Wow, Nickelodeon. You really upped your game after the last TV show, huh?
But no, seriously. I know it’s been out for a while, but I finally got around to watching the Max & the Midknights television series that premiered in October 2024, and I was genuinely shocked at how good it was! When it first came out, I was assuming that it was going to be of just about the same quality as the Big Nate television series: a subpar adaptation that only partially understands its characters with flawed original stories and unfunny bathroom humor. My first sign that Nickelodeon learned its lessons from that series was a person in the comment section of the Big Nate comic strip on GoComics.com stating that the Max & the Midknights television series was far better. And I could see why! This time around, the show closely follows the books, the characters are much more faithful to their book counterparts, and even the bathroom humor was toned down significantly, which was especially shocking (in a great way!) to see.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a lot less discussion on the series compared to even the Big Nate television series, which is why reviewing the show has been on my mind for a while now. There are also other things related to the show that’s worth covering as well, such as the shocking cancellation of the Big Nate television series and its infuriating removal from Paramount+, as well as the bittersweet end to the dailies of the Big Nate comic strip itself. Before we begin, I’d like to give a heads-up to obvious spoilers to the series. I also might as well mention that this post is about as long as my post about the Big Nate television series, so you’ve been warned of a particularly long medieval quest. Anyway, it’s time to pull out those swords and wands as we explore this (thankfully amazing) fulfillment of Max’s prophecy!
The Late Developments
According to an interview with Sharon Flynn and David Skelly, who serve as co-executive producers and showrunners on Max & the Midknights, production on the series began in 2020, when Skelly was art directing the Big Nate television series. Nathan Schram, Director of Development at Nickelodeon Animation, who oversees development and production of the series for Nickelodeon, asked Skelly to read the Max & the Midknights books, and he fell in love with the series:
We gathered a small crew, and on nights and weekends, I directed a one-minute animated proof-of-concept teaser (which later evolved into our title sequence). Shortly thereafter, the incredibly talented, Emmy Award-winning Sharon Flynn came on board to figure out how to adapt the first of Lincoln’s books into 20 half-hour episodes!
Flynn, too, fell in love with Max and her stories:
I was so excited about telling her story, and I knew right away that to do Max’s story justice and build a satisfying arc — it needed to be a serialized show. So, I pitched the broad strokes of what I was thinking to Nickelodeon, and then I was brought on, joining the amazing, Emmy-nominated David Skelly!
The interview actually reveals a lot of interesting facts about the show’s production. As Flynn worked on the show’s story bible, Skelly defined the special look for the series. There didn’t seem to be clear way for Skelly to achieve his goals using conventional methods, so he opted to create a brand-new production pipeline:
Our primary objective was to honor Lincoln’s wonderful illustrations, to adapt them as faithfully as we were able. We set out to make a beautiful show — one that would stand out in a veritable ocean of captivating content — and that’s exactly what our incredibly talented crew has done! A small group of writers, artists and technical wizards at Nickelodeon teamed up with Xentrix Studios, a powerhouse animation studio in Bangalore, India, which also collaborated with us on Big Nate. They’re terrific partners, and they were willing to take a chance on a new production pipeline with us, so off we went!
Fascinatingly, Skelly goes on to explain that the concept for the new pipeline was to emulate a live-action production. The team would design and build everything first, and then “film” the show in real time using Unreal Engine:
We would hire visualization artists who would, in effect, be our camera operators and gaffers — and they, with the directors, would go ‘on set’ and shoot the episode live by moving stand-in CG characters, define the blocking (like we would with live actors), establish preliminary lighting and then shoot coverage (multiple angles) of every beat of every scene.
In November 2021, alongside the announcement that the Big Nate television series would be released in 2022, Nickelodeon also announced that a Max & the Midknights television series was greenlit, which was ordered for 20 episodes. In addition to Flynn, Skelly and Schram, it was revealed that the series would be executive produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Jane Startz and Lincoln Peirce and produced by Amy McKenna. Ramsey Naito, President of Animation, Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, had these thoughts to say about both Max & the Midknights and the Rock, Paper, Scissors television series that was also announced:
These two series packed with relatable characters, hilarious escapades and rich, imaginative worlds are the perfect additions to our Nickelodeon content family. Translating the mega-popular Max & the Midknights from a book to television series is a creative undertaking that we can’t wait to dive into, and the comedic adventures of friends Rock, Paper and Scissors is truly made for our Nickelodeon audience.
And of course, Peirce had his own thoughts to share about Max’s next quest as well:
I am absolutely delighted to join forces with my friends at Nickelodeon to bring Max & the Midknights to life. Nickelodeon’s passion for unforgettable stories and iconic characters is unparalleled, and there’s no partner I’d rather work with. I couldn’t be happier.
