There's something fascinating happening in the television landscape right now, and it centers around a project that hasn't even hit screens yet. The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is scheduled to premiere on January 22, 2026 on DailyWire+, and despite the fact that we're still months away from its debut, the show is already generating considerable conversation—much of it passionate, some of it skeptical, and all of it intriguing.
The premise alone is enough to capture attention: this isn't your standard Arthurian legend retelling. Instead of the familiar medieval setting we've grown accustomed to, the series will explore the King Arthur mythology in Roman-occupied Britain, where the threat of barbarian invasion looms over everything. It's a creative reframing that immediately distinguishes it from decades of Excalibur adaptations and BBC's Merlin knockoffs. The creative team behind this ambitious vision—Jeremy Boreing and Stephen R. Lawhead—brings both commercial sensibility and literary credibility to the project, which is a combination worth paying attention to.
A bard and a princess defy gods and destiny—igniting a legend from the ashes of Atlantis.
That's the promise, and it's deliberately grandiose. There's mythology woven into the very DNA of this story, which suggests the showrunners aren't interested in grounded, gritty realism. They're going for something mythic and sweeping—the kind of storytelling that demands scale and spectacle.
What's particularly intriguing is how the show is positioning itself across multiple genres simultaneously. Listed as Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Family, and Drama, it's attempting to be something for multiple audiences:
- The Action & Adventure appeal attracts viewers looking for epic battles and intrigue
- The Family designation suggests it's crafted with broader audiences in mind, not just the prestige-drama crowd
- The Sci-Fi element hints at something unconventional lurking beneath the fantasy surface
- The Drama framework anchors the mythological spectacle in character-driven storytelling
- This multi-genre approach is either brilliantly ambitious or creatively confused—and that ambiguity is part of what makes anticipation for the premiere so compelling.
The first season will consist of 7 episodes with unknown runtimes, which itself is an interesting creative choice. Traditional episode lengths often dictate pacing, but with flexibility on runtime, there's potential for the storytelling to breathe when needed or accelerate when the narrative demands it. This could allow for more organic storytelling rather than fitting plot points into predetermined time slots. Or, conversely, it could signal a certain flexibility in the production's post-production approach.
Jeremy Boreing, known for his work with The Daily Wire and other media ventures, brings a particular sensibility to content creation—direct, unapologetic, and designed to spark conversation. Stephen R. Lawhead, on the other hand, is a novelist with actual fantasy credentials, having written extensively in the Arthurian and Celtic fantasy spaces. That partnership between someone rooted in the publishing world and someone embedded in digital media could produce something genuinely distinctive.
The fact that The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is already designated a returning series before it's even premiered speaks to the confidence—or at least the intentions—of DailyWire+. They're clearly planning for this to be a long-term property, which means the first season isn't just meant to tell a contained story. It's meant to establish a world and mythology substantial enough to sustain multiple seasons. That's a bold bet when you're working with an untested adaptation and a new streaming platform still building its original content library.
It's worth noting the elephant in the room: the show currently carries a 0.0/10 rating on certain platforms, despite not having premiered yet. This reveals something interesting about contemporary media discourse. Before a single frame airs, before audiences can actually judge the quality of performances, direction, writing, and cinematography, the show has already become polarizing. Whether that's a reflection of cultural anxieties around who's making the show, what it represents, or simply the nature of discourse around high-profile fantasy adaptations remains to be seen.
What's clear is that January 22, 2026, will either validate or complicate all these pre-release conversations.
The real question—the one that will matter when people can actually watch it—is whether Boreing and Lawhead have created something that transcends the debate and simply works as television. Can they balance the mythic grandeur with intimate character drama? Can they make a Roman-occupied Britain feel like an authentic setting for Arthurian legend? Can they justify the sci-fi elements in a way that enhances rather than complicates the story?
The seven-episode season structure suggests they're committing to quality over quantity, at least initially. There's no bloat here, no stretching narrative across unnecessary episodes. If each installment lands, this could be lean and devastating television.
When the show finally premieres on DailyWire+, it will arrive into a television landscape hungry for fantasy storytelling that takes itself seriously—but also skeptical of remixes of familiar legends. The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin will need to prove it's not just recycling the past but reimagining it for contemporary audiences with something genuinely new to say.
That's the real story worth following: not the pre-premiere controversy or speculation, but whether a creative team with ambitious vision can deliver on the promise of legend. January 22, 2026, will tell us whether we're dealing with inspired reinvention or a cautionary tale about overstretching artistic reach.
- Either way, it will definitely be worth watching.
