Entertainment
How Star Trek Was Destroyed: The Full History Of Its Modern Ruination
By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Star Trek has never been at a lower point. The franchise’s last batch of shows received almost no ratings, and the brand’s total mismanagement became so bad that it drove away existing Trekkies while failing to attract any new viewers.
With no clear plan to turn it around, Star Trek has been shut down. It’s done. It’s finished. There’s nothing new in production, and there aren’t firm plans to make anything more. Paramount has torn down all its existing sets, and they’re currently auctioning off the Discovery-verse props to the highest bidders, and there aren’t many bidders.
Star Trek has been in a place where there’s nothing new coming before; in fact, it’s happened twice previously in the franchise’s history. But this time it’s different. Those previous Star Trek dark periods happened because of either Hollywood underestimating its potential or a cooling fan interest.
Star Trek enters this new dark age, drowning in hatred and indifference. Trekkies are so burned they’re now happy to see it go, convinced that no Star Trek at all is better than watching their favorite thing ruined over and over and over again. Things got that bad. It means getting out of this mess, if Star Trek ever does, will be harder than ever.
What happened? What went wrong? More than a year ago, we tried to find the answer, but since then, things have gotten so, so much worse. Our warnings weren’t heeded, and now the end times are here.
To find out how Trek can get out of this darkest of all timelines, we’re going to have to take some risks. Luckily, risk is our business. What follows is the full and complete history of how Star Trek self-destructed.
All Of This Has Happened Before
To find the answers we need, we’ll need to visit the Guardian of Forever and peer deep into Star Trek’s past. The year is 2017. Star Trek had been off television for 12 years. The last Trek release, Star Trek: Beyond, turned out to be a box-office disappointment.
Paramount devised a bold new plan to revitalize Star Trek with a prequel series.
Oh, wait, they’d just done that. The entire 2009 Star Trek movie franchise was a prequel.
But that was on the big screen; this time, it would be different. This time it wasn’t a movie, it was a television series.
Oh, wait, they already did that, too. It was called Enterprise, and Paramount pulled the plug on that show after four seasons.
That very recent past somehow totally forgotten, Paramount moved forward with another prequel, their third attempt in a row at making a Star Trek prequel happen. The focus of the plan was that it serve as a flagship show for their new streaming service, CBS All Access.
Oh, wait, they’d already tried that, too. When Paramount launched its own television network in the 1990s, it created Star Trek: Voyager to serve as its flagship program. The UPN network ceased broadcasting in 2005.
Third, and I guess also second, time was not the charm. These obviously stupid decisions began the worst chapter in Star Trek’s history: The Disco era.
Star Trek Enters The Disco Era With Brian Fuller
The Disco era of Star Trek did not actually begin in the era of disco, the ‘70s, no matter what Bones’ outfit from The Motion Picture might have you believe. The Disco era began with the debut of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017. It ended, spiritually at least, with the cancellation of Starfleet Academy in 2026, a television show widely agreed to be one of the worst things ever made.
Discovery was created by a man named Brian Fuller. Fuller was a well-known television writer and producer. He’d written for both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager in the 90s. Since then, he’d established himself as a much sought-after talent, creating critically acclaimed series like Pushing Daisies and Hannibal.
Fuller had the right resume, and so, Paramount hired him to create a new Star Trek series. His initial pitch was for an anthology series, with “diversity” as a focus, and a dark, gritty tone inspired by Game of Thrones.
That’s right, Brian Fuller wanted to turn Gene Roddenberry’s bright and hopeful view of the future into dark, gritty, and violent Game of Thrones.
Fuller worked on the show for 9 months. His tenure was marked by missed deadlines and ever-expanding budgets. Paramount clashed with him over his desire to reboot Star Trek into a gritty Game of Thrones knockoff. The company wanted its brand to stick with the traditions that made Star Trek work, and Fuller wanted to warp it into something entirely different.
Eventually, Paramount grew fed up with Fuller and fired him.
Fuller’s Ghost Pushes Star Trek: Discovery Forward
Aside from the fact that no lessons were learned from their previous failures, Paramount had up til this point made at least some reasonable decisions on this project that, probably never should have happened in the first place. Hiring Fuller didn’t work out, but on paper, it should have. And when Fuller failed, Paramount made another good decision by firing him. Paramount’s good decisions stop here.
They replaced Fuller with Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts. Berg & Harberts were Fuller’s people. They’d worked with him on past projects and were already helping him make Discovery. The ideas Fuller was implementing, the terrible ideas that got him fired, were also their ideas. So they stayed the course and kept working on their Game of Thrones-ification of Star Trek.
Eventually, Berg & Harberts were also fired, amidst accusations of abuse towards the show’s writers.
