User reviews

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.

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.

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.

If you love watching TV Series, just forget about this one and move on to the next that you have in mind.

Some low budget TV shows deserve to be watched because of the quality of the stories, of the Actors , of the director's vision, of the visual effects,etc. None of the above is OLYMPUS case. There is nothing interesting about this Show. The storyline is (guess what) as far as possible from any decent Mythology plot that you could hope for. The Actors seem to be clueless about everything going on, in general: when you watch it, you have the constant impression to be watching a bunch of weird dressed mad people wondering around a TV Set with awful visual effects.

Do not be fooled by any misleading hope of finding any interesting character to rely to.

This is possibly one of the WORST TV Shows ever created. It wont survive to this 1st Season, so do yourself a big favor and move on to the next. We have plenty of good choices to enjoy.

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.

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!

I honestly think some of the positive reviews on here were written by staff or interns of the show. Because they are delusional. This show was so awful I had to take the time to write my first review. First off, I absolutely am not expecting anything from Syfy to be at par with the likes of a GoT or 300 movie but common. This was just insulting to Syfy viewers. Anyone claiming the green screen shots to be 'epic' or 'visually creative' must not watch very much television or movies. I can appreciate and very much enjoy good digitally enhanced scenery but this was not that. I think they would've had better results if they'd contracted out the green screen scenes to a local college. It was just so fake and made getting into the story very difficult. Which leads to another issue, the story. The characters and their backgrounds were never properly introduced which left me not caring about the outcome of any of them. The writing is so disjointed. Why did Hero say he was going to take back all 3 "oracles" back but then, when the young one ran away he completely forgets what HE HAD JUST SAID and leaves the 2 older "oracles". It's like they didn't even try to put together a juicy captivating story. I really can't believe Syfy messed up so badly on this one. Considering they've got good shows like Helix and 12 Monkeys with great production value and writing how did this stinker slip through. Such a shame because I was looking forward to a new great Greek mythology show. Guess I'll have to keep waiting.

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.

I seriously only kept watching this show because I truly expected SYFY to say APRIL FOOLS at the end of the show. That is the only way this show would have been actually good.

I honestly thought the show was a joke, I was thinking no way this show is actually real.

The green screens were as bad as when they first started using them in TV shows and movies. In most shows now you can tell its a green screen but many are done so well you can actually believe that the background is real. The only thing that would have made their green screens worse is if the characters were in green. Its that bad.

Everything was bad. Cant wait for the second show, I know it cant get worse.

I am actually sorry I wasted my time on this show. I had high hopes for something new from SyFy that would be a good replacement for Warehouse 13. This isn't it.

The characters of Olympus are not engaging in any way. It is hard to care about any of the characters because they exhibit no depth at all. Robots would be better actors. If I had to guess I would say that the writers are angst ridden teenagers that take themselves far too seriously.

The first 90% of the first episode was so mind numbingly boring that the last bit of excitement wasn't enough for me to record the series. Yet another failure comes out of SyFy. Not really surprising anymore.

First and foremost, this show is awful. Not only is this show in topic and mythology comparable to an already existing show (BBC's Atlantis) with a far better production value it doesn't even feel like it's trying.

The acting is horrible, the production is horrible, and above all the little tricks that every TV show does are so obvious in this show it's embarrassing.

They are clearly trying to bait the audience with gore and blood. They're also sex baiting the audience with a pretty boy lead you frankly don't give a damn about.

How can a channel that brought us Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, and the Stargate series give us this.

Why is NBC Universal so afraid to truly invest in a worthwhile sci fi/fantasy series?

By watching this you're informing NBC Universal that this is acceptable entertainment and it's not. A line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Olympus was entertaining considering my husband and I were in desperate need of a binge watch.

The CGI was pretty sad. Just think of it as watching puppet theater. The green screen shadow continuity person wasn't very consistent in the placement of where the sun was coming from.

Olympus as a show has to be watched to the end to be understood.

Do not think about what you know about Greek Gods, it will frustrate you. Try not to take it too seriously.

It becomes it's own mythology based on existing mythological characters.

King Xerxes a priest in Athens....really? Ancient Greeks with shaved heads....really? Cyclops with an eye coming out of his mouth....really? (OK ,that could be worse,it could be coming out of some other hole of his body!!!!) Broken statues and parts all over the scenery....really?

False looking visuals(some scenery really looked as if it was reused after a low budget western movie),sound like out of a small room (echo in the forest???) and no relationship to history or mythology. Nothing looks real in this series,even acting is dreadful,nothing even resembles Greece's nature,even a simple tourist ever gone to Greece could verify that easily. And many more....

Maybe the Greek Government should sue creators like these for raping the Greek heritage like this!!!

