As someone who grew up reading Rick Riordan’s work, I was beyond excited when it was announced that his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series was turned into a TV show. So here is my spoiler-free review!
One of the things that I think needs to be mentioned is the fact that most of the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV show do not look anything like how the characters were originally portrayed in the book series. And while when this happened with the Little Mermaid, there were many upset people, this recasting did not have the same uprising. This proves how accepting Rick Riordan’s audience is. Also, the cast of the TV show not looking exactly like their written counterparts is a good thing because this means that instead of casting based on looks, they cast based on the talent of the actors.
A classic example of this is the casting of Annabeth Chase. While yes, the books talk about her blonde hair and gray eyes, the more important part of her character is how she resembles her mother. And because all the demigod characters have one godly parent, and no one truly knows what the gods look like, casting based on skill makes total sense. It’s shown through Riordan’s other work that mortals can’t actually look at the gods in their godly forms and that the gods choose how they appear to mortals, shown in how Artemis is portrayed within the Hunters of Artemis in his books, and why can’t this include race.
Another thing about this show is how many times I’ve heard online that Walker Scobell is the perfect person to play Percy Jackson, which is not wrong. However, watching the show made me realize how well Aryan Simhadri portrays Grover Underwood, which I do not think enough people are talking about.
Overall, I enjoyed the TV series version of this story. I think that this story now being a book, movie, musical, album, and show shows how great of a story Rick Riordan created all those years ago. And while yes, they made some changes in the original story, it is necessary to make changes between different types of media. While the show may not be able to replace reading the books, it truly is a new exciting way for people to either get into Rick Riordan’s universe or it can serve Rick Riordan fans as just another great form of the original series that started it all. While I wouldn’t watch this instead of reading books, I would recommend watching this after you’ve read the books or alongside the books.