Alex Kurtzman Seizes Control Of Star Trek
Alex Kurtzman was put in Berg & Harbert’s place. Kurtzman was the man most responsible for the worst of the recent Star Trek movies, Star Trek: Into Darkness. He now held the future of the entire franchise in his hands. He would remain in charge not just of Discovery, but of the entire Star Trek franchise, throughout the Disco era.
By then, production on Star Trek: Discovery was pretty far along. Kurtzman made tweaks to satisfy some of Paramount’s concerns, but much of what the show would be was already written in stone.
Discovery was the most expensive series Star Trek ever produced. Paramount could have trashed it and taken a tax write-off, but that’s tough to do with so much money on the line. So they released it.
Star Trek: Discovery Arrives On Streaming And Gets Quarantined
Star Trek: Discovery was poorly received by fans from the beginning. Critics initially praised it, but critics rarely watch shows beyond the first one or two episodes. They ignore it after that, which makes their reviews meaningless.
Reports of Discovery’s ratings were vague and unreliable. Most indications were that after an initially strong showing, people began abandoning the show.
Paramount took note and tried making big changes for season 2. They brought in Anson Mount to play Christopher Pike, and Mount was fantastic.
Unfortunately, the rest of the show was still the show it was always designed to be. Adding one good character to a terrible show cannot save it.
Stuck with a show no one liked, Paramount did the only thing they could do besides cancel it: They quarantined the entire series, separating it from the rest of Star Trek. They did that by time-jumping Star Trek: Discovery so far into the future that nothing it did could have any further impact on the franchise.
Strange New Worlds Rights Discovery’s Wrongs
Then, they created a spinoff called Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for Pike to rescue him from Discovery’s sinking ship. Though his new series was technically an extension of the Disco-verse, it quickly went to work differentiating itself from Discovery and the mistakes it had made. Strange New Worlds even fixed the Klingons.
That new direction should have been it for the Disco era. The franchise forked away from it; Paramount was working on other Star Trek shows. Discovery limped onward but was soon canceled after five seasons of disinterest
But as Discovery was canceled, Strange New Worlds soon morphed into something different.
Strange New Worlds Becomes A Vaudeville Act For Theater Kids
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 was a distinct decline in quality from season one. By season three, the show had become a vaudeville act for theater kids, filled with musical episodes, puppet episodes, and endless silliness, which had nothing to do with Star Trek.
Paramount finally had enough. With season 3 still airing and two more seasons completed and awaiting airtime, Paramount pulled the plug. The remaining two seasons would eventually be allowed to stream because they’d already been completed, but the sets were torn down and thrown in the trash.
Michelle Yeoh Wins An Oscar And Changes Everything
Amidst all of this, Alex Kurtzman had been trying to make a Star Trek: Section 31 spinoff since the first season of Discovery. His plan centered on a widely disliked Star Trek: Discovery character, played by actress Michelle Yeoh.
Fans hated the idea, and no one at Paramount seemed particularly excited about it. They prioritized Strange New Worlds over it, and while a Section 31 series was announced, it never went into full production. Kurtzman’s last update stated clearly that Section 31 was now a very low priority.
And then, in March of 2023, Michelle Yeoh won an Oscar.
In April of 2023, Star Trek: Section 31 went into full production as a full-length feature film. Oscar-winning tends to have that effect.
The Worst Star Trek Movie
In January of 2025, Star Trek: Section 31 arrived as a direct-to-streaming movie on Paramount+. It was the first Star Trek movie released in nearly a decade. It’s now the worst-reviewed movie in the entire Star Trek canon, and audiences have given it an appalling 15% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Star Trek: Section 31 begins when a spitwad flies across the screen, tracing the shape of the Starfleet logo. Viewers would later learn that Spitwad is actually the movie’s hero ship, but that knowledge doesn’t make it any better.
The movie revolves around Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa character, a woman responsible for numerous acts of genocide, and she’s not sorry about any of it. The movie quickly confirms her status as a monster with a flashback, in which she exterminates her entire family for a job promotion, where she’ll get to spend decades committing galactic massacres and torturing the man she loves for fun. This murderous abomination is Philippa Georgiou, played by Michelle Yeoh on Star Trek: Discovery.
Star Trek Endorses Genocide And Cannibalism
The movie flashes forward to a present where she runs a floating space bar. We’re reintroduced to her while the soundtrack blasts badass chick rock music to clue the audience in on the notion that we’re supposed to think she’s really, really awesome, despite being an unapologetic slaughterer of innocents.
Then Georgiou pops a human eyeball into her mouth and savors its taste as the music swells and the camera swirls around her in adoration. Yes, Star Trek: Section 31 is selling the idea of cannibalistic mass murder being super cool, as long as it’s done in high heels. It’s the entire premise of this film.
Hooray for space Hitler?