In June 2024, Nickelodeon made the unusual but pleasantly surprising move of releasing the entire first episode on YouTube ahead of announcing the show’s release date, let alone before the release of the show itself. A month later in July, Nickelodeon also released the entire second episode on YouTube as well. While releasing so much of the show’s footage that early risked undermining the hype for its release, it at least guaranteed that there would be no reservations about the show’s quality. I was certainly shocked but also excited to see the first episode pop up in my YouTube feed at the time, and while I didn’t finish the episode because I ultimately decided to wait until it’s release to fully enjoy the show, the opening sequence was actually pretty incredible.
By September 2024, Nickelodeon announced, curiously enough, that the series would premiere on Nickelodeon, unlike the Big Nate television series, which premiered on Paramount+, and confirmed an October release date. Although it’s been years since I have tuned into weekly premieres of a television series on cable TV, I figured that the series would eventually make its way to Paramount+ anyway (it did), so I decided to wait to watch it there. The trailer, key art and voice cast for the series was also announced, including Blu del Barrio as Max. The show was also announced to begin rolling out internationally on Nickelodeon earlier in October.
The week before the series premiered in October, Barrio, Peirce, Skelly, Flynn, and Zeno Robinson and Caleb Yen, the voices of Simon and Kevyn respectively, gave fans at New York Comic Con a first look at the series while sharing insight into the development and creation of the show. New York Comic Con 2024 was actually my first Comic Con, which I attended in the hope of meeting Peirce (like I did with Jeff Kinney!) with the intention of adding a fascinating little story to this post about by meeting with him. Unfortunately, the panel was early in the day, and while I got there on time, my unfamiliarity with the Javits Center led to me missing out on the panel, which bummed me out a little bit, but at least I got a little flyer of the show’s promotional poster.
In May 2025, Random House released two chapter book companions for the series titled Welcome to Byjovia and To the Rescue, which feature more than 90 full-color images from the show and are akin to the graphic novel series adaptations of the Big Nate television series. I checked out the samples provided, and Welcome to Byjovia appears to be a beat-by-beat translation of the first four episodes, while To the Rescue does the same thing beginning from the fifth episode as opposed to offering something new, so I’m personally not that interested in getting them. However, it is a little bit interesting to see how the series could’ve looked had it been a more conventional chapter book series rather than a highly illustrated one employing the language of comics.
Everything seemed like it was running smoothly, right? It’s not like the seemingly cozy relationship that Peirce had established with Nickelodeon could’ve possibly gone south at any point, right?
A Punishment Worse Than Detention
In March 2024, it was reported that Paramount+ purged 10 Nickelodeon original series, following the removal of other Nickelodeon titles from the platform over the past several months, which included the Big Nate television series. This was said to be part of content removal addressed in the most recent Q4 earnings call in February. Targeting Nick titles was seen as a little surprising (to me, VERY surprising but depressingly predictable) as, according to parent Paramount Global (now known as Paramount Skydance or whatever it will be named after it merges AGAIN with Warner Bros. Discovery), the network’s Kids & Family content consistently ranks among the most watched and re-watched programming on Paramount+. In its 10-K filing, the company had this rosy statement to make:
In connection with our continued review of our international content strategy, during the first quarter of 2024 we made a strategic decision to focus on content with mass global appeal. As part of this, we are rationalizing original content on Paramount+, especially internationally, and improving the efficiency of our linear network programming. As a result, we have reviewed our expansive global content portfolio and are removing select content from our platforms.
Of course, this meant that the Big Nate television series was all but cancelled. Mentions of all the deleted shows, including Big Nate, were even removed from Nickelodeon’s website. And if things couldn’t have been any worse, the cancelation and removal of the series happened on the same day one of the most highly anticipated Big Nate comic strips was released, which concluded an arc involving a miscommunication between Nate and his current girlfriend Daphne, which ended with the two remaining together. Peirce even commented on the strip in its comment section on GoComics.com, implying that Daphne would be his final girlfriend. Obviously, one could EASILY imagine Peirce typing that comment at the moment Paramount put the torch on his show as they were literally making another show adapting another one of his book series. Despite this, Peirce didn’t make any statement regarding the show’s cancellation, which was pretty unusual given the situation, and while I believe he should’ve spoken up, perhaps he didn’t want to risk a fallout with Paramount while the Max & the Midknights television series was still in production. In any case, this put a horrific damper on what would have otherwise been a fantastic day for the fanbase.
