PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS Season One
Myth-taken identities
UK/US Disney+, streaming now
Showrunners Jonathan E Steinberg,
Dan Shotz
Cast Walker Scobell, Leah Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri, Virginia Kull
EPISODES 1.01-1.08 When there’s a children’s book series as popular as Rick Riordan’s, you don’t give up on it after two middling movies. The Percy Jackson franchise’s two cinematic adaptations in 2010 and 2013 were fairly entertaining and did modest business, but they didn’t break through into the popular culture consciousness in the same way as, say, the Harry Potter movie saga.
Which is clearly why Riordan has teamed up with Disney+ to develop this eight-part show – pleasing fans by staying as faithful to the original texts as possible (something the films weren’t great at), and casting a much younger team as Percy and his teenage pals.
If you’ve been near one of Riordan’s many Greek-mythobsessed young readers since 2005, you’ll know the plot. Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) is the son of Poseidon (Toby Stephens) and a human mother (Virginia Kull, superb). He’s had a tough childhood as a demigod who attracts the attention of all sorts of weird creatures. Finally learning the truth about his Olympian heritage, Percy and his best mate Grover (a puckish Aryan Simhadri) are packed off to a camp to learn godlike skillz.
Before you can say “chosen one”, he’s sent off on a quest to find Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt, accompanied by the competent but disappointingly dull Annabeth (Leah Jeffries). Soon he’s facing off with everyone from Medusa to Hades. Their adventures are delivered with a pleasingly high Disney budget and no end of casting treats (Lin-manuel Miranda’s Hermes could have been given more to do, mind).
Those unfamiliar with the books might frown at how quickly Percy comes to some of his realisations; there are moments where you can almost hear a penny drop, but you’re not sure who dropped it for him. And smaller viewers might be alienated by lengthy dialogue scenes, though the frequent action does make up for exposition-dumping.
The show has two MVPS: Ares, played by former WWE star Adam Copeland, having so much fun he’s screaming out for a spin-off, and Scobell. While he occasionally deploys Joey’s “smell the fart” acting style from Friends, he’s also clearly a graduate of the Michael J Fox School of Charismatic Performing, delivering wisecracks like a master. This is the proper Percy. Jayne Nelson
Walker Scobell’s stunt double, Cassandra Ebner, was so convincing that his dad once offered her his son’s lunch.