Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a book series by Rick Riordan, hit living rooms everywhere as a television series adaptation. 

The first season of the show is available for viewing on Disney+ and covers the first book “The Lightning Thief,” in which Percy Jackson finds out he’s the son of a Greek god and has to relocate to Camp Half-Blood for safety, only to immediately go on a quest to find Zeus’s stolen master bolt before war breaks out among Olympus.

The previously attempted movie adaptations by 20th Century Fox failed in 2013 after releasing the second movie “The Sea of Monsters” ultimately due to bad ratings and straying too far from the source material, upsetting fans and Rick Roridan. 

This time around Riordan had a direct hand in writing the show.

As a longtime fan of the books, I waited patiently for them to try again with another on-screen adaptation and I wanted to see it done right. Although I have my grievances, I love this adaptation. 

The casting is excellent. Walker Scobell is right on the money for Percy Jackson. He gets it all right, from the sarcasm to the confusion to his looks. When casting began for this series the only requirement was he had to be able to play a 12-year-old. While other fans of the series complained about his character being cringy, I think that’s exactly what Percy Jackson should be due to his age. 

Additionally, Leah Jeffries is a wonderful choice for Annabeth. 

Annabeth is blonde in the books and because of her looks, she is constantly thought to be not as smart as she is. 

Book Annabeth challenged stereotypes that were more accurate about women 20 years ago. Not only is Jeffries a phenomenal actress, but this new casting challenges a similar stereotype that black women are often unfairly faced with. 

Grover is my only complaint in casting, although I’ve grown to love the actor’s portrayal of him onscreen, I wish they would have aged him up. Grover is supposed to be 24-years-old but pretending to be 12 and in the books he has a thin wispy beard, while on screen he seems like he could be 15 at the oldest. 

It’s a nit-picky request, but I would have loved to see someone onscreen who looked a little too old to be 12.

Each episode of the show is about 40 minutes long, so the show moves quite fast for how much source material they have to cover. 

The show does a bad job of keeping the suspense built. Each obstacle the three main characters encounter is made anticlimactic by how quickly they solve problems and seem to know everything about their opponent right off the bat. 

I think increasing each episode’s runtime to an hour would fix this issue easily as it’s occurring largely due to lack of time. 

The way this show approaches the idea of monsters and gods is very different from the book, making it a more complicated dynamic between them and demigods. 

When the trio runs into Medusa she’s allowed to tell her version of the story rather than just being portrayed as a scary monster trying to turn them to stone. 

This storyline begins to challenge the perceptions of what constitutes a monster and how the gods treat those that are loyal to them both in the minds of Percy, Annabeth and Grover, but also in the mind of the viewer. 

Medusa refers to herself as a survivor, likening herself to Percy’s mother by saying they were both victims of the same monster and calls what Athena turned her into a gift allowing her not to be bullied anymore. 

With Annabeth being Athena’s daughter and Percy being the son of Poseidon, they begin to question their allegiance to their parents and it brings nuance to the show that will carry through the rest of the seasons. 

The finale has the same problem the rest of the show does as it was incredibly rushed. It did not deliver on everything the entire first season of the show has built up to is over within the first 20 minutes of starting. 

It does however do a good job of setting up for the rest of the show. It was another situation where they figured everything out too easily for it to be exciting to watch but it wraps up all of the loose ends while leaving some suspense for the upcoming season. 

I would recommend this show to both fans of the books and people interacting with the story for the first time. The show changes a lot of the storyline keeping existing fans on their toes while also doing a good job making it easy to follow for people who are new here. 

The show is not perfect, but it is a complete upgrade from the movies and has so much potential moving forward. Now it’s time to wait patiently for it to be renewed for another season. 

Official rating 6/10

Categories: Arts & Entertainment