Obviously, NO ONE was happy about this (most of the anger was directed at the cancellation of Blue’s Clues & You). Which brings us to a bit of an elephant in the room: it’s technically true that the Big Nate television series was far from perfect; fans in the comment section on GoComics.com occasionally complain about the show to this day. But the thing to understand is that this is NOT the point. Even if a movie or television show is WORSE than the Big Nate television series was, that does NOT justify cancelling the show, removing it from its streaming service for a tax-write off, and scrubbing its existence from your memory, especially when better shows like Blue’s Clues & You were also scrubbed. ALL art has a right to exist, because even a subpar show like Big Nate has cast members, writers and producers who made contributions to the company that were effectively erased overnight. It’s true that by August 2024, the entire second season, including all of the episodes that weren’t released on Paramount+, were put on Apple TV and Amazon Prime for purchase. But the fact that the public was not made aware of unreleased episodes that risked becoming lost media before their release was NOT a good look, and it was a very underserving end for the series.
What’s especially depressing about this is that this was hardly the first incident of movies and television shows being cancelled and removed from streaming services for tax-write offs, and it wasn’t even the most egregious either. Paramount was absolutely inspired by Warner Bros. Discovery, who under CEO David Zaslav pretty much destroyed HBO Max by canceling dozens of modern Cartoon Network shows and removed them from the platform because he refused to pay the creators their residuals, removed most of the older Cartoon Network shows and other kids’ content such as Looney Tunes shorts and Sesame Street episodes from the platform (though both have since moved to Tubi and Netflix respectively), prevented films such as Scoob: Holiday Haunt, the sequel to Scoob, and the DCEU film Batgirl from straight-up being released, nearly succeeded in preventing The Day the Earth Blew Up and Coyote vs. Acme from being released before being forced to release them in theaters, removed the 2020 Roald Dahl film adaptation The Witches from the platform despite it being an HBO Max original film (it had many issues, but again, ALL art has a right to exist), and cancelled and removed dozens of other adult projects. Zaslav also briefly renamed HBO Max to “Max”, which was so unpopular that he eventually restored the HBO Max name. It’s no wonder that Warner Bros. Discovery is undergoing yet another merger, with Paramount itself no less, which has led to fears of job losses and fewer movies in theaters just as the industry has recovered from the Disney-Fox merger. And Paramount isn’t even the only company that was inspired by Warner Bros. to cancel and remove projects from their streaming service either.
Netflix canceled dozens of animated children’s television series that never finished production, including an adaptation of Bone. The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants television series was also removed (though it was moved to Peacock), while the interactive special Captain Underpants: Epic Choice O’ Rama actually became partially lost media. Disney also axed quite a few projects from Disney+ as well, from the Mysterious Benedict Society television series to the films Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, The One and Only Ivan, Artemis Fowl and Better Nate Than Ever (though they were later re-released on other platforms) to the Spiderwick Chronicles television series before its release (granted, that was released on Roku, and it was WAY worse than the Big Nate television series, so Disney might have been avoiding collateral damage in that specific case). All of these actions have caused a broader anti-streaming sentiment amongst the general public, who fear certain projects becoming lost media as companies haphazardly play with public access to content. Piracy has increased as an act of solidarity with the creators of affected media, while there has been a revived interest in physical media, especially for projects that might lack physical media, since once you acquire a DVD, you own it forever no matter what happens to the media on the Internet. Streaming services started out as a promising improvement over streaming retailers like Blockbuster and even cable television, and now, they’re tragically destroying themselves, potentially to the point of no return even as these companies increasingly rely on them for their revenue.
Wait a minute…what was this post about again? Oh yeah. Forgive me if Nate getting the streaming axe was the straw that broke the camel’s back on this topic, but it needed to be said. Time to get back to the fun stuff!
Just How Good Are Those Character Designs?
Before I discuss the series itself, I really want to talk about the character designs, as there are quite a few things worth mentioning here that were done better than in the Big Nate television series. Just like in the Big Nate television series, the Max & the Midknights characters translate well to 3-D because of the way Peirce frequently depicts his characters in a 3-D perspective. And also like in the Big Nate television series, there is very little to say about most of their designs, which look mostly great, save for some design features that slightly deviate from the books.
Max’s design is not only perfect; it’s actually a slight improvement from her design in the books, with her green tunic having brown accents added to the collar and sleeves. Millie’s design is similarly perfect and slightly improved, with the addition of a lighter purple cloth over her dark purple tunic giving her design some nice additional detail. The boys, however, are a different story. Simon’s outfit is more rugged which works well for realism, but his shirt, pants and shoes are different colors, though not to the extent that it’s distracting. Kevyn, however, is definitely the Midknight that changed the most, and is the only real design I have issue with. His hair is brown instead of blonde, though the hairline on the back of his head was a nice addition that reminds me of what they did to Nate in the Big Nate television series. Like Simon, his shirt, pants and shoes are also different colors, which wouldn’t have been as distracting if not for the hair color change.