Just watched ALL 13 episodes not just the first few. Although this starts off slow like most new shows it soon becomes an incredibly interesting, exciting and unexpected story.

The actors are well cast, the dialogue is dramatic when it needs to be and lighthearted at other times. The story itself has many interesting plot twists and the show is certainly more than it first seems.

It is well worth watching the whole season before passing judgement as it is truly a unique show. The whole season comes to a conclusion (although it could continue into a second season) so it can be watched as a complete story as it stands.

If only more shows were like this TV would be better off for it.

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

This series is a bit under-rated. While it is definitely not a perfect effort, my patience was rewarded for continuing to watch. Watch this series for the strength of it's plot-arc, pacing and very creative world-building.

Cons: I almost stopped watching in the first couple episodes.The script has rough character portrayal, that I could not always completely accept. The technical quality of the visual effect is average. And I felt that dialogue was lack-luster and character motivation bounced a bit between believable, murky and inconsistent.

Pros: There were some genuinely good dramatic performances in the series. And generally, I felt acting performances were good given the script. The story continuously took unexpected turns in a good way (not to be confused with character portrayal). And the artistic quality of the visuals is high. Kudos to the design artists.

Up to this point, I would give the series 5 or maybe 5 1.2 stars: average. But where the series really shines is in it's pacing and plot arc. The pacing was terrific. It started slow and accelerated wonderfully to the final climax. The plot arc took what might have been a typical Greek-mythos re-hash and did something quite surprising and enjoyable with.

Comclusion: Watch this series for the strength of it's plot-arc, pacing and very creative world-building. And to give my opinion on a common criticism, I had no real complaint about blue-screening and sound- stages, because while I noticed them, they were not bad. Just...noticeable, compared to so many of today's high-budget, thin- plotted graphical productions.

The day this series was premiere, Zeus himself threw thunderbolts from the heavens in absolute disgust. Terrible acting, terrible effects just straight up rubbish. I tried to watch the whole of the first episode but it was around the 15 minute mark when my nose starting bleeding, I had to turn it off. I know this isn't a high budget show like game of thrones, this still doesn't excuse the fact that it would seem whoever gave this show the go ahead was clearly wrapped in a straight jacket. I was trying to think of who could be blamed for this monstrosity, the writers? The actors? The producers? Then it hit me............everybody. Everybody that had anything to do with this concoction of fecal matter. Save yourself the months of crying and the waking nightmares that I have just got over by steering clear of this (enter obscenity here)

I mean, don't all those one star reviews seem a little repetitive? And seriously overstated, if you've like...watched 2 min of the show? It's an all right show. I'm binge watching right now. If you've got the slightest background knowledge of Greek mythology it's sort of cool to watch out for all the little shout outs to the old stories. I guess if all you've ever watched is reality TV and Hollywood summer big bang movies this will seem slow and the intrigue aspects of the show will definitely fly right over your head. Sure the hero is sort of innocent and out of his depth at first and he doesn't secks up the girl by the end of the first episode, and no, no slow motion walking away from an explosion...but there's a believable set of characters, a couple of guys you can root for, a couple of women you can respect, and more than a few moments of "oh ship!!, what just happened?!?" It's clever at times, generally solid. The effects are as good as necessary, they don't take away from anything and they don't overshadow anything. It's more of a political intrigue and character development sort of show, but in terms of that it moves at a good pace. After about 4 eps, all the power dynamics and alliances have shifted and you might be very surprised to find that some characters are still alive, and some aren't dead (not the same thing, I promise). Sorry, no brad pitt glistening in the Grecian (or troyan?) sun, just some quality story telling. Let's just say this is more for the Star Trek, rather than the Star Wars crowd. What can I say I'm absorbed. It's not the new firefly, but it's a bit better than merlin for me (tighter story, they seem to know where they are going, fewer extraneous characters etc)....maybe like around a ST:DS9 the second time I watch it level of enjoyment and obsession. I'm rating it 10/10 just to balance what I can only assume are some total azzwipe trolls, but my sincere rating is a 7/10. Watch it if are waiting for sherlock or doctor who or whatever your whiz bang series is to come back.

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.

Please please cancel this show before it gets even more embarrassing. The acting was awful the scenery so 70,s. People are saying it is light hearted but it is not advertised as a comedy so please cancel it asap. The story lines are weak the action scenes were OK but really I cannot recommend this show to anyone and it is a shame because the title looked really interesting and I love Greek mythology but come on it looks like a college project with weak acting weak backdrops and terrible continuity. Reading some of the reviews who actually enjoyed this must be easily pleased that's all I can say. I will watch the 2nd episode and hope that I am wrong and it improves but I am not holding my breath.