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Snubbed King Arthur Series Finds New Life on Prime

By Jennifer Asencio
| Updated

The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin premiered back in January on Daily Wire+, but it’s finally getting the wider exposure it deserves after arriving on Prime Video internationally. Between the fact that the streamer is mostly news and podcasts aimed at a target audience, and the fact that it is full of controversial personalities, critics ignored the show, and as of this writing, it still has no critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Many people who dislike both Daily Wire and the show’s creator, Jeremy Boreing, used this as an excuse to claim the show was a failure.

The fact is, The Pendragon Cycle is actually a very good show. I reviewed the entire series, and the series averaged a 4.5 based on strong performances, an incredible script that balanced action, intrigue, drama, and humor, and high production values that included beautiful sets and practical special effects. I’ve also gotten to talk to some of the cast, including Steve Varnom (King Custennin in episodes 5 and 7) and Tom Sharp (who played Merlin himself).

The Pendragon Cycle

I’ve also made it very clear that I went into the show skeptical of its merits and expecting a bomb. Given that Boreing himself described the show as “probably the most Christian piece of entertainment since Braveheart,” I expected the show to be laden with patriarchal messaging and heavy-handed preaching.

So it was with pleasant surprise that I wound up viewing a show that had realistic, feminine women who were also strong and powerful in their own ways, and that treated religion with only as much bias as the story required. In other words, I expected to see everything that made other critics snub the show but was rewarded with a series that could easily compete with shows like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms or Rings of Power for fantasy dominance, if it were given a chance.

Overlooked, Award-Winning Performances

The Pendragon Cycle

Now, the show is finally getting its due. First, episode 3 actor Colin Cunningham, who played King Vortigern, won a British Columbia Leo Award, similar to a Golden Globe, for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series. Then The Pendragon Cycle was released on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Given that much of the original legend, which Stephen R. Lawhead relied on to write the books the series is based on, has a lot of European roots and deals directly with the “Once and Future King” of England, the audiences there have a stake in the story the show portrays. The show premiered fourth in the UK, and top 10 in several European countries, including Spain and Portugal.

Potential Fans Can See For Themselves

This is exciting news for this great show, because it means it has been opened up to a wider audience. To top it off, Steve Varnom made this post on July 11, 2026:

With The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin finally coming to a major streaming service, it will be interesting to see if critics finally bother to review it, and whether they judge it based on its merits or its makers. However, they can no longer tell audiences what to think of it anymore, because viewers will be able to see for themselves how great this show really turned out to be. One claim that was made about the show was that there was no way to measure viewership, but that it wasn’t very high. Now that it has been widely viewed all over Europe, real metrics will begin to surface and reflect the show’s true audience interest.

This is also good news for fans who are clamoring for a second season. If the show gets enough viewers to justify a second season, it is almost certain that Jeremy Boreing will find a way to continue his passion project. The show was always meant to be a huge success for Boreing, but his status as founder of Daily Wire seemed to outweigh the work he and the rest of the crew put into the show. Now that the show is out there for all to see, the possibility of more fans and a more accurate reception could set the stage for his work to continue.

The Pendragon Cycle

It is good that The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is finally getting the exposure it deserves. Hopefully it will see the same success in the United States as it did in Merlin’s homeland.

Stay tuned for release details.


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Entertainment

Time for a new smartwatch? Snag the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for 51% off ahead of Samsung Unpacked.

SAVE $280: As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s a discount of 51%.


$269.99
at Amazon

$549.99
Save $280

 

If you’re looking to kit your wrist out with a new smartwatch, now’s a great time to do so. Samsung is on the verge of debuting several new models, and that means the old ones are going down in price. Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which you can get for an excellent discount right now if you don’t want to wait for the new crop of devices.

As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s $280 off and a discount of 51%.

This classy smartwatch opts to keep things traditional while offering a variety of modern features that you’ll appreciate. That includes a bright, easy-to-read display, a rotating bezel you use to select apps and navigate menus, and several health-tracking abilities so you can stay on top of what’s happening with your body and fitness at all times.

From a heart rate and sleep score monitor to a daily Energy Score calculated from your heart rate, sleep, activity, and rest this watch can make sure you’re ready for the day in all the ways that count. It can also be used to help track blood pressure.

Beyond all its health-centric features, this is a great smartwatch for day-to-day functionality and staying on top of your schedule. It has a built-in AI assistant as well as the option to use voice commands to navigate, which means you never have to use your hand to get things done if you don’t want to.

If you’re ready to debut a new smartwatch without breaking the bank, now’s a good time to buy in.

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The Latest Poster For Avengers: Doomsday Secretly Spoils The Plot

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

With less than five months left until the film’s release, Marvel has taken their marketing for Avengers: Doomsday to the next level. Right now, fans are mostly focused on the trailer that dropped today, which is no surprise; after all, it’s not every day that you see the reunion of Thor and Steve Rogers or, for that matter, a battle between Shang-Chi and Gambit. Amid all the breathless hype over the trailer, however, a more powerful advertisement is lurking in plain sight. At the same time Marvel launched the trailer, they also released a new Avengers: Doomsday poster.

Compared to that crowded character poster, the new poster is downright subdued. It features Doctor Doom staring at a huge tapestry with a broken world and two characters: a woman and a boy. Some comics fans think this image is Doom and his mother, a character who is eventually damned to Hell. However, other fans are convinced that this is actually an image of Doom’s wife and child; if true, this would effectively ruin the biggest plot twist. How does it do that? If you don’t mind some potential spoilers for this year’s biggest film, just keep reading!