Uncle Budrick’s color scheme is pretty close to the books, with his sleeves and pants getting the biggest changes, which are now multicolored and have patched holes, which is actually a nice change that’s fitting for his character. Gastley’s color scheme is even more accurate to the books, with only his cape changing from red to green, and his sleeves and leggings changing from purple to gray. The character that undoubtedly changed the most however was Mumblin, who curiously enough was race-swapped from white to black. That’s a change you don’t usually see in book adaptations outside of live action, but considering that these characters aren’t usually depicted in color and aren’t that old, any backlash to the change was never going to be as charged as, say, Annabeth Chase in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians television series, the Grace children in the Spiderwick Chronicles television series, or George Fayne in the 2019 Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase film. Personally, it doesn’t bother me for this reason, and if anything, it helps to differentiate Mumblin from other characters modeled after Merlin.
As for general design features, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: the characters’ eyes, which are shockingly lined or dotted unlike most of the characters in the Big Nate television series. Of course, the first infuriating thing that comes to mind is why it took this long for Nickelodeon to realize that approaches like Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, The Peanuts Movie and the animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid films worked perfectly fine for both shows, but at least it’s better late than never. The characters’ eyes are also detailed like Francis, Dee Dee and other characters with glasses in the Big Nate television series, which works especially well in a show where everyone has the lined or dotted eyes. Another really great benefit to the lined or dotted eyes is that the characters frequently have a widened-eyed facial expression, which is actually the perfect approach to depicting the outlandish facial expressions Peirce often gives his characters, even if they’re limited to that one facial expression. (It could even have been something the animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid films did, but I digress.)
The Pilot Episode
Just like I did for The Magic School Bus, The Magic School Bus Rides Again and Big Nate, I’m going to discuss the pilot episode, before discussing the portrayal of the characters, the art style and animation, and the most notable moments in the other episodes. Titled “Welcome to Byjovia”, I was genuinely surprised at how closely it followed the first four chapters of the original book, which I certainly wished the Big Nate television series did. And like I said, that opening sequence was incredible. We see a dragon (presumably Bruce) destroying what’s presumably a Byjovian village with beautifully animated fire that fits Peirce’s art style pretty well. Emerging from the smoke of the flames is such an awesome introduction to Max, who is fully dressed as a knight. Right away, it’s clear that this is a dream sequence, as it PERFECTLY communicates Max’s desire to be a knight even before she says it to the viewer. The way she tries to stop the dragon (complete with thunder teasing the abilities of Conrad’s blade!) also shows just how capable of a fighter she is (or at least will become), immediately investing the audience in Max’s character.
Max then wakes up from her daydream while traveling with Budrick, directly adapting the beginning of the original book. The first thing I noticed is that Max wears her hat in a way that doesn’t hide her ponytail, which is a nice way to have both coexist visually. It especially works here since those who read the books are already aware that Max is a girl, so there’s no real reason to hide the ponytail in this scene in the adaptation. After this, the theme song plays, and I regret to admit that this theme song is actually WAY better than the theme song of the Big Nate television series. The visuals are much more cinematic which fits the medieval fantasy setting, and the lyrics work FAR better for Max thematically than they did for Nate in his show. The scene when Max runs towards the castle even changes each time, showing the threat that she faced in the previous episode. It now makes me wish they put a bit more effort into Nate’s theme song, but I’m TOTALLY here for Max’s!
The next couple scenes basically adapt the rest of the first two chapters of the original book with such precision that it’s almost scary. Some moments are deemphasized more (like backstories such as Conrad banishing Gastley from Byjovia), while more emphasis is placed on other scenes (like a really great sequence of Max losing the angry spectators of Budrick’s song), but other than that, it’s a beat-by-beat retelling, at least until the moment Max and Budrick arrive in Byjovia. Rather than the Byjovian population being in a bad mood like in the book, there’s emphasis on the uncleanliness of the city, while the Byjovians break into song out of forced praise for Gastley (as well as an apparent excuse for a musical number). It’s actually a pretty good change, as it more clearly communicates the effect of authoritarianism on a country’s population without being heavy-handed. It also helps that the song is actually pretty good as well (and hilarious when Budrick gives a mixed review).
