The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin just cracked Amazon Prime Video’s Top 10 Overall in the United States, landing at #1 in Fantasy TV, #3 in Drama TV, and #6 across All TV Series in its debut week on the platform. Executive producer Jeremy Boreing announced the milestone directly: “Top Ten Overall! A huge victory for The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin which is now in the Top Ten Overall on Prime Video US!” He followed with the full chart breakdown: “The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin has broken into the Top 10 TV Shows in the US on Prime Video. #1 in Fantasy TV #3 in Drama TV #6 in All TV Series A huge first week, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Thank you to everyone enjoying the show.”
Rise of the Merlin is Daily Wire’s most ambitious production to date, a seven-episode adaptation of Stephen R. Lawhead’s acclaimed Pendragon Cycle novels, premiering January 22, 2026 on DailyWire+ before its international Prime Video rollout. Executive producer Boreing wrote and directed much of it himself, taking a leave from his role at the top of the company to make it happen. The show reimagines the Arthurian legend not in the familiar medieval setting most adaptations reach for, but in Roman-occupied Britain during the fourth through sixth centuries, the era when Christianity was actively spreading through the British Isles and colliding with the island’s pagan traditions. Merlin’s father Taliesin becomes a convert early in the story; Merlin himself later channels divine power to help unite the Britons against the Saxons.
The show wears its faith openly. As Boreing’s colleague Ben Sonnier described it before launch, the series represents “the intersection of great art and Christian values,” with a version of Merlin who “cares more about his country and the future of mankind than he does for his own safety and security” and is “willing to risk his entire life in order to make sure that God reigns sovereign over the land.” Plugged In’s review noted Taliesin becomes the island’s “most passionate evangelist” almost immediately after receiving his vision, telling another character, “Wherever I came from, it was for this purpose. To know Him and proclaim Him.” Catholic World Report’s review went further, calling it not just a Daily Wire production with religious themes but one built on a genuine theological conviction: “The Christians, however, recognize that new life is precious to God... God values the innocent and would never command a child be sacrificed in His name.”
That same review called Rise of the Merlin the first Daily Wire production that “could easily compete with Netflix, HBO, or CBS in quality,” pointing to top-tier cinematography, art direction, and costuming shot deep in the forests of Hungary, alongside writing and acting that leaned into the formal, old-fantasy register the source material demanded. Hollywood in Toto’s review put it even more directly: “With apologies to HBO... it’s not TV. It’s The Daily Wire,” calling the show “an unabashed win on several fronts” after the first two episodes. A Rambling Ever On review from a longtime Lawhead reader, someone who called the Pendragon Cycle their favorite book series outside The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, put it plainly after finishing all seven episodes: “I’m shocked by how good it was. Far and away the best thing I’ve seen come out of Daily Wire.”
For months, that praise reached a genuinely limited audience. DailyWire+ is a subscription service built primarily around political commentary and podcasts, not scripted drama, and most fantasy viewers had no reason to sign up just to watch it. The show still found real traction once Prime Video picked it up internationally earlier this year, climbing to Top 3 in the UK and Ireland and Top 4 in Spain, all without American audiences able to access it at all. That changed September 1, when Rise of the Merlin finally launched on Prime Video in the US, the single largest English-speaking streaming market in the world, on a platform millions of people already pay for with zero subscription barrier standing between them and the show.
The results speak for themselves. A Top 10 Overall debut, the #1 spot in Fantasy TV, and a #3 finish in Drama TV in its first week on American Prime Video is a real, measurable win for a show that spent eight months proving its quality almost entirely overseas. Daily Wire set out to prove big-budget fantasy television doesn’t need Game of Thrones’ playbook of gratuitous content to succeed, and now, with the largest streaming audience in the world finally able to watch it, the numbers are backing that claim up.
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