Show: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 1
Genre: Fantasy
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a TV show on Disney+ adapted from the book series by Rick Riordan. It tells the story of a young boy who learns he’s a demigod (aka the son of one of the Greek gods) and has been accused of stealing Zeus’ master bolt. He must return the bolt to Zeus to stop a war between the gods.
Overall Rating: 4.5 Stars
I remember reading the Percy Jackson books when I was young and falling in love with them. I brought the first book on a family road trip, and I devoured it. And, perhaps to my family’s annoyance, I told them all about how funny the chapter titles were (and how funny the book was in general).
So, you can imagine my delight when I learned we were getting another shot at an adaptation. And for a TV series! Which would mean they’d actually have time to develop the characters and build the plot.
And this Percy Jackson adaptation did not disappoint me. Of course, I have some critiques, but overall, I loved watching the show. I was excited to watch it every Tuesday night, and I’m really excited for more seasons (season 2 confirmed—yay!).
Let’s dive deeper into my Percy Jackson and the Olympians review.
My Percy Jackson and the Olympians Review Breakdown
Characters and Casting: 5 Stars
They did an excellent job with the cast. Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Leah Jeffries (Annabeth Chase), and Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood) were all great. I’m glad we got more time with them to explore their characters.
They all felt very faithful to the books. Leah was a fantastic Annabeth, and Walker, a fantastic Percy. And Aryan actually made me like Grover more than I did in the books. My only complaint is that Percy wasn’t quite as funny as he was in the books, but a lot of his humor is through his internal dialogue, which is hard to carry over to the screen. So I get it.
I loved the added flashbacks to Percy and Sally’s backstory and how the show fleshed out Sally’s character more. The scene with her and Poseidon was heart-wrenching. The actor for young Percy did a great job as well.
Plot: 4 Stars
Overall, the plot stayed very faithful to the books and even made some improvements. The pacing felt odd in a few areas, but I found the episodes to be engaging. I often wanted them to be longer, which I hope they can lean into in season 2.
Click here to reveal spoilers. You’ve been warned.
I liked that the characters weren’t always shocked that whoever they were interacting with was a monster. It made Annabeth’s intelligence in particular more believable, but I also loved how it showed that Sally really did teach Percy about Greek mythology. I’m generally in favor of characters being smart/making smart decisions and things still going wrong.
However, it did make things seem a bit too easy when the characters constantly knew the danger of whatever they were walking into. It took away some of the suspense and surprise of those moments in the book when they realized they’d walked into a trap. It does make more sense that they would figure out some of these threats beforehand (particularly in the case of Medusa), but I’m not sure they realistically would have figured out every single threat beforehand.
I’m sad we didn’t get to see the River Styx and the interaction with Charon. I’m not sure why they opted for the waterbed scene instead of that. Perhaps it was a budget thing (I assume it’s much cheaper to create a fake mattress store than a fake River Styx). Or perhaps they didn’t have time for Charon to escort the characters across the river.
The scene in the mattress store felt a bit disjointed from the rest of the story. I didn’t realize that it was the place Hermes had sent them to, the secret entrance he’d talked about. It could have used a bit more explanation before Percy just walked in. Even something like the trio looking at the mattress store from the outside and Percy saying, “This is the secret entrance to the Underworld?” would have been enough.
I do like that they introduced Hermes, hinting at Luke’s story to come. It seemed like the show focused on the gods’ relationships with their kids more than the first book did. It’s a big theme in the series; I’m glad that the creators included it in this season.
Other thoughts:
While the show looked good, I do hope they have a bigger budget for season 2, especially with it being The Sea of Monsters, which could have some cool special effects and such. I also hope they experiment more with the number of episodes and episode lengths.
Overall, I really enjoyed watching the show, and I’m excited to see where it goes in the future.
Thanks for reading my Percy Jackson and the Olympians review. If you’d like to read more reviews, click here. Let me know what you think of the show in the comments.