After some beats taken from later in the original book (Kevyn revealing having to become an ostler, his mother telling Max that girls can’t be knights, and Max’s disappointingly weaker reaction), Gastley appears, though he doesn’t come out of a coach. Instead, he simply walks down the street in a darkly humorous sequence that instantly establishes his cruelty and vanity even before he scolds Millie and Simon for not wearing shoes. After Gastley detains Budrick, he calls for a hunt for not just Millie and Simon, but all shoeless “urchins” as well as Max, triggering a chase across the city that causes Max and Kevyn to cross paths with Millie and Simon midway through. It’s a great sequence, showcasing Max’s resourcefulness in several ways (including a tease of the barrel trick against the gargoyles later in the original book) as well as a thematically clever rejection of Gastley’s regime when Max tears his banner down the middle with her blade. They then get to Kevyn’s stable before Max swears to rescue Budrick from Gastley, ending the episode midway through the fourth chapter of the original book. It’s such a good place to end it that instantly makes you curious as to how the rest of the book will be adapted in the subsequent episodes.
The Other Episodes and Everything Else
As I said before, “Welcome to Byjovia” does an excellent job adapting the first four chapters of the original book. But as the series progresses, it starts to diverge more significantly from the book, though usually not to the point of straight-up inaccuracy aside from original subplots. And the characters are mostly accurate to their book counterparts, save for a couple notable exceptions. We’ll start with Max. Max is basically her book counterpart copy-pasted onto the screen, from her spunky determination and snark to her occasional self-doubt and fear. Her frequent fourth-wall narrations to the audience are also a nice reference to her narration of the books. Blu del Barrio was also a surprisingly good casting as Max, given her history of tricking readers into thinking she was a boy at first. Barrio gives Max a voice that sounds convincingly masculine and feminine at the same time for a preteen that would plausibly confuse anyone in her world about her gender, basically being the same voice that Max had in the Max and the Midknights book trailer below:
Kevyn is still an aspiring author and librarian who doesn’t want to be an ostler, and he still speaks intellectually with long words. But he’s also braver and freaks out in scary situations much less often or dramatically. I was a bit surprised they deemphasized this trait, as his fear and reactions to threats was a big part of his character and the source of much of his humor. I also expected Caleb Yen to give him a slightly higher-pitched voice that would have better fit his panicking, but it still works. Zeno Robinson gives a perfectly fine performance as Simon, who is about as accurate to his book counterpart as Max. He’s still his serious, levelheaded and occasionally comedic self, and they even refrained from introducing his horseback riding skills in the first season. However, they still teased it by exploring his general love for animals through his love for a sheep in Kevyn’s barn named Doris Roberta. She was actually a really nice addition to the show, with a cute design that reminds me a bit of the art style of Aardman Animations, which is leaned into too. In “A Midknight Run”, Max offers using Roberta as bait for a sea monster in the moat of Gastley’s castle, but Simon refuses. When Max caves in, Roberta proves to be surprisingly useful in helping the Midknights rescue Budrick from the castle in “Don’t Lose Your Head”, and later rescuing Mumblin from Fendra in “The Trail of the Dead”.
But the Midknight that changed the most was undoubtedly Millie. In the books, Millie was shy, reserved, and often uncertain of herself whenever she used magic. In the show however, she’s eccentric, a bit out of touch with reality, and makes random nonsensical jokes that turn her into almost a completely different character. (She even randomly references the Bodkins in “Meet the Midknights”, which they probably thought was a cool tease for Battle of the Bodkins, but it undermines the moment the characters discover that Bodkins are actually real later.) Melissa Villaseñor at least does a good job at leaning into this Millie’s personality. She also has an affinity for magic even before she starts using it, which isn’t bad, but it undermines the sudden reveal in the books that she can use magic. Mumblin also just hands her his wand as a gift because of her love for magic, unlike in the book where he lets Millie use it after he’s convinced it no longer works, which was way better. It’s not all bad though, as her character begins improving dramatically during the confrontation with Fendra and subsequent escape from her cottage in “A Vial of Valor”. Her personality becomes more subdued through “An Uphill Battle”, though that’s probably because of her exhaustion from using all that magic in the previous episode. Either way, I would appreciate if they leaned into that more subdued Millie in the second season. They could even make it character development, making Millie get more serious when she realizes what it truly means to use magic.
