The Punisher: 10 Ways It Saves Netflix's Marvel Universe

7. The Mid-Season Lull Is Less Noticeable

The Punisher Netflix Frank
Netflix

As is the case with all Netflix shows, The Punisher experiences a mid-season lull. For all its merits, it's just as true that it could've been condensed into a slick, enjoyable and riveting eight episode run. Something would have to give, obviously, but we would've been left with a more cohesive season of TV as a result.

That said, The Punisher's mid-season crisis isn't half as bad as other Netflix Originals have been. That might be down to the fact it's slow to get going, as opposed to those other series that largely managed to hit the ground running right from the off, but even its padding feels less intrusive than said programs.

There's substance to it, and while the mystery does take a brief hit (particularly around episode six), it's not particularly disengaging.

Sure, it's padding, but - as far as padding does go - it's good. You'd rather the show continued with the conspiracy and the wider mystery at hand, but if we are going to have superfluous mid-season fluff, it helps for it to be good.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.