You Can’t Spell “Painting” Without “Pain”

So, let’s start this story in reverse (just don’t let the TVA get me!): why do some fans think the woman in this poster is Doctor Doom’s mother? In the comics, she’s a big deal. To defeat an evil dictator who was ruling her country with an iron fist (an actual fist, not the kung-fu guy), she made a deal with the devil. As usual, the deal went wrong, and she lost control of the powers that she gained from Mephisto. She renounced those powers, got killed, and was then dragged into Hell. To see her again, Doom later mastered magic, visited Mephisto, and conducted an experiment that ruined his own face.  

However, all of the lore behind this origin story is too dense to fit into Avengers: Doomsday, a movie which is already crowded with endless character cameos. It seems the movie is taking a different direction, as multiple reports have claimed that the two figures are actually Doom’s wife and child. An unconfirmed leak of the movie’s plot (don’t say I didn’t warn you about spoilers, kids!) claims that Doom actually lost his family to one of the incursions, which is when one reality collides with another. This motivates Doom to learn more about the incursions and to plot his revenge.

A Hero Will Be Broken

Revenge against whom, you ask? According to the leaked plot, Steve Rogers! Reportedly, Loki visits the former Captain America in the past and warns him that the TVA will prune his entire timeline because he’s not supposed to be there. In an act of seeming kindness, Loki brings Cap, Peggy, and their young son to the Fantastic Four’s universe. However, the leak claims that Steve’s presence in this universe somehow triggers an incursion and that Doom disfigured himself and killed his own wife and son trying to stop it. In a shocking twist, Doom reportedly kills Steve’s son in front of the hero in an act of vengeance.

Now, again, all of this comes from a leaked plot summary that hasn’t been confirmed, so all of this could be an Ego-sized bottle of hogwash. But it’s worth noting that the Avengers: Doomsday teasers last year prominently focused on both Captain America and Thor becoming fathers. This potentially adds credence to the idea that this is a film about family and how far someone will go to protect the ones they love. If the leaks are true, this innocuous poster featuring Doctor Doom is spoiling the motivation the villain will have to cross time and space and cross countless moral event horizons along the way.

A movie where costumed vigilantes (like Batman, Spider-Man, and so many more) are driven by the ghosts of family members they lost when they were children? Well, nobody ever accused Marvel of being all that original!


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The Best Horror Series Ever Made Is Now Streaming For Free 

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

My absolute favorite kind of movie is the anthology. When you have a collection of short films all rolled into one, it provides the ultimate ROI for the audience. Don’t like one of the stories? You can just thug it out with the short runtime or skip ahead to the next tale. Either way is infinitely preferable to slogging through a two-hour film that started boring you to tears in the first scene. The anthology is much rarer in television, however, because networks and streamers have learned just how attached fans get to the same characters and stories, causing them to run these shows into the ground.

Heroes, Stranger Things, Star Trek: Discovery…what do all of these shows have in common? They were designed to be anthologies that would change things up each season, but their early success meant we were stuck with the same cast for years as the show got worse. Fortunately, true anthology lovers are just a click away from getting their fix. Right now, Tales From the Crypt is streaming for free on Tubi, just waiting to delight all you ghouls and boys. It’s not just the perfect anthology show; it is, in fact, the greatest horror series ever made!

Meet The Cryptkeeper

Tales From the Crypt fully embraces its anthology format, with every single episode focusing on different characters and different terrifying tales. What ties all of them together is our host, the Cryptkeeper. He’s a snarky, hilariously mean corpse of a character brought to life by a small army of puppeteers. The show originated on HBO, and its creators embraced the fact that it didn’t have to abide by any of the restrictive standards of network television. As such, episodes were filled to the brim with vulgar language, nudity, sex, and more buckets of blood than you can shake a bodybag at.

Younger horror fans should know that it’s almost impossible to overstate the popularity of Tales From the Crypt and its ghoulish host. Despite all the blood, breasts, and beasts, the show was wildly popular with kids, including my own underage self. Accordingly, it got two spinoffs aimed directly at children: Tales From the Cryptkeeper (a Saturday Morning children’s cartoon) and Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House (a weird gameshow). If that seems odd, this was during the same time that Kenner marketed toys based on Terminator 2 and Aliens directly to kids. What can I say? The ‘90s were weird, man!

Friends In Low Places

One compelling reason to check out Tales From the Crypt is that it had plenty of awesome guest stars, all of whom were happy to do an episode without being tied down to a long contract. Guests included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Michael J. Fox, Tom Hanks, and so many more. In most cases, these actors are performing against type, making what happens to them onscreen that much more shocking. Trust me: if you only know actors like Robert Picardo and Wil Wheaton from Star Trek, you’ll never look at them the same way after watching Tales From the Crypt.

For me, though, the single best thing about Tales From the Crypt is the show’s wicked sense of humor. With his relentless puns, wild expressions, and unhinged laughter, the Cryptkeeper sets the tone for a show that has black comedy running through its veins at all times. This adds serious entertainment value and also helps position the show as a light (but filling) bite for horror fans. Not in the mood for elevated horror and don’t have the time for a two-hour psychological thriller? You can always count on Tales From the Crypt to deliver a perfect slice of scary entertainment in under 30 minutes.

There’s not much more to say, especially without spoiling these awesome episodes. Ready to see if this early HBO success story lives up to the hype? Maybe you want to laugh and scream in equal measure, or just write down some weird new puns with which to torment your children? Whatever your reason, the best horror series ever made is just a click away. Tales From the Crypt is currently streaming for free on Tubi, which is arguably the best platform for any boils and ghouls who love a good scare!

TALES FROM THE CRYPT REVIEW SCORE


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