I was very surprised to find that Uncle Budrick is a lot less goofy and fearful compared to his book counterpart, similarly to Kevyn. It’s almost like a reversal of what they did to Marty in the Big Nate television series. It would have been WAY better if Budrick’s and Marty’s personalities in their respective shows were swapped, which would have made both characters more accurate. But Budrick is still goofy and fearful enough that it’s not jarring, and it’s also interesting that the spell that transformed him into a goose is more framed as difficult to reverse. Jeremy Rowley also gives Budrick a voice that’s fitting for his goofiness and insecurity. Gastley is basically the same as his book counterpart, and he’s given a lot of extra scenes that make him a real standout. He’s more bombastic and dramatic here, which Brian Stepanek does a great job at selling, which really elevates his character. This is most apparent in a song Gastley sings about what to wear to Budrick’s execution in “Don’t Lose Your Head”, only to settle on the outfit he always wears and decides that the song was unnecessary. In “A Midknight Run”, Budrick also offers a sequel to his sock puppet performance, but Gastley is uninterested, referencing Hollywood’s preference for “artistically bankrupt” sequels, which was my favorite joke of his in the first season.
Mumblin is still his mostly incompetent self who occasionally rises to the occasion, though the reasons he makes mistakes are explored a bit more, which is sometimes chalked up to memory loss, such as when he forgets about a portal into Gastley’s castle that he realizes he could have told the Midknights about when they were trying to break into it in “For Whom the Troll Tolls”. Gary Anthony Williams also gives Mumblin a performance that works perfectly fine for his character. But the biggest change to Mumblin was actually to Shady Acres Home for Aged Sorcerers. Rather than being in the Middle Ages like in the books, it is located in a retirement home in Rackleff, Maine in 1979, and accessed via a time portal. On one hand, that’s really fascinating because Rackleff is where the Big Nate television series is set, albeit a few decades before the events of that series. This appears to be a reference to when Max, Mary and Kevyn see Nate, Gina, Dee Dee and Mrs. Godfrey in their classroom in The Tower of Time, which is a really interesting change that actually works because it doesn’t directly reference that scene which would have undermined it later. On the other hand, Mumblin specifically said in The Tower of Time that he didn’t know of a way Max could time travel. However, nothing about this Shady Acres suggests that Mumblin could travel to any time period other than 1979 (or maybe he simply forgot how to). The stranger part is that this Shady Acres is mostly occupied by non-magical retirees from 1979, who seem to be unaware of Mumblin’s true nature (and apparently other wizards like Seymour when he shows up), which is implied to be because of their hearing and memory loss. It seemed a bit improbable that the wizards’ cover wouldn’t have eventually been blown at first, but a younger maintenance man later tries to fix the time portal after Fendra’s attack there, who treats his attempt to fix the portal like a car as no big deal. It was a pretty funny joke, so maybe the suspension of disbelief is the real point here.
What they did with Fendra was really interesting. In the book, she first appears at the moment the Midknights arrive at her cottage. But in the show, she appears much earlier, and first shows up as a swirling pink cloud from which she speaks to Gastley remotely. This was actually a really cool way to introduce her, as it makes her feel more mysterious and nicely builds up to her as a threat. When she finally physically appears, her design threw me off a bit, but in a really good way. I was expecting a more typical pale skin tone, but she is green instead, an apparent reference to the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She even has claws on her fingers, which makes her look even more menacing than her book counterpart. India de Beaufort also gives Fendra a voice fitting for an evil witch archetype, and I like the appearance of her cottage as well, which is also much creepier than in the book.
What they did with Sir Gadabout was much stranger. In the book, he heroically appears to save the Midknights from the zombies in the Trail of the Dead after Millie accidentally fires a summoning spell. But in the show, he has his courage stolen by Fendra rather than being temporarily blinded, making him the one who has to be rescued by the Midknights instead. While it gives the Midknights more agency in this part of the story and heightens the stakes for them in the show, it completely obliterates what was such an epic introduction of Gadabout in the book. However, the song that introduces the audience to Gadabout is easily the best in the first season, and when he does get his courage back, he gets a chance to show how skilled he’s supposed to be in battle during a fight he gets to have with Fendra, which was pretty great. Jeremy Rowley also gives Gadabout a voice that works perfectly fine for his character, and it’s interesting that he voices both Gadabout and Budrick given their completely different personalities.
As I said before, the bathroom humor was toned down significantly, with only light, occasional gross-out moments like a toenail Millie insists is lucky, which she uses to bribe a man into giving the Midknights a boat to escape Byjovia from in “Escape from Byjovia”. Oddly enough, I liked the implication that the toenail actually was lucky because she was magical. The only real moment where they go overboard with it is in “A Midknight Run”, when Kevyn’s mother comes up with a plan to feed Gastley’s knights “rat jerky” to make them too sick to guard Gastley’s castle so the Midknights can sneak in. The knights end up vomiting, which wouldn’t be so bad, but they do it to a degree that reminds me a bit too much of the Big Nate episode “Valentines Day of Horror”. It’s easily the worst moment in the first season, but even that isn’t as bad as many of the worst moments in Nate’s show. As for the animation, it’s about as beautiful as it is in the Big Nate television series, which seemed like a no-brainer. There are also some finer details that I really like, such as when the characters get wet, in which you can see the gleam of the water on their skin.