There are other characters in Section 31, but they’re no better. The super cool Section 31 spy team engages in introductions by shouting at each other, making threats, and posing for the camera. Like Georgiou, they’re also mostly serial killers, and they’re all pretty upset they aren’t able to do more killing.
Luckily, this mission to do a thing takes place in the exact same space bar they’re already standing in. Paramount didn’t need to build any other sets for their heist. What a financially fortuitous coincidence.
There’s a confusing fistfight in front of a bad green screen rendering of a blurry tunnel. A murder mystery that no one cares about. A robot gets incapacitated by being kneed in the crotch. Star Trek: Section 31 ends when Phillipa Georgiou genocides an entire universe on suspicion of possible mischief and then tells her team she’s going to kill them.
If you still have doubts about the quality of Star Trek: Section 31’s writing, please enjoy this actual line of dialogue from the movie: “She died like she lived. By that you know what I mean.”
Alex Kurtzman Solidifies Star Trek As A Franchise For Criminals With Starfleet Academy
Using Star Trek to glorify atrocities while offering up a light endorsement of cannibalism in a movie everyone hated and no one watched should have ended the career of Alex Kurtzman and prompted a pause for self-reflection. That didn’t happen.
At the same time, he’d been pushing for this terrible Section 31 movie, Alex Kurtzman’s other pet project was a show set at Starfleet Academy. This idea had been kicking around for a long time as a way to get hot, young people on screen posing for the camera. Obviously, it’s a terrible idea; fans never liked it or wanted it. Which is why it never happened. With the failures stacking up, some coke fiend at Paramount said, ‘Why not?’ and Kurtzman made it.
Starfleet Academy begins with a hero character who is a criminal. It’s the second NuTrek series to be led by a criminal, and the third time a Star Trek project has been centered around a lawbreaker.
A criminal past was Michael Burnham’s introduction, too, on Star Trek: Discovery.
The 2009 Star Trek movie begins with a young James T. Kirk being arrested for stealing a car.
In the future, all the best people will be criminals, I guess? No more high-achieving, hardworking professionals. Something to aspire to, kids.
40,000 Viewers Per Episode Ends Star Trek
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy would go on to be the most hated thing in the history of the franchise. You might think otherwise, since Kurtzman did manage to convince critics to give it good reviews by stuffing every episode with woke political propaganda. Critics love that stuff and will praise it any time they see it.
Objective viewers and anyone who likes good writing hated it. The show has some of the lowest audience scores of any series in history. Some reports have Starfleet Academy’s viewership as low as 40,000 tune-ins per episode. For a Star Trek show. Paramount’s flagship Star Trek show.
Starfleet Academy was humiliation on an epic scale. Despite the fact that a second season had already been filmed, Paramount quickly waved the white flag and canceled Starfleet Academy, too.
No Lessons Were Learned
As of this moment, that’s the end. The end of Star Trek. There’s been some vague talk from Paramount that they’re exploring ideas, but for now, they aren’t making it anymore. It’s also the final legacy of Star Trek’s Disco era. The destruction of everything Star Trek fans loved. The destruction of a franchise 50 years in the making.
Along the way, no lessons were ever learned. Instead, mistakes were repeated over and over and over again.
Did your show about a criminal fail? Make another one.
Did your prequel fail? Make another one.
Did your network fail? Make another one.
Rejecting Good Ideas Along The Way
It didn’t have to be this way. Even after Fuller’s initial Discovery plans failed, Paramount had ways to correct course.
Developing in parallel with the Disco-verse was a Star Trek animated series called Lower Decks, helmed by Rick & Morty alum Mike McMahan. The show he created was a huge success, and it had nothing at all to do with the Disco-verse. Paramount rewarded McMahan’s success by canceling the show after five seasons and firing him.
There was also Star Trek: Prodigy, an animated series for kids, which was so beloved that fans basically forced Paramount to give it another season with a letter-writing campaign. Paramount gave in and allowed more of the show, but only begrudgingly. They didn’t put it on their streaming app, opting instead to let Netflix have it to defer costs.
Tangential to the Disco-verse was the Picard-verse, a series vanity project developed around Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard character. The show was a standard Alex Kurtzman disaster for two seasons until the third, when Paramount turned the whole thing over to veteran TV showrunner and legit Star Trek fan, Terry Matalas.
Indications are that Kurtzman wasn’t involved in making the third season, occupied with filming his pet projects, instead. That allowed Matalas to run with it and make Picard season 3 a tribute to the thing he loved most: Actual Star Trek.
Terry jettisoned everything the series had done previously, started over, and, in the process, delivered the best Star Trek season of the modern Trek era. Fans loved it. Audience scores were through the roof.
Matalas lobbied to be given more work, pitching a spinoff series called Star Trek: Legacy. Fans launched petitions to support him, trying to convince Paramount to hand the entire franchise over.
