Here is a full review now that I finished season 1 (you can still find my past review of ep 1 & 2 below)
Casting/Directing: The cast is phenomenal and the trio is noticeably improving as time goes by! Unfortunately, Jeffries, Simhadri, and especially Bushnell, were robbed of valuable screen time by having them deliver pure exposition (or as I like to call "explainers") in the early episodes. These 2-4 minutes of talking heads are unsurprisingly impersonal and contribute very little to the characterization of their roles. Clearly, this is a product of Riordan's inexperience with screenwriting, but I am hopeful this will no longer pose an issue next season. Now that the trio's friendship is established and Annabeth gets to experience being a kid, I hope Scobell's, Simhadri's, and Jeffries' performances next season, particularly their dialogue and mannerisms, appear more natural and reflective of a typical child of their generation.
Screenwriting/Theme: The visual medium is different from the written word. In particular, silence and non-verbal action are two powerful tools that a confident filmmaker uses to support the story beat, develop tension, create personality for a character, and/or help with world building. Consider the target audience of the TV series. How do you think most ADHDers and dyslexic kids would prefer to experience the story? How can they learn about the rules of this world and retain that information and remain interested in the story? As a 23 year old ADHDer, I had to rewind and carefully read the subtitles when Luke, Chiron, and Grover were explaining away the first two episodes. As the credits creeped up, I felt overstimulated and overwhelmed, wondering if I should continue watching the show if the other episodes would use the same formula. I can only wonder how my child self would have reacted.
VFX / Lighting / Background: The creatures are wonderfully rendered but a lot of details were lost due to poor lighting and desaturated color grading (i.e. Minotaur, Medusa's head, Cereberus). If they can pull off the Chimera, basking its colorful reptilian scales in the broad daylight, the others should be showcased with the same respect. Also, the Underworld would look better with rich blues and greens. It's full of the dead but that doesn't mean Hades would let it look so boring.
Camera / Video editing: Scene transitions are very jarring. I was often confused with the location changes and felt a bit claustrophobic. Overall, I struggled to immerse myself in the world because the sets seemed, well, like sets instead of actual buildings in the real world (I would liken this to how the interiors of houses/apartments in sit-coms appear very artificial and the views outside their windows are clearly backdrops). Including more establishing shots and wide shots, especially at the start of each scene would have easily solved this issue.
Sound: The sound of the buzzing master bolt and how it crackles when Zeus takes it! Masterful sound design!
In conclusion, the PJO series has a lot of potential and a lot of room for improvement. I wouldn't consider rewatching it except for some of the kids' banter and the stunts. I have a lot of respect for the production team and cast members and I hope they can come together again and make an even better season 2.
P. S. It would be nice to see more of how the learning differences affect the demigods, especially since they're growing up and learning to become more independent.
____________________________________________________________________
A non-book reader's impressions of ep 1 & 2:
I think there was so much focus in getting the rising action started (Percy going on the quest) that they forgot to flesh out the characters and ground the world building. See lengthy explanation below.
1) Characters - Percy & Grover:
I'm not convinced that Percy and Grover are best friends and genuinely have love for one another. I guess maybe Grover's age would make the relationship seem predatory 💀 but I think Grover's "betrayals" (when he got Percy kicked out of school and when he left Sally with the minotaur) would have a better dramatic impact if it was successfully established beforehand that Grover and Percy have a strong bond. I think the episodes really could have used more angst and should have focused more on showing the rift and broken trust in their friendship. It also would've made the end of episode 2 such a good payoff for their arc because it presents as an opportunity for Grover to regain Percy's trust and restore their friendship.
2) Character: Percy's mental health and bullies
I LOVE that scene when Percy confides in his mom at the cabin and tells her that he's scared that something is wrong with his brain. It was very relatable and in a dark humor kind of way made me laugh when his mom tells him that he's a demi-god and then Percy gets taken aback at his mom sounding crazier than him 😭 I think it's really nice that his struggle as a demi-god who perceives the world differently can be related to neurodivergent kids' struggles in real life.
