David Farnor | On 20, Dec 2023

This review is based on the opening two episodes of Season 1, with new episodes arriving on Disney+ UK weekly.

“You fell in love with God?! As in Jesus?!” That’s the sound of Percy Jackson returning to our screens for the first time since 2013 – and that 10-year wait since those ill-fated feature films makes Disney’s TV adaptation of Rick Riordan’s books an aptly anticipated second coming just in time for Christmas.

The story, of course, centres on 12-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell), a boy who struggles to fit in at school, but, it turns out for very good reasons. Percy, you see, is the son of a Greek god – no points for guessing where his name came from – which puts him in the secret category of “demigod”. Raised by his mum (Virginia Kull) and living with an unpleasant stepdad (Timm Sharp), he escapes the stresses of teen life by reading about Greek myths. The fact that his mum encourages him to learn them, and the fact that his best friend at school – Grover (Aryan Samhadri) – shares that interest, is no coincidence.

When a school trip leads to an incident involving a fountain, Percy finds himself the subject of attention – not so much from his classmates but from mythological creatures who start climbing out of the woodwork. There’s the teacher who sprouts wings and then disappears. There’s an angry minotaur who comes over all Jurassic Park. And, of course, a centaur turns up by the end of Episode 2.

The show’s strength is that it isn’t in a rush to unveil all of this, taking its time to build characters and relationships, particularly the bond between Percy and his mum. Kull is brilliant as a fierce and pragmatic protector, who tackles the exposition needed with deadpan humour. That also means we get to know Percy more than just as the unwitting chosen-one protagonist, with Walker Scobell finding a winning balance between insecure and awkward and smart and determined, with a streak of humour that’s just the right side of incredulous. “Why is there half a goat in your pants?” is just one of several memorable lines he delivers with aplomb.

At the same time, the quick pacing means that each episode can be as short as 30 minutes, so there’s no loss of momentum as we arrive at “Camp Half-Blood”, where all the demigods hang out and train. The cast continues to impress as we meet more characters, from Glynn Turman’s mentor – a wise man with gravitas – to a hilarious Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus, the god of wine who will do anything to plot his way back into a bottle. There’s also welcome screen time for Leah Sava Jeffries as the resilient Annabeth, daughter of Athena, who’s already five steps ahead of everyone else around her, and Aryan Samhadri’s earnest Grover.

Riordan has co-created the show along with Jonathan E Steinberg, which should reassure fans that this adaptation will be more successful – and faithful – than Percy’s last outings. But for newcomers or longtime fans, there’s no denying that Riordan and Steinberg have struck the right tone to make this potentially one of the strongest family-friendly TV shows since Netflix’s Lost in Space. There are flashes of action and fantasy without descending into dark violence or complex multiverses, and a charming central trio with promising chemistry. After two episodes, the show is so well grounded that it just needs a sense of scale to live up to its own mythology, but based on these confident opening chapters, Disney’s incarnation of Percy Jackson is just the screen saviour that fans were hoping for.

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