But Kurtzman was still firmly in charge, and if I had to guess, probably jealous over the response Matalas was getting, in comparison to the way people were deservedly shitting on him. So, he responded to that outpouring of support by firing Matalas.
Why Star Trek Failed
That’s the current state of Star Trek. It’s dead. There are two more seasons of Strange New Worlds in the can to release, and maybe Paramount will also still release that completed second season of Starfleet Academy, but that’s it, and those last few dribbles are likely to do more harm than good since basically everyone hates all of it.
Ok, sure, the .001% of humans who spent their formative years as theater kids may like it. But is that really a demographic worth pursuing? It’s like five people, and four of them are named Skylar.
I get the impulse. The entertainment industry actually is run by theater types. By actors and drama dorks who actually really were theater kids. But that’s not who their audience is. That’s not who they’re making shows for.
Star Trek is supposed to be for people who like Star Trek, and instead of making that, Paramount got a bunch of theater kids together and let them turn Star Trek into something for themselves. It’s next-level narcissism. Rot from the inside. The antithesis of everything that the entertainment industry is supposed to be about.
Your job as a creative is to think outside yourself, to think beyond you to something bigger, greater, and more noble. What you create should be informed by your experiences, not imprisoned by them.
That’s what Star Trek is now: A prison. Let me out!
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Adventure stories go way back. We’re talking centuries, or even millennia. Long before fantasy epics, spy thrillers, and action blockbusters dominated popular culture, readers were captivated by tales of daring voyages, hidden treasure, dangerous quests, and journeys into the unknown.
With that in mind, this list looks back at the greatest adventure books ever written, the ones that truly built the genre into what it is today. From 17th-century classics to more modern bangers, these tales have come to define what adventure should be. They span a range of styles and tones, but all offer entertaining plots, memorable characters, and a sheer sense of unadulterated excitement at venturing into the unknown.
10
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
“I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side.” Robinson Crusoe remains surprisingly readable for a novel that’s over 300 years old. The title character is stranded on a deserted island following a shipwreck, where he must draw on all his resourcefulness to make it out alive. It’s one of the most influential adventure books, introducing so many of the genre’s core ingredients: the castaway hero, the struggle against nature, survival through ingenuity, and the exploration of unknown lands.
Beyond its impact on the adventure genre, Robinson Crusoe is widely regarded as a milestone in English literature more generally, and a major breakthrough in the development of realist fiction. Indeed, the book’s attention to detail was unusual for the time, going in-depth with everything from building shelter and growing crops to taming animals.
9
‘Don Quixote’ (1605)
“Too much sanity may be madness.” At first glance, Don Quixote boasts a simple premise: an aging man reads too many chivalric romances, loses his grip on reality, and wanders Spain believing himself to be a heroic knight. Accompanied by his practical and increasingly loyal squire Sancho Panza, Don Quixote embarks on a series of wandering misadventures, mistaking inns for castles, windmills for giants, and ordinary people for figures from epic legend.
Yet Miguel de Cervantes transforms that setup into one of the most important novels ever written. The protagonist’s delusions create endless humor, but the novel never treats him as merely a joke. Readers laugh at his mistakes while also admiring his courage and idealism. In many ways, he’s more noble than the supposedly sane people around him. Indeed, the character gave us the word “quixotic,” someone or something that is exceedingly idealistic.
8
‘Eye of the Needle’ (1978)
“You can’t stop what you can’t see.” Eye of the Needle is a taut espionage story from Ken Follett, the author of beloved historical epics like The Pillars of the Earth. It follows Henry Faber, a ruthless German spy operating in Britain during World War II, who uncovers crucial intelligence about the upcoming Allied invasion plans. As British intelligence closes in, Faber becomes trapped on a remote island alongside a lonely, unhappily married woman, creating a deadly psychological cat-and-mouse game.
The narrative momentum here is off the charts. Follett keeps us hooked by constantly escalating the danger and upping the stakes. Readers understand the danger Faber poses, which makes every close call feel agonizingly suspenseful. It also helps that Faber himself is an unusually complex antagonist. Rather than being a cartoon villain, he’s intelligent, disciplined, resourceful, and often disturbingly sympathetic despite his brutality.
7
‘Master and Commander’ (1969)
“The lesser of two weevils.” This book was the basis for the Russell Crowe blockbuster Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In it, Captain Jack Aubrey and ship surgeon Stephen Maturin navigate naval warfare during the Napoleonic era aboard the HMS Sophie. A huge part of what makes the novel extraordinary is its immersive authenticity. Author Patrick O’Brian convincingly shows us the ups and downs of shipboard life, down to the painstaking details of nautical maneuvering.
At the same time, the book is no dry history lesson. The characters are colorful and the action scenes compelling. The naval battles, in particular, are among the finest ever written, emphasizing leadership and strategy as much as raw violence. Every engagement becomes a tense contest of intelligence and nerve, where so much comes down to the captain’s ability to make split-second decisions.
