Fans of the book series “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” everywhere initially freaked with the announcement that the book series would be turned into a show on Disney Plus and given a chance to retell the story on screen — apart from the terrible movie adaptations back in the 2010s.
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” premiered on Disney Plus on Dec. 19, 2023, with a two episode release. In the first six days of its release, the show gathered 13.3 million viewers. It was streamed for over 110 million hours — making it the most streamed original television series across all platforms in the U.S. for two consecutive weeks.
The show received various positive reviews and has a 92% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
The first two episodes were faithful to the books, in my opinion. Only a few changes were made including the Mrs. Dodds fight, Sally Jackson and Gabe’s relationship and how Poseidon claims Percy as his child.
Throughout the series, we see small changes here and there that either speed the episodes along further or change a character ever so slightly. Medusa’s storyline is among my favorite changes as instead of going with the Greek mythology version, Rick Riordan — the book writer and show producer — chose the Roman version.
It was a win-win. Book readers knew what was coming up and followed the trio on-screen, and new viewers were captivated by the series.
It was only in episode six that the show took a major turn away from the book. Instead of the trio making it out of the Lotus Casino by the deadline, Percy, Annabeth and Grover just miss the summer solstice and Zeus is officially at war with Poseidon. Percy is also given a fourth pearl to save Sally in the show.
Despite the criticism these changes received from viewers when the episode was first released, the show fixes these changes and continues following the books timeline with Percy continuing the quest and the trio losing the fourth pearl.
While not all fans were happy with the changes, Riordan announced these changes before the release of the show.
“It has to stand on its own. It’s also an opportunity to do things that maybe we didn’t get to do in the book to make it more three dimensional and see things from other points of view when you’re doing a TV series and update it. 2005 was a long time ago. It needs a little refresh,” Riordan said in an interview with Pop Culture Planet.
While I agree that some of these changes were unnecessary and changed the plot in a jarring way, some of the changes emphasized things about certain characters.
Take Percy, for example. The deadline passes and he could just grab his mom and leave the gods to battle it out — but he doesn’t. Despite everything, he finishes his quest, stops a pointless war and rescues his mom.
That being said, some changes diminished the characters’ personalities. Instead of the trio stopping at the Gateway Arch simply because Annabeth is interested in architecture, they stop because it is a monument to Athena and will grant them sanctuary.
Plot and writing aside, the casting of the show was more than incredible. The trio of Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries and Aryan Simhadri feels like Riordan shook the books, and out came the characters. The chemistry the three have on and off-screen is something that could not be replicated.
“They’re perfect, and they’ve only become more perfect,” Riordan said about Scobell, Jeffries and Simhadri in an interview with Variety.
The show, while taking its own course instead of directly following the book, was entertaining, and as an avid enjoyer of the book series, I can say it was more than enjoyable for the readers.
The second season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” has been approved by Disney Plus, but a release date has yet to be announced.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