I also like that scene where Percy tries to make sense of Nancy's bullying and has empathy for her possibly unfortunate home life. It shows that Percy has compassion to the people who hurt him, but he is also courageous enough to defend himself when he's had enough. I wish, however, that Nancy was the only bully in the school. I couldn't really make sense of everyone else bullying Percy, much less Grover. Instead of the physical bullying and insulting remarks, I think it would've been a more fitting portrayal if the other kids were more avoidant of Percy and would whisper hurtful rumors or silently judge him with their eyes. I think this better complements Percy's feeling of isolation and low self-esteem.
3) Dialogue - Percy's humor, Luke & Chiron as talking heads
I really enjoyed Walker Scobell's performace in the Adam Project and was hoping to see a bit of that sass in the series, but I felt many of his character's jokes were unsuccessful. To be honest, the thing that made me like Percy's character the most was the non-dialogue scene in which Percy is left by Annabeth alone in the woods, and we see him play with a leaf, a lizard, and whistle a melody while peeing on a log. I think Scobell's talent shined in this scene because he probably had more freedom to improvise in it. I'm assuming his other performances in the series seem so stiff and rigid because of poor direction and another bad case of making the actor say each line word for word.
Another example that supports my assumption is the excessive use of "narration"--I am putting them in quotes because "explainer" is a more accurate term. We see this a bit with Mr. Brunner/Chiron's character, but most especially with Charles Bushnell's performance as Luke, who is supposed to look like a mentor figure for Percy but functioned more as a lazy way of explaining the world building of the story to the audience. This is a bit understandable since Rick Riordan, the book's author, played a big role as the series pilot's co-writer. Considering his background as an author, it then comes as no surprise that he made use of so much "explainers," and struggled to make his expertise in the written word translate well into the visual medium.
Although it is important to collaborate with the book author when making a live-action iteration of a story, it is just as important to recognize the author's inexperience in screenwriting, which in this case, presents a threat to the actors' performance and the series' reception by its audience.
Casting/Directing: The cast is phenomenal and the trio is noticeably improving as time goes by! Unfortunately, Jeffries, Simhadri, and especially Bushnell, were robbed of valuable screen time by having them deliver pure exposition (or as I like to call "explainers") in the early episodes. These 2-4 minutes of talking heads are unsurprisingly impersonal and contribute very little to the characterization of their roles. Clearly, this is a product of Riordan's inexperience with screenwriting, but I am hopeful this will no longer pose an issue next season. Now that the trio's friendship is established and Annabeth gets to experience being a kid, I hope Scobell's, Simhadri's, and Jeffries' performances next season, particularly their dialogue and mannerisms, appear more natural and reflective of a typical child of their generation.
Screenwriting/Theme: The visual medium is different from the written word. In particular, silence and non-verbal action are two powerful tools that a confident filmmaker uses to support the story beat, develop tension, create personality for a character, and/or help with world building. Consider the target audience of the TV series. How do you think most ADHDers and dyslexic kids would prefer to experience the story? How can they learn about the rules of this world and retain that information and remain interested in the story? As a 23 year old ADHDer, I had to rewind and carefully read the subtitles when Luke, Chiron, and Grover were explaining away the first two episodes. As the credits creeped up, I felt overstimulated and overwhelmed, wondering if I should continue watching the show if the other episodes would use the same formula. I can only wonder how my child self would have reacted.
VFX / Lighting / Background: The creatures are wonderfully rendered but a lot of details were lost due to poor lighting and desaturated color grading (i.e. Minotaur, Medusa's head, Cereberus). If they can pull off the Chimera, basking its colorful reptilian scales in the broad daylight, the others should be showcased with the same respect. Also, the Underworld would look better with rich blues and greens. It's full of the dead but that doesn't mean Hades would let it look so boring.