6
‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas’ (1870)
“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe.” Another classic that practically spawned a whole subgenre, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas follows Professor Aronnax after he is captured aboard the Nautilus, a revolutionary submarine commanded by the mysterious, brilliant Captain Nemo. Together, they journey across the oceans, encountering underwater forests, giant sea creatures, shipwrecks, and hidden civilizations beneath the waves.
The book radiates a sense of wonder throughout, envisioning the sea as an almost magical frontier, boasting hidden treasures as well as threats like monstrous squids. This central idea, that of cutting-edge technology transporting people to completely unknown worlds, would form one of the pillars of the entire sci-fi genre. Finally, Nemo himself is simply a great character, idealistic and troubled, neither hero nor villain, driven by competing motivations.
5
‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (1844)
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope.” Revenge stories existed long before The Count of Monte Cristo, but few have ever matched the sheer scale and satisfaction of Alexandre Dumas‘ masterpiece. It centers on Edmond Dantès, a young sailor falsely imprisoned after being betrayed. After years of isolation, Dantès escapes, discovers a hidden fortune, and reinvents himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo in order to systematically destroy the men who ruined his life.
Every stage of the protagonist’s journey feels like an adventure in its own right. The prison escape is thrilling, the treasure hunt is exhilarating, and the Count’s carefully orchestrated campaign of revenge unfolds with the suspense of a masterfully constructed thriller. The novel constantly introduces new twists, disguises, schemes, and revelations to keep readers engaged across its considerable length (1200 pages!).
4
‘The Hobbit’ (1937)
“I’m going on an adventure!” The Hobbit is one of the most imaginative, groundbreaking fantasy stories ever, but it’s also simply a wonderful and breezy adventure. Here, the quiet life of comfort-loving hobbit Bilbo Baggins is interrupted when the wizard Gandalf recruits him to accompany thirteen dwarves on a quest to reclaim their mountain homeland from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, Bilbo encounters trolls, goblins, giant spiders, elves, and the mysterious creature Gollum deep beneath the Misty Mountains.
It’s classic hero’s journey stuff. Bilbo’s growth from a timid homebody into a resourceful adventurer gives the story its emotional power. While the plot is relatively straightforward, it’s hugely elevated by the rich, vivid backdrop. Middle-earth is one of the fully realized places in all of literature, thanks to the depth and care with which J. R. R. Tolkien fleshed out its history, cultures, and languages.
3
‘The Three Musketeers’ (1844)
“All for one, and one for all!” Alexandre Dumas strikes again. In The Three Musketeers, young swordsman d’Artagnan travels to Paris hoping to join the King’s Musketeers, only to become entangled in political conspiracies, forbidden romances, and dangerous rivalries alongside Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Dumas writes his story with infectious enthusiasm, constantly propelling the story through duels, secret missions, betrayals, and narrow escapes.
The pace is truly relentless. The plot constantly moves forward, carrying readers from one thrilling situation to the next. Duels lead to conspiracies, conspiracies lead to secret missions, and secret missions lead to even greater dangers. The novel also excels at combining adventure with political intrigue. Set during the reign of Louis XIII, it weaves fictional heroes into real historical events involving powerful figures like Cardinal Richelieu.
2
‘The Lord of the Rings’ (1954)
“I wish it need not have happened in my time.” Fantasy literature is divided into two eras: before The Lord of the Rings and after it. Building on the solid foundation of The Hobbit, Tolkien’s magnum opus follows Frodo Baggins after he inherits the One Ring and embarks on a journey to destroy it. He’s joined by a lovable fellowship of companions, though their path is perilous and haunted by tragedy.
Importantly, the adventure here is driven by character rather than spectacle alone. The protagonists each undergo meaningful growth throughout the story. Sam’s loyalty, in particular, has become legendary because it embodies the novel’s belief that ordinary acts of courage can change the course of history. Aside from the magic and balrogs and giant spiders and orcs, The Lord of the Rings is fundamentally a story about friendship, sacrifice, hope, mortality, corruption, and the burden of responsibility.
1
‘Treasure Island’ (1883)
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” The Platonic ideal of the adventure novel, and the origin point for modern pirate mythology. Treasure Island follows young Jim Hawkins after he discovers a treasure map connected to the legendary pirate Captain Flint. Jim joins an expedition to locate the buried treasure, only to discover that many of the crew members, including the charismatic Long John Silver, are secretly pirates planning mutiny.
The plot wastes very little time, moving quickly from mystery to voyage to conflict. Every stage of the adventure introduces new threats and complications. That said, the book’s greatest strength is probably the characters. Long John Silver, in particular, is a phenomenal creation. He’s charming, intelligent, humorous, ruthless, and endlessly adaptable. Both Jim and the reader are often unsure whether to trust him, fear him, admire him, or all three at once.
