By: Abisola Dosunmu

The first two episodes of ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ were pretty fun to watch, and I am really excited to review it.

The set looked really pretty. The cabins looked straight out of my imagination. They all looked big and majestic, especially Percy’s cabin. There are green fields filled with campers going about their day, restocking weapons or training. The show really does a good job of transporting you into Camp Half Blood.

Walker Scobell, playing the role Percy Jackson, immediately brings Percy to life with his quick to miss, frustrated remarks. Aryan Simhadri plays Grover and is as lovable as his book counterpart. Leah Jeffries also looks good being the youngest of the actors, but her acting and delivery was a little stiff starting off. Later in the episode I could see a marked improvement as she grew more comfortable with her lines. The rest of the cast looks good too, but there’s still a lot to improve on, and the acting was a little rusty the first two episodes. Hoping this will improve in later episodes as the actors get more used to their roles.

Finally, the writing in this show was pretty tight considering there was a lot of action to pack in a thirty to forty minute episode, which left no time for fluff or filler. Which meant a lot of the scenes we saw in the book had to be cut out, which saddened a lot of PJO fans. The episode progresses in a rapid fire way, being that we are given some quick exposition on Percy, quickly introduced to him and Grover, then jumped right into it with him learning more about the world of Greek mythology. The dialogue is, like I said, quick or you miss it (like a bunch of stuff in the episode) with Scobell delivering it in a dry or deadpan way, similar to the way he did in ‘The Adam Project’.

The thing that disappointed me the most is that we only get the barebones of exposition; there’s little to no filler. I get why, because the directors were only given a short amount of time to deliver important scenes, but it gives off this energy of desperately trying to shove a few chapters worth into one episode and that energy is very apparent. Season two hasn’t been green lit so that definitely adds to the pressure to pack everything in. 

All in all, I’d give the series an eight out of ten. The newcomers watching the show won’t notice a difference at all, and it’s both a nod to the fans that read the book, and a welcome to the ones that haven’t and are just discovering PJO. I think the adaptation accomplished what it wanted to.

For more information, please go to:

• https://thefantasyreviews.com/2023/12/20/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-episodes-1-2-reviewed/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20I%20am%20delighted%20to,it%20has%20all%20come%20out.