy project of all time is beyond the pale,” chimed another.
“I’ve never been able to more easily dismiss someone’s opinion than seeing someone say, ‘Hey, you should watch this show on the Daily Wire,’” said a third.
While another just wrote: “Do not pay those losers.”
Boreing — who co-founded The Daily Wire but parted with the company last year — has described the series as “probably the most Christian piece of mainstream entertainment since Braveheart, but it is not a piece of Christian entertainment.”
He also says Daily Wire attempted to get the show mainstream distribution before deciding to release it as a Daily Wire exclusive, telling Deadline: “It was a completely different scale to things we had done before so we wanted maximum eyeballs on it. We went out with it and we got a lot of really great feedback from a lot of places that probably don’t care much for our politics. In the end, we weren’t able to make a deal on the show, but having read a lot of the feedback from various streamers, there were a lot of compliments for what we accomplished.”
Below are a sample of some of the (mostly) raves on Rotten Tomatoes:
“I thought this was just as fascinating as Game of Thrones. I loved the storyline and characters. I also enjoyed that Christianity played a role in a time and place where it naturally would.”
“I had not heard of The Pendragon Cycle before so I am grateful for something new and captivating. Yes, this series has a Christian vibe in it for sure but it does not hit you on your head with the Good Book.”
“I am absolutely enjoying the show and its production quality is excellent. For the record, I am a serious Christian and I think the Christian elements of the show are a bit too on the nose and could have been handled in a more subtle way.”
“Had big hopes for Daily Wire+ and Ben being a producer here. I love this genre but it has some big shoes to fill, with GOT, Hobbit etc … I thought it was gorgeous to the eye but that was it. Acting was OK, but the writing was terrible. Maybe, I’ve been spoon-fed my entertainment for too long but I couldn’t really get into the story at all.”