Entertainment
Former “60 Minutes ”staffers lash out, slam Bari Weiss' changes: 'Facelift with a f—ing machete'
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“Everything she’s touched has turned to s—. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong,” one said.
2026 has been the year of Jon Bernthal so far, and things are only going to get busier for the star as we inch closer to the end of the year. After starring in the Netflix show His & Hers, Bernthal reunited with Ebon Moss-Bachrach in the surprise Bear prequel episode, Gary, which was shadow-dropped on Hulu a few months ago. Bernthal was disappointingly absent from the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, but fans didn’t have to wait long to see him return to his signature role as Frank Castle. Exactly one week after the Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 finale, Bernthal starred in the Disney+ Special Presentation, The Punisher: One Last Kill, which is expected to lead directly into his next MCU appearance. Bernthal will make his big-screen debut as Frank Castle this summer in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is coming to theaters on July 31.
Jon Bernthal has officially been playing The Punisher for over 10 years now, after making his debut in the second season of the original Daredevil series on Netflix. It didn’t take fans long to develop an attachment to Bernthal’s rugged portrayal of the MCU anti-hero, which pushed Netflix to green-light two full seasons of a solo series, which aired in late 2017 and early 2019. Bernthal’s recent return as Frank Castle in The Punisher: One Last Kill has also led fans to check out his first Punisher solo project, which has left Netflix and is now streaming on Disney+. Both seasons of The Punisher are now among the top most-watched titles in the world on Disney+, and as more fans continue to watch the show to prepare for Spider-Man 4, it’s not poised to go anywhere anytime soon.
What Is the Netflix ‘Punisher’ Show About?
A condensed synopsis for The Punisher series on Netflix, which also stars Ben Barnes, reads as follows:
“After exacting revenge on those who murdered his family, battle-scarred veteran Frank Castle discovers the conspiracy runs deeper than New York’s criminal underworld, reaching into the highest levels of government and military intelligence. Driven by grief and rage, Castle wages a brutal one-man war where justice and vengeance are indistinguishable.”
The Punisher holds an average score of 64% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes between its two seasons. Fans, however, were much higher on the series than critics, rating it a solid 79% on the audience-driven Popcornmeter. Netflix’s Punisher show was written and created for TV by Steve Lightfoot, who also recently worked as a writer on Prime Video’s Spider-Noir series starring Nicolas Cage.
Check out both seasons of The Punisher on Disney+ and stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates and coverage of Bernthal’s future projects.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2019-00-00
- Network
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Disney Channel
- Showrunner
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John Romita Sr.
- Directors
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Mark Goldblatt, Lexi Alexander
- Writers
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Gerry Conway
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms tackled a brutal Game of Thrones production challenge, revealing behind-the-scenes Collider BTS secrets from HBO’s next Westeros prequel.
Chrissy Teigen is mourning the sudden loss of her father, Ron.
“Yesterday I woke up with a daddy and went to bed without one,” Teigen, 40, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, June 10, alongside a video of her 86-year-old dad. “All the same things happened. Hurried shower. Picked up stuffing from the dog toys. Answered some emails. Avoided some. Laughed with my friends and put on a pretty dress for a friend’s birthday. Took a video. How cute is this dress! And then my dad just like … f***ing died.”
Her emotional caption continued, “I thought that since we talk about it and I’ve come to terms with him always having been an ‘old dad’ that I wouldn’t have fallen to the ground the way I did. I’ve thought about this phone call for years. I’ll be ready.”
Teigen went on to recall writing her father “a letter about how grateful I was for him” after a recent week away.
“[I wrote] about how hard he worked for us growing up and how much I love him. I am forever grateful for the moment I handed him the letter, and all our years before,” she wrote. “If you didn’t know my dad, my dad hated nearly everything in the world that wasn’t a bass guitar, swing dancing, wood carving, animals, YouTube, or his family. I have hundreds and hundreds of videos of him just being mad at things he isn’t even doing, watching, or eating. They make me so happy now.”
Teigen concluded, “God I love you so much. I will talk to you every night. Thank you for being such a great dad. Until we complain again 🤍🤍🤍.”
In the accompanying video, Ron sat at a table discussing his opinion on salmon. “Salmon this, salmon that,” he said with laughter in the background. “I got so much salmon, I’ll never touch another salmon ever again.”
Teigen elaborated on the clip in the comments section, writing, “The video is my dad talking about raising me in the Pacific Northwest. He really loved it but boy did he hate salmon.”
Alive Coverage for Medium Rare; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic Chrissy Teigen is opening up to Us Weekly about how she and her husband, John Legend, continue to beat the odds in Hollywood. “We are genuinely best friends. We like being together, we like being with each other. We have the same sense of humor,” Teigen, 38, exclusively told […]
Among the many supportive messages from fellow social media users was one from Teigen’s husband, John Legend.
