Charlie May

My honest opinion after the first two episodes? It's alright. Not terrible, not great, but just alright. Let's start with the good: the setwork is stellar, especially for Camp Half Blood. This is one place they took the criticism of the movies to heart – instead of just placing all the characters in a random campground somewhere, they actually made the effort to get the theming just right. I especially love how the cabins look. Events, character introductions, and character interactions also follow the book pretty well (Mr. D existing this time was nice). In general, if you're looking for something more accurate to the book than the movies were, this stays a lot more faithful for sure. People will always complain about the differences, but ultimately no one can say this show has LESS book content than the movies. However, this is also where my problems start. To preface, the tendency to complain about book accuracy in crossmedia adaptation annoys the hell out of me, and the Percy Jackson fandom is particularly bad about it. Sure, the movies were bad in their own right, but it WASN'T because they weren't book accurate (at least, that wasn't the main issue). The problem with the movies was that they were blandly written and directed 99% of the time. When fans focus on book accuracy over all else, these problems remain unaddressed. This show so far feels like the culmination of that oversight. Getting closer to the book seems to have been THE goal here – events from the book happen with no regard for pacing or character development. Mind you, this is also a problem with Disney Plus 8 episode syndrome, but it's still very much exacerbated by fluff that could have easily been cut. Pivotal moments like the Mrs. Dodds fight are shafted so that Sally can exposition dump to Percy about how he's a demigod and how he's in danger and yadda yadda. Is that cabin scene in the book? Yes. Does it need to be in a film/TV adaptation? No! There are more organic and emotional ways that revelation could have been handled. Hell, the first movie did it, and even though that adaptation had tons of problems, that decision wasn't one of them! Instances like the one above make problems in other areas, too. There are lots of flatly or otherwise poorly delivered lines, lots of moments that don't earn their emotional payoff – some say it's the fault of the kid actors, but I say it's the fault of writers (and more importantly, producers) pulling them along on a leash. Also, there are some really poor editing choices that just exacerbate pacing even further. There are SO many cuts to black, and I don't know if I can handle even one more. This is the WORST decision if you want your audience to remain immersed in the flow of action. I don't care if the show is more accurate to the book if basic film 101 is thrown to the curb. Based on what I've said, it might seem like I hate this show. I don't. At the end of the day, it's fine. But that's just the thing: it's fine. ONLY fine. Just like almost every other Disney Plus show. It is compotent enough not to be bad, but never daring enough to be stellar. It has been advertised on being book accurate, and for those who wanted that? Congrats! You got it, I guess. But for me, I can't help but be disappointed. As of now, it's a bland show with flawed pacing and a forgettable soundtrack. There's time for the series to get better, but based on these shows' track records, I doubt it.

Rule of thumb: don't pay attention to anyone calling something woke nowadays—that just means they'll disregard any merit of a piece of art just because there happened to be some sort of marginalized representation. I say this because this show is pretty damn good and has some absolutely STELLAR highs that are being dismissed for being too "woke" (episodes 5 and 6 in particular are just wonderful little stories of their own and can essentially be watched as short films). The VFX are great, characters are very well developed, and the story and worldbuilding are decently gripping. Sure, the pacing is a bit disjointed here and there, and the last few episodes felt slightly less satisfying than the ones before them, but that is not nearly enough to convince me that those highs aren't worth experiencing in the first place. So do yourself a favor and watch it; there's a good chance you'll be as pleasantly surprised as I was.