Produced By: Jon Steinberg, Dan Shotz, Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, The Gotham Group
Starring: Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, Jason Mantzoukas, Glynn Turman, Adam Copeland, Charlie Bushnell, Timm Sharp, Timothy Omundson and more.
Release date: 20th December 2023
No of Episodes: 8
Available on: Disney+
Percy Jackson And The Olympians follows 12-year-old Half-Bloods Percy and Annabeth Chase, and Saytr Grover Underwood as they undertake a quest to recover Zeus' master blot which was stolen by an unknown thief. As the son of Zeus' brother Poseidon, blame gets pinned on Percy for the theft. Can they recover the bolt in the week before the solstice? Or will there be a war between Poseidon and his brother?
"Look, I didn't want to be a Half-Blood. Being a Half-Blood is dangerous, it's scary, and most of the time, it gets you killed."
This week we entered the second phase of the Percy Jackson And The Olympians series. Anyone can guess what this means, whether you were a fan of the books or not. That’s right, bigger stakes, bigger characters and more action. You may wonder why we’ve waited to comment on this series until the fifth episode, but as HUGE fans of the books when they came out, our team wanted to give the show a good chance before jumping to any judgments.
While we’re much closer to the source material with this show, we aren't fully there yet. A lot of the dialogue feels clunky and seems to over-explain the situation. So much so that episode four in particular felt like there was hardly any advancement in the plot. Episode five was closer to what a lot of people were hoping for, with the introduction of Aries and the shield task. This is the first time we see Percy (Walker Scobell) use his powers, however, in episode five and an eight-episode series.
The point of a series is to cover more screen time, which for a series where so much happens, seemed like a promising start. However, it feels like we’re dragging out the ‘character development’ stage without much of that happening in anyone other than Percy, and even that feels like the writing has stunted the potential of Walker Scobell. With only three episodes left, there’s still a lot to cover in roughly only an hour and a half of television.
There are still positives about the series, however, and the storyline is far closer to the original material. In this episode, we see Percy, Annabeth (Leah Jeffires) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) escaping their encounter with Echidna and the Chimera. The three reunite as Percy climbs out of the river having been saved by his father Poseidon, and we see the first true moment of friendship between him and Annabeth.Â
Due to being a wanted criminal for both events at the Gateway Arch and the disappearance of his mother (no thanks to Smelly Gabe), the trio can no longer take any ticketed form of transport, so begin walking down the highway towards Los Angeles. There, we meet the motorcycle-riding God of War, Aries (Adam Copeland) who presents the heroes with a deal. Transport to L.A by tomorrow afternoon in exchange for retrieving his shield. One twist, they need to retrieve it from Hephaestus’ (Timothy Omundson) own fairground.Â
Percy and Annabeth retrieve the shield, and neither shy away from Aries’ fiery temper. We do, however, see an awkward conversation between Aries and Grover that doesn’t seem to fit into the storyline at all. Later on, Grover reveals that he thinks he knows who stole the bolt and that’s what Aries told him. The whole moment feels out of place and for those who know who stole the bolt, why would the news come from Aries?
With the action due in the next few episodes, we can hope that the Disney+ series delivers, and over-explains less trivial details- but my hopes aren't high. If you’re a Percy Jackson fan, keep up with the show and catch up with all previous episodes on Disney+. Let us know what you think!Â
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Words by Chloe Pollard.
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