“Percy Jackson” series premier sticks to the source material, is pretty good

Lily Stone

She/Her

Treasurer

12/26/23

On Dec. 19, Disney Plus and Hulu released the first two episodes of the new series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” a day early. The series was made in hopes of giving fans a more accurate screen adaptation of the original books with author, Rick Riordan, stating that he and his wife “owed it to the fans to try one more time” after backlash from film adaptaions of the first two novels. 

The series follows the original storyline of Riordan’s books, starting with season one as an adaptation of the first book, “The Lightning Thief.” It seems that, unlike the movies, the show is staying true to the target demographic of the book by catering to younger audiences. The show has also done a great job at including a more diverse cast than that in the book.

The first episode introduces us to Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell), who he is, and what leads up to his destiny as the son of Poseidon. The first episode starts with him meeting Grover (Aryan Simhadri) and eventually seeing his math teacher Mrs. Dodd (Megan Mullally) turn into a Fury. Next, he faces his gross stepdad Gabe (Tim Sharp) before his mom (Virginia Kull) and Grover tells Percy about what he actually is and they make their way to camp half-blood. The episode ends after a tragic encounter with the Minotaur. All these aspects of the first episode follow the first few chapters of the first book “The Lightning Thief;” you get all the details from the book in a real-life show which is really nice. 

The second episode follows Percy’s stay at Camp Half-Blood. Camp Halfblood is where demigods go to help keep them safe and train them. We see Percy meet camp director Dionysus (Jason Mantzoukas), along with Luke (Charlie Bushnell) and Annabeth (Leah Jeffries). Luke talks about his life prior to camp half-blood; knowing Annabeth and Thalia. Percy finds out his father is Poseidon (Toby Stephens) )thanks to a good ole game of capturing the flag where Clarisse (Dior Goodjohn), daughter of Ares, antagonizes Percy. We also get the knowledge of Percy being the lightning thief, ending with the start of his adventure to save his mom from Hades.

So far, the series does an excellent job of entertaining the viewer and gives a great sense of how the rest of the series will go. I enjoy the idea of each season following only one book at a time. This will hopefully give us enough time to focus on the character-building and charm we get from the books. I also like how accurate it is to the books. The show does a great job at incorporating the important aspects that fans love from the original story such as the accuracy of the events, character details, and small details throughout the show.

I am looking forward to seeing how the series plays out as more episodes are released. The show also tells the story of Percy Jackson really well so far giving non-book readers a chance to enjoy the stories and not miss out on any of the details or action that happens in the books.

The next episode of Disney+’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” airs December 26th, 9pm EST.