The tried-and-true formula of a young misfit finding out they are special and having to restore the balance between good and evil never misses. We’ve seen it at work with heroes like Peter Parker, Harry Potter, and Katniss Everdeen. The latest to come to the small screen is Percy Jackson—an American boy who finds out he is actually a demigod, which upends his whole life.
If you were obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology and/or a young teen in the mid-aughts and early 2010s, you know who Percy Jackson is. For the rest of you, here’s the gist: He’s the star of one of the biggest fantasy novel franchises of that era that mixes Greek and Roman mythology with everyday high school life. You may or may not recall the two not-so-great film adaptations that came out around the same time, to capitalize on the books’ popularity. This pair of films, which starred Logan Lerman as Percy, combined five books’ worth of source material into two very messy movies, with author Rick Riordan having barely any creative agency throughout the process. (He later disavowed them entirely.)
That changes now with Disney’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the first season of which premiered on Disney+ Dec. 20; new episodes will air every Wednesday. This time, Riordan has full creative control, with the promise that Season 1 will focus on just the first book. Better yet, Riordan not only co-wrote the first episode, but he also even created a reference guide to the books for the cast and crew to work from.