Most of the episodes in the first season closely follow the plot of the first eleven chapters of the original book, and while it stretches some scenes to pad out the runtime, it also gives some characters extra depth. The original subplots also serve to pad out the season, with the first notable case involving the Midknights escaping a boar during a jousting tournament in “Meet the Midknights”. A couple later episodes even entirely consist of these original subplots, such as “For Whom the Troll Tolls”, which involves the Midknights encountering trolls, which were mentioned in The Tower of Time, and “The Road Not Taken”, which involves the Midknights making a detour into a place called the Happy Garden Trail before entering the Trail of the Dead in the next episode. It appears to be a reference to Bentley’s Pass in The Tower of Time, which causes anyone who enters it to fall asleep and want to stay there forever. Simon urging the Midknights to get out of the Happy Garden Trail also echoes the fight they had in Bentley’s Pass. However, the characters get consumed by a gigantic plant monster during the middle of Simon’s pleading before they’re forced to figure out how to escape. I was surprised they adapted this part of The Tower of Time that early, so I guess they’ll skip it when they do adapt that book.
And while the original subplots are actually pretty good (it even helps to imagine what could have been in a fourth book), they cause one big problem: they pad out the first season so much that it ends before it finishes adapting the original book. Technically, they could’ve stretched the season to thirteen episodes instead of ten to rectify that problem since the second season only had four more chapters left to adapt. But instead, the entire second season adapts the rest of the first book, which is a bit odd. The second season appears to double down on original subplots focused on Fendra, so it will be interesting to see what they try to insert in the story when I get the chance to watch the second season. Another risk of dedicating two seasons to the original book meant that the third season was going to adapt Battle of the Bodkins rather than the second, while a fourth season adapting The Tower of Time hadn’t been confirmed. Chris Perry, the assistant director of the show, posted a message on Instagram in February 2026 that made fans believe that the show would end after three seasons. But it was confirmed earlier this month that a fourth season is in fact happening, so at least Paramount won’t be sweeping the rug from under us this time like they did with the Big Nate television series. Curiously, the final three episodes in the episode guide are a three-parter titled “The Great Crossover”, which is speculated to feature a crossover with Big Nate. If that’s actually true and the Big Nate characters show up to an even greater extent than they did in The Tower of Time, that would be an INCREDIBLE apology for the cancelation of Nate’s show. It would be the perfect opportunity to show all the Big Nate characters with lined and dotted eyes and more faithfully depict them in general. It could be a beautiful sendoff to the Nickelodeon era of Peirce’s career.
Ultimately, Max & the Midknights is an excellent television series that has an impressive understanding of its source material. Its commitment to closely following the books made it extremely strong, and even when it diverts from the books, it does so in ways that usually only elevate them, with only occasional mishaps that are never too distracting. Those who read the books will be surprised at how much they’ll enjoy it, while those who haven’t read the books will absolutely be curious enough to check them out after watching. And they will be surprised to find that the books are just as great, even if in their own slightly different way.
The Day P.S.38’s School Bell Rang One Last Time
In December 2025, Lincoln Peirce announced in the comments section of the Big Nate comic strip on GoComics.com that the last daily Big Nate comic strip will appear on June 13th, while the Sunday strips will continue. Now, GoComics had a site-wide update in April 2025 (which was hated by most users, including myself, for putting older strips behind a paywall after a couple weeks). The update ruined other things as well, from shrinking the size of the strip on the page (for free users) to removing a feature that automatically badged verified cartoonists in the comments. As a result, fans were convinced that Peirce was actually another commenter impersonating him as some kind of distasteful joke (the Big Nate comments section has…a colorful history of far crazier incidents to say the least). But to prove that he was the real thing, Peirce revealed the first word of the next day’s strip (“good”), as well as the name of the next comic collection that was going to be released after the then-upcoming comic collection, Big Nate: Code Red, which was titled Big Nate: Curse of the Puffy Shorts, which will be released in September 2026.