Camera / Video editing: Scene transitions are very jarring. I was often confused with the location changes and felt a bit claustrophobic. Overall, I struggled to immerse myself in the world because the sets seemed, well, like sets instead of actual buildings in the real world (I would liken this to how the interiors of houses/apartments in sit-coms appear very artificial and the views outside their windows are clearly backdrops). Including more establishing shots and wide shots, especially at the start of each scene would have easily solved this issue.
Sound: The sound of the buzzing master bolt and how it crackles when Zeus takes it! Masterful sound design!
In conclusion, the PJO series has a lot of potential and a lot of room for improvement. I wouldn't consider rewatching it except for some of the kids' banter and the stunts. I have a lot of respect for the production team and cast members and I hope they can come together again and make an even better season 2.
P. S. It would be nice to see more of how the learning differences affect the demigods, especially since they're growing up and learning to become more independent.
____________________________________________________________________
A non-book reader's impressions of ep 1 & 2:
I think there was so much focus in getting the rising action started (Percy going on the quest) that they forgot to flesh out the characters and ground the world building. See lengthy explanation below.
1) Characters - Percy & Grover:
I'm not convinced that Percy and Grover are best friends and genuinely have love for one another. I guess maybe Grover's age would make the relationship seem predatory 💀 but I think Grover's "betrayals" (when he got Percy kicked out of school and when he left Sally with the minotaur) would have a better dramatic impact if it was successfully established beforehand that Grover and Percy have a strong bond. I think the episodes really could have used more angst and should have focused more on showing the rift and broken trust in their friendship. It also would've made the end of episode 2 such a good payoff for their arc because it presents as an opportunity for Grover to regain Percy's trust and restore their friendship.
2) Character: Percy's mental health and bullies
I LOVE that scene when Percy confides in his mom at the cabin and tells her that he's scared that something is wrong with his brain. It was very relatable and in a dark humor kind of way made me laugh when his mom tells him that he's a demi-god and then Percy gets taken aback at his mom sounding crazier than him 😭 I think it's really nice that his struggle as a demi-god who perceives the world differently can be related to neurodivergent kids' struggles in real life.
I also like that scene where Percy tries to make sense of Nancy's bullying and has empathy for her possibly unfortunate home life. It shows that Percy has compassion to the people who hurt him, but he is also courageous enough to defend himself when he's had enough. I wish, however, that Nancy was the only bully in the school. I couldn't really make sense of everyone else bullying Percy, much less Grover. Instead of the physical bullying and insulting remarks, I think it would've been a more fitting portrayal if the other kids were more avoidant of Percy and would whisper hurtful rumors or silently judge him with their eyes. I think this better complements Percy's feeling of isolation and low self-esteem.
3) Dialogue - Percy's humor, Luke & Chiron as talking heads
I really enjoyed Walker Scobell's performace in the Adam Project and was hoping to see a bit of that sass in the series, but I felt many of his character's jokes were unsuccessful. To be honest, the thing that made me like Percy's character the most was the non-dialogue scene in which Percy is left by Annabeth alone in the woods, and we see him play with a leaf, a lizard, and whistle a melody while peeing on a log. I think Scobell's talent shined in this scene because he probably had more freedom to improvise in it. I'm assuming his other performances in the series seem so stiff and rigid because of poor direction and another bad case of making the actor say each line word for word.
Another example that supports my assumption is the excessive use of "narration"--I am putting them in quotes because "explainer" is a more accurate term. We see this a bit with Mr. Brunner/Chiron's character, but most especially with Charles Bushnell's performance as Luke, who is supposed to look like a mentor figure for Percy but functioned more as a lazy way of explaining the world building of the story to the audience. This is a bit understandable since Rick Riordan, the book's author, played a big role as the series pilot's co-writer. Considering his background as an author, it then comes as no surprise that he made use of so much "explainers," and struggled to make his expertise in the written word translate well into the visual medium.
Although it is important to collaborate with the book author when making a live-action iteration of a story, it is just as important to recognize the author's inexperience in screenwriting, which in this case, presents a threat to the actors' performance and the series' reception by its audience.