The eagerly anticipated Percy Jackson and the Olympians television series premiered December 20th on Disney Plus, exciting many fans of the book who were eager to see the book series brought to life. The TV series released weekly episodes and finished its run on January 31st.
Many fans of the book had high hopes for this series after a disappointing movie series a decade prior by 20th Century Fox. The two-movie series proved to be quite divisive as it followed a completely different plotline than the beloved series and casted actors well into their twenties to play twelve-year-olds. Even Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson book series, spoke out against the movie adaptations, calling them “my life’s work going through a meat grinder”.
After the disappointing movie series, members of the Percy Jackson fanbase have long wished for a more faithful adaptation of the books. This long wait made the announcement of the live-action Percy Jackson adaptation by Disney Plus that much more exciting, especially because Rick Riordan himself was very involved in the production and promotion of the show.
The first season of Percy Jackson And The Olympians followed the storyline of the series’ first book, The Lightning Thief. This first season followed twelve-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) as he embarked on a quest to retrieve Zeus’s master bolt from the underworld with his companions Annabeth Chase (Leah Jeffries) and Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri). Along their trip, the trio fights monsters
However, while the TV series succeeded in accurately adapting the book, it fell short in many ways, especially with the pacing of the show. In my opinion, the action scenes were dull as the battles were over too quickly the stakes felt too low. For example, Percy took Medusa’s head in one single anticlimactic slice after half the episode was spent building up how powerful and dangerous she would be. Additionally, due to the pacing of the show, a lot of key character development was missing, such as Annabeth’s love for architecture. Overall, it felt like the show drew out less important scenes instead of spending more time developing the characters for future seasons or making key plot points more satisfying.
The bar was set quite high for the Percy Jackson TV series as fans were so excited about it, so it isn’t unexpected that the series fell short of those high expectations. Still, despite the show’s imperfections, it was satisfying to see an accurate adaptation of a book series I grew up with, as I’m sure it was for many Percy Jackson fans. ⅘ stars.