Of course, that was REALLY solid proof that was the real Peirce (and proof that GoComics should’ve never updated the site). Many fans still didn’t believe it, even trying to find evidence that the account was in fact fake, but I definitely believed it. Peirce didn’t immediately announce his semi-retirement outside of GoComics.com as definitive proof, although he posted an article on the site in celebration of the strip’s 35th anniversary in January 2026 that had the sentimental tone of someone who certainly sounded like they were ready to semi-retire. Peirce also posted a series of videos on the Andrews McMeel Publishing YouTube of him drawing several of the Big Nate characters that were also posted to GoComics.com from January to February. Fans continued to desperately find evidence that the account was fake, including an article about Peirce’s time at Colby College from November 2025 that stated that Peirce said he can “see a day coming” when he’ll semi-retire the strip, which only put the comments on GoComics.com into a not-so-reassuring perspective:
I still feel like I have a lot of stories to tell. I just think as far as Big Nate goes, you can only tell so many jokes about sixth grade. There are things I return to over and over again, and the challenge is to find fresh ways. Ok, how am I going to make him getting his school picture taken funny this year?
By April 2026, Peirce posted an image to his Instagram page of the incomplete final panel of the final strip, officially confirming that the last daily strip would in fact appear on June 13th while Sunday strips would continue. The next day, The Daily Cartoonist reported on Peirce’s semi-retirement. At that point, the entire fanbase accepted it was true (even if begrudgingly), and the conversation was dominated by how the strip might end, reviving older fan-favorite theories of Nate finally getting a dog or an appearance from Nate’s mother. Some fans even expressed skepticism that Peirce would end the strip in a way that was satisfying due to a perceived decline in the strip’s quality in recent years. And the final arc wasn’t a dramatic multi-week saga that ended the strip with a bang, but another Prank Day arc culminating in Nate being sent yet again to detention.
It admittedly could’ve been great to see a more epic ending to the strip like Big Nate: Blasts Off did with the book series, as I’m considering doing for my own comic strip, Sammy Specific. But every cartoonist is different, and if Peirce prefers simpler endings, then that’s his choice, and it’s fine by me. At first, I figured that the fanbase might be unhappy with the ending. But I was pleasantly surprised to see less discussion on the strip itself, and more tributes to the strip as a whole and its influence on their lives. Any discussion on the final strip was almost entirely positive, calling it fitting that the strip ended in the one place Nate spends most of his time. Perhaps I should’ve seen that coming, and Peirce honestly deserves that. His comment in the comment section of the final strip probably helped to set the mood:
Thank you all so much for reading Big Nate, and for all the feedback! I plan to continue the Sunday for a long time to come, as long as folks continue to enjoy it. See you down the road. Thanks again!
Regardless of the way it ended, I’m certainly compelled to give my own tribute. Poptropica’s Big Nate Island was my introduction to the strip, and Jeff Kinney’s effort to use Poptropica to bring the comic to millions of kids certainly worked on me when I was Nate’s age at eleven years old. I remember heading into Klassic Komix and reading all of the strips that could be viewed on its walls, and I immediately fell in love with the strip for its similarities to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Nate’s hilarious facial expressions, which had me hooked. I continued to read the strip on Poptropica’s Daily Pop, and later on GoComics.com prior to the site’s actually good overhaul in January 2017. I was so excited for the book series when it first came out, was amazed at how good the books were, and felt similarly bittersweet about finishing Blasts Off. Always imagining an adaptation of the strip, I was even more excited for the television series, maintained my faith in it even as some fans were unconvinced with it, and continue to admire its strengths even if I wished it was better for the simple fact that it exists. I was pleasantly surprised and excited about the announcement of the Max & the Midknights book series, loved it despite its shorter length, and am now loving the television series.
And I think it’s important to remember that this technically isn’t the last time Peirce is ringing that school bell or going on a medieval quest. After all, the Sunday strips are still continuing, and the fourth season of the Max & the Midknights television series is still in production. Semi-retirement allows Peirce to do some much deserved relaxation after 35 years of working on the strip, but it also allows him to dedicate more of his time to other things too, even more so than when he was making the daily strips, if he so chooses. He could pursue another (hopefully better) adaptation of the strip or even write another new book series (I doubt he’d add any new installments to either the Big Nate or Max & the Midknights books, and neither series really needs it anyway). Whatever Peirce does next, however, one thing is for certain: he isn’t destined for greatness; he’s already achieved greatness.
Wow, that sure was a long medieval quest, wasn’t it? I’m pretty sure I didn’t forget anything. I don’t know when the next three seasons of Max & the Midknights will be available to watch on Paramount+, but I will certainly be there to see them when they’re released (I’m especially excited at the prospect of that Big Nate crossover!). Perhaps I’ll make another post covering the remaining three seasons, and when I do, I’ll bet that our next medieval quest will be just as epic.
Until we pull out those swords and wands again, folks. ⚔️