“We love you so much Papa Ron,” he commented. “I’m so glad you got to spend so much time with your grandbabies. I loved seeing you beam with pride at the beautiful family you helped create. 🤍🤍🤍🤍.”
Legend, 47, announced on Thursday that a handful of upcoming concerts would be rescheduled due to the family’s loss.
“To my fans in Albuquerque, NM, and Pine Bluff, AR,” he wrote via his Instagram Story. I was so looking forward to being with you this weekend for an Evening of Songs & Stories, but we have had a death in our family and I need to be home with them.”
He noted that the performances would be rescheduled for August and apologized “for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
Prime Video started the year hot with a few new releases, particularly the highly anticipated second season of Fallout, which arrived back at the end of 2025 but continued well into 2026. Following closely behind the critically acclaimed sci-fi show was a pair of superhero series, Invincible and The Boys, and while the latter will be back for another batch of episodes next year, the former has gone off the air for good. Prime Video is also the home of some of the biggest straight-to-streaming movies this year, and the streamer has been testing the waters this year in various genres. Prime Video’s swashbuckling epic, The Bluff, was a massive hit despite lukewarm reviews, and the same can be said for The Wrecking Crew, the original crime thriller starring Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa that smashed to the top of streaming charts.
Prime Video is the second-biggest streaming service in the world by subscriber number, and it maintains this status by continuously evolving to please fans of all genres. One of the more intriguing projects that’s been in development for the streamer is The Love Hypothesis, which was first teased back at the end of April as part of a larger initiative from Prime Video to focus on more YA-forward content. Claire Scanlon directed the film with a script from Sarah Rothschild — Lili Reinhart also stars alongside Nicholas Duvernay and Arty Froushan.
The Love Hypothesis is based on the popular Star Wars fan-fiction novel of the same name that was written by Ali Hazelwood, which is a love story between Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver) and Rey (played by Daisy Ridley). Daisy Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman, has even been tapped to play the lead role of Adam in the project, who is directly inspired by Kylo Ren. This afternoon, Prime Video finally confirmed that The Love Hypothesis will begin streaming on September 23. An official trailer is expected in the coming weeks.
Is Daisy Ridley’s Star Wars Movie Still Coming Out?
At the time of writing in June 2026, it’s unclear if Daisy Ridley’s Star Wars movie about the New Jedi Order will ever overcome its development hurdles and make it to the big screen. Both Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy have confirmed that the film is still in active development, but it’s been years since it was announced and there seem to be no concrete plans to begin filming. Only time will tell if the New Jedi Order movie will suffer the same fate as The Hunt for Ben Solo, which was set to return Adam Driver to his role as Kylo Ren.
Check out The Love Hypothesis on Prime Video starting September 23 and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of the project.
Every Year After ended with a massive change — and shocking cliffhanger — but how is book character Alice Everly related to the twist?
Warning: Spoilers below for season 1 of Every Year After.
The Prime Video series, which premiered on Wednesday, June 10, concluded with Charlie (Michael Bradway) being estranged from brother Sam (Matt Cornett). He was seen devoting his life to work amid his family issues until one weekend in the office changed his life.
Charlie walked into his boss’ office and caught sight of a photo of himself, Sam and Percy (Sadie Soverall) from a past summer together. He wondered who took the photo, which he returned to that night. The overwhelming feelings — and grief — from his estrangement with Sam led to Charlie suffering what appeared to be a heart attack.
Fans of Off Campus and The Summer I Turned Pretty should be tuning into Prime Video’s Every Year After — but where will they recognize the cast from? Based on Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, Every Year After follows Percy (Sadie Soverall), who grew up vacationing in Barry’s Bay. After spending all her time […]
“Obviously, I read One Golden Summer, and so I knew it was coming,” Bradway told Swooon about Carley Fortune’s sequel book focused on Charlie’s journey. “I didn’t know how soon.”
Based on Every Summer After by Fortune, Every Year After follows Percy, who grew up vacationing in Barry’s Bay. After spending all her time with the Florek brothers, Percy formed a connection with Sam.
Their romance fizzled out — until they meet again years later — and have a second chance at love. The only problem? Underlying issues that led to their initial breakup.
In Fortune’s follow-up, One Golden Summer, readers find out that Charlie has a congenital heart condition. He was diagnosed months prior to the events in the novel, which also follows his romance with Alice a.k.a the photographer behind the photo of him and his loved ones featured in the show.
“There are a couple of things that I was aware of, and tried to play as the season went on, knowing that that was going to happen,” Bradway continued. “But it is a shock, and I don’t know what happens next, so I’m on the edge of my seat.”
While season 1 didn’t introduce Alice — that wasn’t originally the plan.
