In case you haven’t heard already, a new Disney+ series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, was released on December 19. Based on the award winning book series by Rick Riordan, the show follows demigod Percy Jackson on his adventures at Camp Half-Blood. The first season of the show follows the storyline of the first book in the series, “The Lightning Thief.” If the show gets renewed, the later series will each follow the corresponding book in the series.

The first two episodes were full of excitement, throwing the viewers into the action right away. We see Percy fight his first monsters, and eventually see him arrive at Camp Half-Blood. There, he gets assigned to a quest and chooses Annabeth and Grover accompany him. The next few episodes depict Percy starting his quest and facing off against the challenges along the way. The last episode is completed with the trio succeeding in their quest and returning to Camp Half-Blood.

Overall, I enjoyed this show. I was a Percy Jackson fan before the show came out, but it had been a long time since I last read the books. Watching the show was like being introduced to the series for the first time. I think the main trio, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover, were cast perfectly, being played by Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri, respectively. The actors all brought such life to the characters, and depicted the emotions and characteristics built in the books.

When it came to the plot of the show, it was just okay. They moved very quickly, which I was surprised with. Since it is a TV show instead of a movie, I felt like they could have taken more time to add details and spend more time creating the scenes and settings we all loved. Along with this, they also changed a lot of the details of the story. Although some of the new additions were nice like Percy being trapped in Hephaestus’ chair, others seemed to take away from the plot like Luke’s sword being able to create portals. They also made the characters overcome their obstacles too quickly, and made Percy seem way too smart. They figured out who their enemies were and defeated them before we even got a backstory on what was happening. 

I also was not fond of the flashback scenes they added to the show. They let us into young Percy’s mind and allowed us to understand his past better, but I thought the scenes were slow and unnecessary. There were a few scenes I was really looking forward to like the Lotus Casino, and even though it was different from the book, I think it was still a good adaptation of it.

Overall, I thought the show was great. It had an exciting plot and was easy to follow and enjoy. I’d definitely watch it again, and look forward to season two coming out, which will follow the plot of “The Sea of Monsters.”