Olympus

I'm something of a fan of Greek mythology so I was enthusiastic about a new series cast in the classical genre.

Sadly Olympus is amateurish in every regard. The acting feels forced and awkward, the story line is more or less missing, whilst the sets and special effects look like they were designed by a group of bored college students.

Are there any plus's here? I'd really like to be generous but I'm struggling to find anything positive to say. Nothing I have seen so far looks like it could in any way be redeemed.

I rarely give a series, especially a new one, a rating of one out of ten but Olympus is truly a Greek tragedy in every sense.

The analytics on this are fascinating. This pathetic clunker of an immediately cancelled series is perhaps the most shilled up on IMDB

The production value on this is low, not gonna lie. I wish the creators had had more money to work with, because there are some interesting ideas. They collapse time in order to deal with multiple issues - the ruins reflect us looking back from today, the Magi reflect a time when Christians would destroy the earlier polytheism - and the concept of how we experience time eventually comes into the plot. I'm a couple of episodes from the end and our Hero is in a downward spiral towards anti-Hero status which is painful and real feeling.

My one hugh issue is that once again Anglo writers felt the need to make the bad guys in a fantasy story vaguely Arabic. That really needs to stop.

Hero is an interesting character in the Olympus story because he is the one who is in charge of saving the world in a sense. What I really liked about Olympus is that each character had a different motive, and the quest for immortality was great. And the fight between two kingdoms for it seemed like a fascinating plot to me. I cannot wait to watch the whole series. The only thing that is wrong with Olympus is that it places too much emphasis on the fight scenes and not enough on developing some of the characters. The characters that could have been developed more were King Aegeus. Now what is most important is the Oracle character and she served her full purpose in the story as far as I'm concerned. What I also didn't like is that a few scenes were kind of boring. But Olympus made up for all that by creating a great plot and good ideas. Don't miss this brilliant episode.

There has been a good bit of criticism regarding the production budget of this series. I don't have the numbers right at hand, but clearly the great majority--if not all--of the shooting is done on a sound stage. This saves money, of course, but I think there is more to it. The world of Olympus is set in ancient Greece; but it is a world in which the gods are real, and supernatural powers are part of ordinary existence. I think that the oddly-crafted set pieces are deliberately intended to evoke a world that is similar to our own, but not quite ours. Perhaps this world is a psychological state of mind; the series synopsis tells us that the gods will eventually be consigned to the world of the unconscious, what they call the Underworld, or Hades. When this happens, the entire world will change...is this not perception? Watching this series brings to mind the German Expressionist movement in film. They both share the use of stylized set pieces, and the plots and stories of both often deal with madness, hallucination, and betrayal. And let's not forget that film noir arose out of expressionism; the eerie, atmospheric lighting, somewhat hapless protagonist, and the irrepressible femme fatale elements of noir can be readily by seen in Olympus. If you examine this series through that lens I think you will gain a better appreciation of it.

UPDATE: It is Aug 26 2015, and I wrote the above approximately a week before. I had not viewed the entire series by then, but I have now. If you have already made up your mind about this series, and decided that you hate it, nothing I say here will effect your opinion. But if you like the series, or are still undecided, I encourage you--nay, I entreat you--to watch it to the end. The final three episodes are spell-binding, and the season (perhaps series) conclusion is quite surprising and satisfying. This series has cemented its position on my short list of best series ever. It went by so fast I could hardly believe it was over. You owe it to yourself to give this show a chance.