Percy Jackson and the Olympians - First episode

Percy Jackson and the Olympians starts promisingly, with nice actors, a brisk pace and a fascinating world. When the films about Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings proved successful in the early 2000s, major film studios saw gold in adapting popular fantasy books. Narnia, The Golden Compass and Twilight soon followed. However, not every film was equally successful. For example, the two Percy Jackson films, based on the books by Rick Riordan, were not very popular with the public. A few years ago, Disney+ announced that they would turn it into a television series, and that Riordan himself was involved in the production.

The first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is based on The Lightning Thief, the first book in the series. Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) is an outsider. But when he is attacked by a monster during a school trip, he discovers that the gods and creatures of Greek mythology are real, and that his father is also a god. He travels to a camp where he is trained together with other young demigods to perform heroic deeds. When someone steals the lightning bolt from the supreme god Zeus, Percy is sent on a mission to recover the bolt and unmask the real thief. Only this can prevent the gods from starting a devastating war against each other.

The series is more faithful to the source material than the films

Based on the first two episodes, Percy Jackson and the Olympians appears to be a more faithful adaptation of the source material than the films. But does that also make it a better film adaptation? For now, I am optimistic. In his books, Rick Riordan has made complex Greek mythology accessible to a wide audience and used it to create his own coherent fantasy world. And this also seems to work in the series. The special effects bring all kinds of monsters and fantastic worlds to life and it looks good.

However, the story still needs to get going. The first two episodes are mainly intended to build this world and establish the important rules that apply here. The series clearly takes its time to build these foundations, but fortunately, there are plenty of fun moments and the pace is fast enough that it doesn't get boring. I'm very curious about the rest of the season.

The young actors are doing very well

Luckily, Percy Jackson and the Olympians has a great cast. You never know with child actors, but Walker Scobell does a good job as young Percy. His two best friends, the satyr (half human, half goat) Grover (Aryan Simhadri, Just Roll With It) and fellow demigod Annabeth (Leah Jeffries, Empire) are also played by decent actors. Furthermore, the adult actors are very nice in their sometimes bizarre roles, with Jason Mantzoukas (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) leading the way as wine god and camp leader Dyonisos. We haven't seen many adult actors yet, but during the rest of the season we will see Lance Reddick (Bosch) as the supreme god Zeus and Adam Copeland (Vikings) as the war god Ares.

With a fast pace, good actors and a story that is faithful to the books, Percy Jackson and the Olympians starts off very fun and promising. This first season will consist of eight episodes, and I'm really looking forward to the rest.