“We had a version where she walks through the airport, and he sees her when he’s going to pick up his family,” showrunner Amy B. Harris revealed to the outlet. “Yeah, we had talked all about different versions of how to bring her into the finale. We knew we were bringing her in. We just didn’t know how.”
Harris continued: “What we finally realized is we didn’t [have to bring her in yet]. She still has to be a notion, but one that, if you are a lover of Carley Fortune, is just a perfect little Easter egg. … We knew we needed Alice in some way to come in to launch us to season 2.”
Every Year After is streaming on Prime Video now.
In between tense sci-fi sagas like Severance and gripping thrillers like Cape Fear, Apple TV has become a great platform for cozy comfort watches. Ted Lasso might be the first example people think of in that camp, and while that will be returning for Season 4 by the end of the year, another Bill Lawrence series will also be returning with Jason Segel‘s hit dramedy, Shrinking. The series has been widely praised for its authentic depictions of mental health and therapy, and that’s likely only going to continue in the upcoming fourth season, which just recently added MCU star Karen Gillan ahead of her role in Henry Cavill‘s Highlander remake.
Season 3 starts a whole new chapter in the lives of Jimmy (Segel), Paul (Harrison Ford), and many of the other characters in the ensemble. That certainly raised questions for fans, but now, we finally have some clarification. Collider spoke with several cast members from the series at Newport TV Fest, and we can now confirm that not only will there be a significant time jump from Season 3 to Season 4, but that gap will be about “2 years.” The timeframe itself was confirmed by Michael Urie, who is excited to further explore fatherhood with his character of Brian. Lukita Maxwell, who plays Alice in the series, also relayed that it still feels like business as usual for the hit show even after the Backrooms star’s character left for college:
“I don’t know if it’s any different from any other season. You’re always going to catch them in a new place or in a new state of mind and I think it is exciting that there is a significant chunk of time because I am now once again closer in age to my character. But I think in terms of how I personally work going into it, it’s close to the same.”
How Long Will ‘Shrinking’ Season 4 Be?
The norm for most shows in the streaming era is typically around 8 to 12 episodes, and Shrinking has benefited from swinging toward the higher end of that range. That’s set to be the case again this season, with Harrison Ford recently confirming that the next season of the series will be a whopping 12 episodes long. What can fans expect? Well, those are surprises that even the cast aren’t ready for. We also had the chance to speak with Ted McGinley at NPTVF, and the TV vet confirmed that much of the plot info is kept under wraps until mere days before filming, which he finds to be a benefit, saying, “It’s really fun to not know” what to expect from one of television’s most innovative comedies.
The first three seasons of Shrinking are streaming now on Apple TV. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates on Season 4.
- Release Date
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January 27, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
Entertainment
Brad Pitt and a dog take on wolves and the Alaskan wilderness in “Heart of the Beast” trailer
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The Oscar winner plays a former soldier stranded with his combat canine.
Alicia Brown, the wife of radio host Big Tigger, went viral earlier this month. This, for accusing him of physical abuse, posting footage of her apparently battered face. And for accusing him of cheating on her with his morning show co-host, Francesca Amiker.
What’s really going on?
The Shade Room’s Justin Carter is asking questions and getting answers on ‘TSR Investigates.‘
Alicia Brown Posts Injured Face
According to Carter, the footage posted by Brown showed her crying. Furthermore, additional comments she shared on social media revealed that she and Tigger are getting a divorce over his alleged relationship with Franceska Amiker. However, according to Amiker, the allegations of Tigger cheating on his wife with her are “completely false.”
Amid all of this, social media users have dug up information about Brown’s past, discovering she was arrested for leaving her then-4-year-old daughter in a car for hours as she went to gamble. Even worse, social media users discovered that the same daughter has reportedly been missing since 2019.
Carter got in touch with Alicia Brown, who declined an on-camera interview — but confirmed the neglect incident. As for the abuse claims, she remained mum, citing an open police investigation.
Is There Anything Going On With Big Tigger & Franceska Amiker?
With all of that said, the mystery of Alicia Brown’s eldest daughter has still sparked more questions than answers. Durrell Williams, the father of Ailea Brown, has since taken to social media, accusing Alicia Brown of weaponizing public opinion to falsely accuse Big Tigger of abuse.
“This woman has made several FALSE ACCUSATIONS of abuse against the father’s of her children, with the mission to take the child to weaponizing the courts to her advantage. When she lost primary custody of our daughter, she fled the state of Maryland and I have not located her since. Please do your own research on Alicia Brown,” Williams reportedly wrote on social media.
Scroll below to watch what Alicia Brown told Justin Carter when asked about her daughter, Ailea Brown. Additionally, Durrell Williams responds to her statement, and Carter shares what happened when he reached out to Big Tigger for comment on it all.
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