Olympus

I rarely expect to see every unusual show with a $200M budget these days, especially TV fare, so my expectations were not high. I find the production engaging and particularly love the sets of an ancient Hellenic period with heads of giant statues half buried in the Earth and the stands of even trees. They have an otherworldly feeling that adds substance and context to this unusual production.

My experience in production design, directing and writing helps me to come to an objective view of this show. What also helps is the mere fact that someone is attempting to bring unusual fare to the screen. It is not easy and yes, it does take an ungodly amount of money to bring a show like Game of Thrones to the tube. This is not a G.O.T. production but that is fine as far as I am concerned. They all do not have to match G.O.T.

I was SO looking forward to the premiere of OLYMPUS. I was disappointed at the weak initial character development and production value/cinematography and scene setting. It looked like I was watching a Lost in Space or I Dream of Jeannie (both good in their day) 40 years ago. You could clearly tell the actors were placed over footage from somewhere else. If it's CGI, it's bad CGI. Not even CLOSE to 300! I've seen cable channels like The 100 on CW do MUCH better with their backdrops and action sequences. The acting of the lead actor and the Oracle was OK but a lot of the other actors came off as hokey and artificial. A lot of that might have been due to the script and directing. I want to give this another chance but if this is the best you can do with the production of the show it's not going to make it.

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

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.

As a fan of Greek mythology I was excited to see this come on SyFy and I'm looking forward to see where the story goes. As with all first episodes of a new series there was quite a bit of time setting the scene before getting into the crux of the story. Having said that, the opening of the episode was great and really grabbed me. I'd say the graphics could be a bit better but then I'm guessing it has not necessarily had as much spent on it as Game of Thrones or 300! I thought the slow motion/spin around fight scene was a great touch though.

Looking forward to the second episode!